AKA is looking to expand, and looking for a partner!
When we started AKA two years ago we knew we had a product idea which was revolutionary, but that we were early in terms of market acceptance. In the past two years we have focused on developing the product and have worked to make AKA as robust, flexible and extensible as possible. In those two years we’ve watched as online identity management and data portability have risen dramatically in the internet consciousness. Now it’s time for us to begin marketing the concept.
In order to bring the AKA product to a larger market (BTW…thank you all for your help in beta testing), we need to merge or partner with a firm who can help us build critical mass. We’re asking our current members for recommendations in this regard. Who do you think would be the ideal partner to bring AKA to mass adoption? Please let us know your thoughts. If you think your company could be that partner, please contact us. We have a solid business model and have developed a roadmap which should allow AKA to provide true data portability for address books, social networking sites, and content sharing venues.
We appreciate your attention and welcome your feedback.
April 21st, 2008
We’ve seen great momentum lately towards universal support of unique identifiers for single sign-on and information sharing. Microsoft and AOL have both recently decided to support OpenID. This is great news for AKA (since we’re already in the “unique identifier” space), and as of Aug 1, we support OpenID.
The good news for you is that you can now use your AKA openID to share your contact information via AlwaysKnownAs.com.
Here’s how it works:
- Members will be able to register for an openID from AKA. All existing AKA mambers automatically get an AKA openID - in the format openID.AlwaysKnownAs.com/YourAKA
- Your openID will work as your AKA - keeping your information current in your friends’ address books, if they use the AKA plug-in for Outlook, BlackBerry or Mac OSX.
- When you use your AKA openID to login to another site, you’ll be provided with a spiffy interface that allows you to easily customize your personal information for that particular site.
- Your openID URL from AKA will link directly to your public contact information, where users will be able to request more information from you or send you an e-mail.
- Eventually we’ll also support “foreign” openIDs as well, so you’ll be able to link your contact information to any identifier (no matter where it was issued), whether it be an openID, iname or an AKA alias.
Posted by: Greg Sharp
August 1st, 2007
For those of you who missed it (i.e., virtually everybody outside of Canada and Australia), AKA was featured on Call for Help with Leo LaPorte. Leo’s a leading web 2.0 pundit, and he gives us a great review.
You can watch an except of the show here .
Posted by: Terry Anderson
December 15th, 2006
OK, we’ve fixed the blog comment feature PLUS we’ve found and fixed a problem with our “contact us” form which wouldn’t allow certain users to send us e-mail while they were logged-in to AKA. Thanks for you patience. If you’ve attempted to leave a comment or to contact us via the form, please excuse us for the problem and try again.
Posted by: Terry Anderson
November 21st, 2006
We’ve been receiving a bunch of spam comments lately so we made some adjustments to our blog software. Now, unfortunately, we can no longer accept ANY comments. Our apologies. We’re fixing it right now.
Posted by: Terry Anderson
November 20th, 2006
Look for our interview on Leo LaPorte’s Call for Help program, probably airing around November 13. If you miss it, or live outside of their broadcast area, you can eventually download it from Google Video. It’s a great show about technology and internet life. Check out their website.
Posted by: Terry Anderson
November 1st, 2006
Hey everybody. We’ve been in our private beta launch since April of this year. With the support of a small (but dedicated) group of friends and colleagues, we’ve accomplished a ton of testing and have received great suggestions and feedback. We’ve now implemented many of the features that were suggested and there are more to come.
Now it’s time to stop testing. We’re ready to go live.
Look for more regular blog entries from this point forward.
Posted by: Terry Anderson
October 1st, 2006
We’re getting a ton of suggestions for new AKA features. Before you think we’re dumb and just overlooked a bunch of cool stuff, here’s a brief list of features we’ll be adding in the months following our beta-launch:
- Ability to attach a v-card when sending information to a guest (someone who’s not an AKA member yet)
- Support for aliases…an easy way to change your AKA without losing your original info
- Control your card visibilities and permissions from within your Outlook, Blackberry or Palm address book
- Export AKA contacts en masse to populate a new address book
But don’t stop commenting, as we’re always looking for suggestions.
Posted by: Terry Anderson
March 27th, 2006
OK. If we haven’t been clear enough about our address book software plug-ins, now’s the time.
If you’re like me, you never enter all of the info for your contacts. If someone gets into my address book, I’m lucky if I’ve entered their name and e-mail address. If they’ve been in my address book for more than a year, then their e-mail has probably changed. So now the only correct information I have on file for them is their name. Not so good. Some people are diligent organizers. I wish I was that-kind-of-person. But, I’m not.
So here’s what AKA Connect offers the lazy person:
- You enter a contact’s AKA and all the rest of their info gets entered for you
- If they change their info, your address book gets updated automagically
- If you change your info, all your contacts will be updated immediately
We currently have versions for Outlook and Blackberry. We’re almost done with the Palm version. And we’re doing one for Mac Address Book. Eventually we’ll support every major address book. And if we can convince them, the big web-mail providers can integrate with AKA via API.
So go ahead and get lazy.
Posted by: Terry Anderson
March 27th, 2006
We’re pleased to announce the beta launch of our brainchild, AlwaysKnownAs.com, which we believe provides the best way to manage and share your contact information. Before we go any further, we need to ask forgiveness from our spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, close friends, pets and other family members who’ve patiently supported us during the 12-month gestation. You’re all saints.
Here are a few things to remember about this beta-launch of AKA:
• We’ve really strived to make this a true Web 2.0 experience (apologies for the overuse of that term) by allowing users to control their own information, by constantly updating our service based on your feedback, and by making the AKA system open for integration with other online services.
• It’s a beta-launch dude! Please give us your feedback. Let us know if you find a bug. Suggest new features! Be gentle, yet firm.
• This is important. We’ve set out to be “address book agnostic”. Anyone can use the online features of AKA. In addition, our initial launch supports Outlook and Blackberry address books. Palm is coming soon. And we haven’t forgotten our beloved Mac users…support for Mac OS address book is right around the corner.
Lastly, just a quick note about our intentions. We’re a bunch of internet enthusiasts, maybe a lot like you. We’re protective about our own information, so we tried to make a service that will please ourselves. We promise to be honest and transparent with you. That’s what we would want and what you deserve. Let’s keep an open dialog going and hopefully AKA will just get better and better.
Posted by: Terry Anderson
March 27th, 2006
