Today we released Feed My Inbox support for annual payment plans! This has been the most requested feature in the last month and we're happy to add it before most of the free trials expire.

By enrolling in an annual payment plan, you get the equivalent of two free months of service (save up to $32/year). For those that have been less than thrilled about our pricing plans, we hope this is just the push you needed to get on board!

The one thing we haven't released yet is the ability to switch from monthly billing to yearly billing (or vice versa) in the account area. If you already have a monthly plan and prefer to be billed yearly, please touch base with us and we can change it for you.

One last thing we added with regards to payments is pro-rated upgrades. If you upgrade to a bigger monthly/yearly plan at any time, the cost is pro-rated instead of charging you the full amount.

New Subject Line Option

Another small feature released today is a new email subject line option. You now have the choice of customizing the email subject line to read "Feed Name - Post Title", like so:

We appreciate all the great feedback and suggestions so far!

Update 2/11/10: We just added support so that you can change from monthly billing to annual billing in your account on the "Your Plan" page instead of having to ask us to change it.

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Launching Feed My Inbox 2.0 had many bumps today, but it's finally live. Thanks so much for your patience while the service was down most of the day.

Many more details about the site will be posted here in the coming weeks, but right now we're only going to cover the most important stuff.

Accounts have new passwords

All account passwords in the old and new system are encrypted in the database. We can't even see them. Since version 2.0 is a completely different platform with new code and so forth, we were not able to migrate over the passwords to the new database.

What's that mean? We had to reset account passwords and there are two ways to get in your account:

1. Use the forgot your password link and the password will be reset then emailed to you. Upon logging in for the first time you will be asked to create your own new password.
2. As I write this we are sending an email to every customer that has a Feed My Inbox account. The email will contain information about the new version along with their new account password.

Sorry about that folks, but we really had no way around this one if we wanted to keep account information 100% secure.

Enjoy the new site!

We worked extremely hard on the new website and account area. It's a great foundation for all the cool things we have planned in 2010. Go check it out!

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Over the last few months our team has been hard at work on a new version of Feed My Inbox, adding many of the most popular feature requests we hear from our customers. We've also decided on the best way to monetize the application (aka recoup server costs for the last 14 months).

We are REALLY proud of how it has come together. The official launch will be on January 9, 2010, but for now we've put together a one-page website to tell you all about it and answer some questions. Let the countdown begin!

http://www.feedmyinbox.com/v2

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One year ago today, we launched this little idea called Feed My Inbox, a simple RSS to email application. We never set out to re-invent the wheel ... only to grease it up so that it worked a hell of a lot better.

To say we've been surprised by the popularity and growth of Feed My Inbox over the last year would be a serious understatement. It's been tons of fun, and the app is something our team is fully dedicated to for many more birthdays.

We are so grateful to all of the people that use this service. Here are some statistics of what happened behind-the-scenes over the last year:

Unique Visitors- 131,134
Pageviews- 550,599

Active accounts- 34,727
Feeds we're tracking- 56,606
Confirmed subscriptions- 66,840
Emails sent- 3,077,382
Feed entries emailed- 33,771,734

Service Outages- 37 (most of them less than 5 minutes)
Uptime- 99.91%
* We're getting better at this!

Although the application looks pretty much the same to you, under the hood it is literally 100% different. We have learned a lot along the way and are now to the point where we can scale this thing for the long haul.

I also wanted to give you an update on where we hope Feed My Inbox is headed in the next year. Putting this in writing is serious business, so we fully intend to live up to the following:

1. New features are on the way

We are currently working on the next big version of Feed My Inbox, which will bring many of the feature requests we have collected over the last year to light. We are not close enough to say when it will be launched, but it is officially a work in progress. Stay tuned to the blog for the first announcement.

2. We heart webmasters

Since we announced that webmasters can embed a sign-up form on their website that ties to Feed My Inbox, tools for you to see subscribers and have more control over outgoing emails have been sorely lacking. We have not forgotten about you, and over the next year we'll be bringing some game-changing stuff your way that no other RSS to Email provider can do.

3. We're listening

Our small team is BIG on customer service. We answer all emails and keep a close eye on the support discussions over at Get Satisfaction. If you have any feedback, questions,  suggestions or constructive criticism, don't hesitate to send it our way. 

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This announcement has been an extremely long time in the making, but we are thrilled that today is the day to talk about our second web app, called Linkpatch.

Linkpatch is meant for anyone that develops, oversees or works on a website. The purpose is simple: it sends you an email whenever someone encounters a 404 page (or other error pages, for that matter) on your website. The email has tons of useful information, from which you can figure out exactly what the problem is and fix it. Here is what a Linkpatch email looks like:

As you can see, the email provides a wealth of information about the user, where they came from and where they were trying to go. No matter what kind of error it is, you have all you need to go in and fix whatever might be wrong.

It's a foundation

As you may have seen with Feed My Inbox, the way we build web apps is to start extremely simple, let it simmer, and listen to our customers. Once we have a great idea of where we want to take things next, we build in more features.

Linkpatch is no exception. We know it's a really simple idea, but it's extremely useful for people that are behind-the-scenes of any website. We have tons of ideas on how to make this service more useful for webmasters, but we're going to let this app simmer first and listen to what you people have to say.

We're committed to Linkpatch, and building out a wealth of fantastic features in the future, just like we are committed to Feed My Inbox.

How to get a FREE 5-site account

Starting today, we have a special offer for all you early adopters out there. For 30 days (through July 8), we're giving away FREE 5-site accounts to anyone that is willing to post a message about Linkpatch on Twitter.

Visit this page to submit your tweet and get a free 5-site account.

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We've been working on a little side project for about a month, and today we get to share it with you. Be warned, this website is a little bit geeky. It's called Mobile Awesomeness (http://www.mobileawesomeness.com). The site will showcase the very best in mobile web design, as well as share news and resources about developing for the mobile web.

We are design junkies, and have a great appreciation for all of the website showcase sites out there. Mobile Awesomeness is a showcase dedicated solely to mobile sites, and is the very first of it's kind according to our research. So if you are looking to see the best in mobile web design, or are looking for resources to get you started in learning to develop for this medium, head on over!

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It started over brunch with my parents, as they were visiting us in New York over the summer. The subject of Twitter came up, and my Mom wanted a way to see what I was up to. I knew the only way she would be able to do that was if she got email updates from the RSS feed. A lightbulb went off, and before brunch was over I purchased 3 domains from my blackberry.

Over the next 24 hours, I tried to find any services delivering feed updates through email, and was eventually convinced the market is up for grabs. I threw together a pitch to Jared and Denny (my partners in crime at Brightwurks), and by Monday our project was a go.

Being a new and bootstrapped (no funding) software company, making time to build Feed My Inbox was the first challenge. We had ideas on how to monetize the app, but knew it would take time. It became clear very early that we could build the most basic, first version of this product fast if we gave it a full day and developed only the "must have" features. So that is just what we did.

The goal was to build Feed My Inbox in 24 hours.

We each took a day off from client work to focus completely on building the app. By end of day we had a logo, finished the designs and front-end code, and were 75% done with the back-end portion that pulls it all together. Getting that far was a huge victory in itself. Had we not originally placed these time constraints on the project, we would not have gotten half of that done.

Just so that Feed My Inbox was not an utter failure or full of bugs, we decided not to launch until giving the equivalent of one more day to put on the finishing touches.

It is tough to put into words the great feeling of launching a web application merely a few weeks after having the idea. Today, a little more than a month after launch, we have over 2,000 accounts and are tracking nearly 6,000 feeds across the web. TONS of back-end improvements have been made along the way to make Feed My Inbox a smooth experience for all users.

Are we anxious to build more features for Feed My Inbox? Absolutely. Is it important to monetize the application eventually? Absolutely. Should either of these things have kept us from launching the application after only 2 days of development? Absolutely not!

5 Reasons to Build Web Apps FAST and with Minimal Features

1. It forces you to be decisive.
2. It is cheaper. Bootstrapping your application helps minimize time and cost until it is profitable.
3. Launching is a huge WIN, and confidence boost for everyone involved with the project.
4. A minimal feature set gives your customers the opportunity to tell you what features are important, which may shift your internal priorities.
5. After launch if you realize that you need to adjust your original plan or even do a 180, you are not in a hole so deep that you cannot dig out.

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We're Brightwurks — a team of 4 based in Nashville, setting out to solve complex problems with useful, web-based software. Nice to meet you.

You may have wandered upon this site from our first application, called Feed My Inbox. Or possibly you know about Brightwurks from our design shop, Project83. Either way, we're happy to have you, and hope that you will participate in this blog.

Here is an idea of what you will find on this site in the near future:

• Product News and Updates

  This is where we will announce all new products and features. We will also look to answer frequently asked questions, and provide additional resources to help you use our software.

• A Behind-the-Scenes Look

  I am always interested in how other companies are doing things and what their process looks like, so we intend to provide the same insights. We will start by talking about how and why we built Feed My Inbox, which is an interesting story.

• Opinions Related to our Industry

  Web-based software is a very exciting and thriving industry, and we look forward to commenting on news, products and companies out there that are impacting our business.

For customer service, feature requests and bug reports, don't forget to check out our community on Get Satisfaction. We're listening to all that goes on there.

If you find any of this exciting, subscribe to our feed and we will talk to you soon!

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