Happy Holidays from the iPling Crew!

All of us at iPling wish you happy holidays as we close out 2008! This has been a busy and exciting year for iPling. We kicked off 2008 with our fun Macworld Treasure Hunt event in January. Shortly afterward, we expanded features and added new languages (including Portuguese, Chinese, and Italian) for our flagship "Find and Be Found" service.

Based on the frequency of tags users were placing in profiles, Plingers predicted Barack Obama's election back in March. In April we initiated a new product, iPling Instant Classifieds, and signed an LOI with a large mobile carrier in Latin America to launch and host the new service in their market.

iPling was frequently in the news in 2008. We saw nice coverage from Dow Jones Venturewire, Venturebeat, KillerStartups.com, and the Best iPhone Apps blog. We were also nominated for the AlwaysOn Global 250, a list that highlights "the top 250 private companies from across innovation" and aims "to identify leaders and future leaders."

The iPling family expanded in 2008. To get Instant Classifieds up and running faster we joined forces with Spime as a technology partner. Both SMS and iPhone versions of the Instant Classifieds app are scheduled to go into testing in early 2009, as we continue to negotiate specifics of marketing and launch. In October we welcomed Jorge Guzman Herrmann to the team. He's based in Mexico City and is facilitating our Latin American operations.

Turning the page on a challenging business environment in 2008, we have high hopes for iPling in 2009 and look forward to sharing more information here in the blog as plans firm up. In the meantime, have a great holiday season with friends and family, and we'll pling you in 2009!