We have been live for a while now in the UK and it’s been a ride so far. Reviewing this Roamler submissions I have laughed, smiled, giggled, frowned, been amazed and even once shed a tear, even if I did go and hide to do it. Therefore I thought that I would share some of my personal favorite submissions that we have received so far.

We have asked you to show us your city or town on two different occasions, the most recent one was specifically about London and in an earlier one we wanted you to show us one of those secret places in your city that you really loved. Both Tasks had some fantastic submissions that really showed the UK at it’s very best. Here are some of my personal favourites.

One of the, if not the first Task you get to do is Roamler Red and we have and a ton of fun entries, you guys have submitted some really creative red things. From candy to shower gel and some very red trousers.

Which brings us to the end of this Fridays little blog. We are looking forward to seeing your submissions and if you don’t have an invite yet then send us a Tweet.

… Oh! And one more thing (I just had to do it)…

Wiggert one of our founders and Merel from the UK Roamler team will be in London next week so if you have the time and inclination you go have a drink and ask questions about Roamler, give feedback and just hang out on Thursday at a location to be announced near City Road. 

Once upon a time when map makers got to drawing unknown parts on the map they would leave it white, just the outline and nothing else, and write here be dragons. Because no one knew what was there, it was all a thrilling adventure.

And adventure is what Roamler at the end of the day is all about. Launching in the UK is the big adventure that we are embarking upon now and there are white spots on the map. A white spot is a place where there are not enough, if any Roamlers and if you live in that area you don’t need a code to register. You just download the App from the App Store, and click register, fill in the details and you’re a go. Keep in mind that some areas don’t have Roamlers yet, but aren’t on the whitelist yet. If you’re in one of these area please mention us on Twitter and/or Facebook and we will make sure to get back to you with an invite as fast as we can. If you really want to get started, you can email Klaus (klausATroamler.com) or Merel (merelATroamler.com) and we will get you started. Below is a little something about how to register and if you scroll down there are a few posts about how you get the most out of Roamler as a whole.

Roamler Registration

So how does registration work exactly when you have gotten your invitation code in the mail? The email contains a link to App Store, clicking that will take you straight to the download page, quick and easy. From there you need to open the App and on the very first page you find a button called ‘Click Here to Register’ at the bottom of the screen.

This opens your default browser and takes you to a registration page. Enter the registration code and your details.

If you’re located in an area with very few Roamlers then the process will skip your need entering a registration code, you don’t even need to sign up for one first on the site. Just click ‘Click Here to Register’ , fill in your details and start Roamling.

Getting invited

There are many different ways to get an invite code, one of the best ways is to keep an eye on our Twitter or Facebook feeds, here higher level Roamlers who have received spare codes might sometimes give them away, start little competitions for them. We here at Roamler give them away as well from time to time.

The Roamler HQ Christmas Tree!

It was the 2nd day before Christmas and it was quiet in the Roamler office. Apart from a few little red dressed elfterns Merel and I are more or less alone. Now I could write something about how we had a really great office party yesterday and how we wished that you could all have been there, you out there in Roamler land are as much part of this as anyone I share office space with, even more so. So merry Christmas, Midwinter, Yuletide or any other celebration of light in the dark that you observer.

Staying on the subject of Christmas I wanted to talk a little about presents. There is a task live today called ‘Last Minute Shopping’, its all about the presents that we forgot to get, the ones that slipped though our fingers or are just so hard to get because we have no idea what to get the person in question.

For me it’s my partners sister and her partner, I have no idea what to get them! Not too expensive, not too cheap, something they can use. See the thing is that they are having a baby and everyone are giving them things related to that, I want to give them something for themselves. Just so they don’t forget that they are still people, something nice. And that is what the task is really about, the last minute gift and how to give it. Merel and I are looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with and we hope that you have a great holiday.

Please remember that from today and until Sunday things here at Roamler will be a little slow and it might take a little more then 4 hours before we can review your submissions so please be patient with us.

Merry Christmas!

If you’re an active Roamler then you have probably at some point gotten a funny little message or an email from me. Since Merel introduced herself I thought I would do something similar, let you in on who the weird man with the glasses is.

My name is Klaus and no I’m not Dutch, in fact I’m not English either. I was born in Copenhagen , but lived in London for long enough to call it home. Being a bit of a traveller, having lived in Paris, Berlin, London and now Amsterdam.

My road to Roamler is a long and winding one that took me from graphic design to customer support for a large games company, to community and moderation and ever onwards.

I’ve been working for Roamler for little more than 3 months, mainly I’m responsible for community support, I don’t like the title Community Manager, Representative is much more apt. I am the user, player and clients voice internally and the company’s voice. I also provide support, try to fix your problems with the App, pass on bugs to tech and of course I blog.

When I’m not working I write bad pulp horror, I might even one day share it with you if your nice. Play the drums, badly read when I have some spare time which is way too rarely. Also I take pictures of everything with my iPhone and post them on Twitter.

Much hugs,

Klaus

This is the view from an airplane window and the view from the road to work

And a shot a rainbow in Berlin:

An essential part of the Roamler experience is sharing, not only does it let the world know that you’re using Roamler, but it also lets other Roamlers know what’s going on, that there might be a Task that they would think is fun or interesting or earn them a couple of quid.

First you need to set up your sharing, the App doesn’t just do it automatically. Go to the account screen, it looks like this: Then from there click the settings button in the upper left corner and select either Facebook or Twitter depending on what social network that you want to share your Task completion to, or both.

Then enter your log in details for each of the networks, Roamler does not automatically gather this information, we want you to chose when and what you want to share.

Congratulations your friends can now keep track of your adventures in Roamler land. Now if you are anything like us you will be a bit curious to see whats going on with other Roamlers, maybe have a look at the share page. You log in to your account and click ‘Shared Tasks’, form there you can see all of the Tasks that you have submitted, if they were approved or rejected and best of all, you can see what your fellow Roamlers submitted, get inspiration and share their experience. We hope that you find this blog both helpful and inspiring and remember to have fun and get out there.

Roamler is still in beta and that means that there are a few little things that still needs tweaking, testing and changing. The key to a good experience using the App is to know a little more about what these are and how to avoid them.

The first up is battery drainage, a few of you have complained that the app drains your battery really, really quickly, that is of course not how it’s intended to work. This happens when you leave the app while on the map screen, all apps that has an active locater will place a small compass needled on the bar at the top of your screen.  This will put a drain on your iPhones battery, to avoid this make sure that your are not on the map screen when you leave or close the App. This is a feature in iOS that keeps tracking GeoLoc’s, you might want to make sure that other Apps with a GPS/GeoLoc functionality is not doing the same thing in order to prolong your battery life. Another confusing message is the “Unknown Reason” message, this somewhat ambiguous error actually only covers one issue, it means that the timer for the Task ran out, luckily its being updated next week but I just wanted to mention it. Normally you have 2 hours to complete a task, it will say in the Task description if it’s longer or shorter. Another point of confusion related to the “Unknown Reason” message is that the time left on the Task description screen, it’s normally says 7, 14 or 21 days, it does change from Task to task, but when you pick up the task you have 2 hours to actually do it. This has confused more then a few Roamlers and I just wanted to make sure that it was out there, in the actual briefing the Task will show you how much time you have left to complete it.

So until next time, we hope that this clears up a few things that might have been a little
weird and keep the feedback coming and more importantly have fun.

So the day finally arrived, its been on the horizon for a while now so we are very excited. Normally I like to try and start the week with having some fun, share an insight or write something that puts a smile on everyones face. Launching in the UK has already done that, at least here in the office, so I thought I would talk a little bit about the horizon.

We can see it from the office, over the water, the North Sea and beyond the horizon we can imagine jolly old England. It’s a whole new world for us and we want to provide the Roamlers in the UK with the same great experience that our Dutch friends have had.We have been selected as one of the winners of the PepsiCo10 Challenge, which was a massive honour for us, we are humbled and grateful for the attention. We ranked as one of the top 10 new media companies in the Accenture awards, and while we didn’t win we really were just happy to be part of it.

We work with some of the biggest names out there and we hope to bring that same dedication, spirit of adventure and excitement to all of you, we can make things better and we would like you to help us do that.We have grown rapidly from a small attic in central Amsterdam to this beautiful new office with a view and we really do hope that you as one of the First 50 or if you just out of curious interest happened upon us, will grow with us as well. Provide us with feedback and let us know what you think we should be doing to shake things up a little. You, yes you dear reader is whats most important to us, we want to shake your world, just a little… If we can.

So going about that isn’t easy, actually its a big thing to say that we want to “Change Moments”, but that’s what we do. We would like you to take time out and think about the way you do things, just a minute, look at the coffee you drink in the morning or your lunch or your favourite things. We would like to know what makes life special to you and in turn help you share those favourite things with your fellow Roamlers. We would like to see the world through your eyes, to walk in your shoes and reward you for letting us all, not just Roamler, but all of your new friends who use the app in.

So to all of you, thank you for being part of the first group of testers or for just showing interest, and remember that sharing is caring and that we will never let a good deed go unrewarded.

So in the immortal words of yesteryears television,

It’s BLASTOFF to ADVENTURE!