We decided to move the blog off blogger and have our own Wordpress, so this is the new blog. I like the flexibility of Wordpress over blogger.

We have a new feature release of Empressr coming up later this week so stay tuned.

Emails are going out this week to let everyone know that Empressr is ready for Public Beta! We are really excited about the v3. It has been re-imagined!We know there will be a lot of questions, and yes some bugs and we encourage all comments and questions. We will be posting some screen casts to the Web site at the end of the week to help you get empressed.The New Flex Empressr Composr is more interactive and full of new features.  

• Choose the size of your Empressr
• Snap to grid, object and guide
• Customize grid spacing
• Zoom to align objects with greater accuracy
• Use a different background for each slide
• Select transitions between slides including 3D effects
• Arrange layering
• Copy and paste objects from slide to slide
• Drag and drop images, videos and Flash assets from the Library
• Robust text tables and charts
• Add transparency effects on all objects
• Capture images from your Webcam right into the Library
• Tag media assets 

Requires Flash 9 plugin available for download at the Adobe Web site. For Mac OS X 10.5 users, please download the newest release candidate from Adobe Labs Create new EmpressrsTo create using v.3 simply click “+Create New” or “+Quick Show”Modify past EmpressrsYour existing Empressrs will not be converted to v.3. You may still edit them using v.2.A few known issues to be aware of:

• Linking to content outside of our domain,(such as flickr, etc) is not fully implemented, we will have that working tomorrow. 
• Some of the styles that you set are not being retained, this is at the top of the list to fix. 
• Thumb-nailing is not working on flash files yet, and sometimes the thumbnails on the videos do not generate. 
• Some transitions are chunky at less than their original size, works perfect full size and full screen. 
• Fonts, the upload your own font feature has not been implemented yet and we have a small font selection available to work with for now.

That’s the big ones, and we should have most of these taken care of in the next few days.Have fun and remember, this is a Public Beta!Bryan

Emails are going out this week to let everyone know that Empressr is ready for Public Beta! We are really excited about the v3. It has been re-imagined!We know there will be a lot of questions, and yes some bugs and we encourage all comments and questions. We will be posting some screen casts to the Web site at the end of the week to help you get empressed.The New Flex Empressr Composr is more interactive and full of new features.

• Choose the size of your Empressr
• Snap to grid, object and guide
• Customize grid spacing
• Zoom to align objects with greater accuracy
• Use a different background for each slide
• Select transitions between slides including 3D effects
• Arrange layering
• Copy and paste objects from slide to slide
• Drag and drop images, videos and Flash assets from the Library
• Robust text tables and charts
• Add transparency effects on all objects
• Capture images from your Webcam right into the Library
• Tag media assets

Requires Flash 9 plugin available for download at the Adobe Web site. For Mac OS X 10.5 users, please download the newest release candidate from Adobe Labs Create new EmpressrsTo create using v.3 simply click “+Create New” or “+Quick Show”Modify past EmpressrsYour existing Empressrs will not be converted to v.3. You may still edit them using v.2.A few known issues to be aware of:

• Linking to content outside of our domain (such as flickr, etc) is not fully implemented, we will have that working tomorrow.
• Some of the styles that you set are not being retained, this is at the top of the list to fix.
• Thumb-nailing is not working on flash files yet, and sometimes the thumbnails on the videos do not generate.
• Some transitions are chunky at less than their original size, works perfect full size and full screen.
• Fonts, the upload your own font feature has not been implemented yet and we have a small font selection available to work with for now.

Those are the big ones, and we should have most of these taken care of in the next few days.Have fun and remember, this is a Public Beta!Bryan

Empressr was chosen as the “Technology Pace Setter” at The New New Internet Conference in Reston VA. It’s a great honor that the distinguished Judging Committee of industry experts and venture capitalists chose Empressr over the other companies in the group. I gave a 5 minute talk on Empressr and our strategy for its creation, to the packed hall of over 500 attendees.

Sign up now for the private beta. We will begin inviting people in a few weeks.

**Update, Private beta is over, everyone can sign up now.

This is a screencast of the New Empressr Composr Flex interface that we will be showing at TechCrunch40 next week. Launching to Private Beta in October.

I haven’t written anything about the new Flex/Flash interface yet, I think it’s time to catch everyone up on what’s been going on behind the scenes at Empressr.

You have seen the new features being added to the web site, but not much to the editor (Composr). Launching this September is a completely rewritten Flex based editor for v3.

The main reason for the rewrite is to make the user experience a much more engaging one, we think we nailed that! The user interface is intuitive, beautiful and quite elegant, it works more like a desktop app, and the speed has been increased by using remote procedure calls.

Empressr’s strength has always been how it utilized rich media; we have been expanding those capabilities and the new Composr takes true advantage of this, with quick searching of your library, expanded meta data, drag and drop from the Library to the Stage, and quick filtering by media type. All these features make Empressr a dream to create with. We’ll update you on the new and updated features that will come with the new Flex UI in the coming weeks.

The next feature release will give you the ability to upload your PowerPoint file to Empressr, we will extract out the slides as images and build a image based presentation. This will allow you to share work that you have previously created in PowerPoint with your friends and colleagues.Like the Quick Show feature once you create the PPT Show, you can open it in the Empressr Composr and add addition media like videos and animations, images, text and charts.

Empressr will be part of the Technology Showcase, at The New New Internet show, this is a competition one company will be chosen to be the “Technology Pace Setter”. We are excited to be a part of the showcase, we are also psyched that we don’t have to cross the country to do it. Finally some east coast technology presence!

The editor has been enhanced and branded as Composr. Users can now launch Composr in a separate window in order to simultaneously access the social and management portion of the Web site while continuing to edit the current Empressr.