Well, its been a few days since our invite-only beta phase started, and things have been going pretty well. We have seen significant interests from various bloggers, and some positive coverage in the mainstream media.

We have also received a vast amount of bug reports, suggestions, and other feedback from users, and we have been doing our best to address all of them as quickly as we can. Just an hour ago we deployed the latest version of the site. Among other things, this version:

• Adds a “close” button to the tutorial boxes that appear for new users
• Fixes a problem were stories were claiming to be older than they were
• Fixes a bug with story times
• Fixes a security issue in the private-beta system
• Fixes some usability issues with how we notify users of password entry problems

We very much appreciate all feedback, and encourage users to keep it coming (use the link on the About page).

At 12pm CDT we will start to send out invitations to friends of the project that have expressed an interest in helping us test it. If you receive an invite, click on the URL and you will be taken to thoof.com. Thoof will already know your email address, so to complete registration, just choose a password.

If you have not received an invitation, but would like to, please visit http://prelaunch.thoof.com/ and provide your email address to get added to our invite list.

This is a “open” invite beta, meaning that those with invitations can invite their friends. This is done through the “send to friend” button above each story. If you see a story you think a friend will enjoy, click that link, enter their email address, and write a brief message.

The purpose of this beta is to work out the bugs before our full launch, and there will be bugs. If you find any, or have any other comments, complaints, or praise, please visit the about page and click on the feedback link, or send an email to feedback at thoof dot com.

If you would rather wait until we have worked out the bugs, we anticipate that our full public launch will be before the end  of June.

- Ian