February 2013
1 post
Bing Fund Invests in Sonar!
Big news aboard the sub! We’re excited to tell you about a new relationship we’re kicking off with some fantastic new crewmembers: the folks at Bing Fund! Today we’re announcing that the Microsoft-backed angel fund is making a strategic investment in Sonar.
For the occasion, we’ve created what we believe to be the world’s first ever “Vine-nouncement.” Enjoy! http://vine.co/v/bXZa5BQj7e2
Sonar...
October 2012
3 posts
1 tag
What We're Reading*: Jack Dorsey on Users and...
Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame wrote a little post on how his new startup, Square, thinks about the distinction between “users” and customers.” We’ve always felt a little awkward calling our Sonar community “users,” something it seems Jack and others in the startup community are also sensitive to.
Here’s what Jack says:
“The entire technology...
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Well, That Was Fun: We Launched Sonar for Android,...
Hey, hey Substers!
It’s been a couple weeks since our big Android release and now that our champagne hangover has subsided, we thought we’d share highlights. The excitement was contagious—we loved seeing so much love from you all on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Seems there was a lot of anticipation, too… For the entire week of launch we saw an average of a new download every...
September 2012
8 posts
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Poppin’ Bottles with Little Green Men: Sonar for...
We spill a lot of ink here telling you about team Sonar, who we are, what we’re up to, and you can see we’re a pretty diverse crew aboard this ol’ submarine. That means it’s extra incredible when we all rally around a super exciting project like the one we’re unveiling today. And so it’s with great pleasure that we announce the release of Sonar in Google Play! Completely redesigned for the...
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Subby and Andy Travel the World!
Hey fellow Subby lovers! September is a big month for us - we’re taking our Android platform from beta to Google Play, and not only that, we’ve been working here to make Sonar available in six other languages. That’s right, Subby is traveling the world, and you can join in! But we can’t take all the credit for this big win. Without our international friends who have translated, proofread, and...
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The Summer @ Sonar!
Dear Sonar friends,
They say that after Labor Day, it might as well be fall, but we’re not ready to give up on summer just yet. We’re looking forward to apple picking, Halloween candy, Thanksgiving turkey, and catching autumn leaves in all their glory. But before the weather turns crisp, we’ll hold tight the memories of sun and sand as long as we can. Here’s a look back at what we did this...
47 People Checked In, 0 People Checked In
We’ve heard from a few of you, loyal wonderful users, wondering why you sometimes see inconsistencies in the number of people checked in when you open Sonar in a venue. Why does the total number of people in a venue seem different from how many appear as checked in?
When you look at the list of venues in the Places tab, you’ll see a number next to each venue, representing the number of people...
How To Rock TechCrunch Disrupt
Howdy! Brett, here. As a 3x veteran of TechCrunch Disrupt (Battlefield runner up + two alumni updates), I hear from a lot of people asking for advice on how to maximize their time on stage. So with Disrupt San Francisco kicking off shortly, I’ve laid out a few thoughts on what you can do before, during, and after your presentation to get the most out of any pitch.
Prologue
Break in. Firstly: how...
Sonar Spotlight: Diogo Da Silva
Sonar Spotlight: Diogo Da Silva
We’ve been tweeting a lot looking for foreign language speaking Sonar lovers to help test our recently Android beta app. Diogo Da Silva has been a great help with the Portuguese translations and he’s the focus of our Sonar Spotlight today! Pleasure to meet you! Can you tell us a little about yourself? Hi! My name is Diogo Da Silva. I’m a 26 year old entrepreneur,...
TweetLove!
Here at Sonar, we can’t contain our smiles when our fans send us some TweetLove. Today we’re featuring Josh from Irvine, CA!
Thanks for the shoutout Josh! We’re working hard to make it the next big thing :)
Our Last Summer Intern's Departure!
Fellow Subby lovers, we hope you’ve been having just as wonderful a summer as we are. With the end of the season comes the farewell of one of our Engineering interns, Jyotirmoy Sundi. He’s been a great addition to the team and wonderful to have around the office. Big ups to Sundi for all his hard work this summer!
And now a word from Sundi himself:
“I remember my first day at Sonar and it...
August 2012
7 posts
5 tags
Sonar Spotlight: New Intern!
Subby lovers! As you all transition from the summer into the fall and swap your flowy dresses and seersucker shorts for a pair of leggings and corduroy khakis, Sonar gets a change as well! Hi! My name is Meghna, and I’m going to be Sonar’s new fall marketing intern. I’m from Long Island and studying Marketing & Finance at NYU Stern School of Business! I found out about Sonar through NY...
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Sonar Spotlight
Greetings fellow Sonar Users! Today, we have the pleasure of casting our Sonar Spotlight on Joseph Teegardin, an avid Sonar user and the Media Relations Manager of North America for Nike.
Pleasure to meet you Joseph. So tell us about yourself. Where are you from and what do you like to do in your free time? My name is Joseph and I live in New York, NY. I love fast cars, quality television...
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Tweet Love!
Subby loves it when users of Sonar send us TweetLove! We’re featuring A. Traviss Corry of Toronto, Canada who is the Director of INcubutor.
Thanks for the tweet and the support! We think it has massive potential too :)
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A farewell to our dear engineering interns, the...
Dearest Sonar users, how is it mid August already? This summer has flown by us, and what a summer it’s been! Today is the last day of two of our illustrious engineering interns, Shyam and Jack. We’ve so enjoyed their company and will be so sad to see them go! These kids killed it this summer and really impressed us with their smarts, hard work, and good humor. Here’s a quick note from the boys...
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A quick hello and a slightly longer goodbye
Hey folks!
For dedicated readers who remember this blog entry, you might recall me introducing myself earlier in the summer. I’m Wendy, Sonar’s summer marketing intern, and I’ve been authoring nearly all of Sonar’s blog entries and Facebook posts from the last two months. Today’s the last day of my internship and it’s been a fantastic experience, so I figured I’d share some tidbits of my journey...
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July @ Sonar
Hey friends!
We hope you’ve been enjoying summer. July was a busy month here at the Sonar Intergalactic HQ - check out what we’ve been up to!
- We met some of you at an Inside Startups Meetup, where Roger and Ben presented about Sonar. Missed the event? No worries - take a look at the photos!
- We had the opportunity to meet Gollum and Mayor Bloomberg.
- Shyam, Wynne, Katie,...
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Sonar team member stars in Game of Thrones
We’ve spotted a some celebs at Sonar Intergalactic HQ! A few of our team members bear uncanny resemblances to celebrities. Check out the photos we’ve rounded up!
Our fo-founder/ CEO, Brett Martin, looks a lot like Matthew McConaughey, an American actor who’s well known for his roles in Dazed and Confused, The Wedding Planner, and Failure to Launch. And we weren’t the...
July 2012
18 posts
2 tags
The Sonar Team
Excited for the Olympics? We are too! In honor of tonight’s Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, we did a quick survey of the events we’re looking forward to the most:
Ximena: Women’s gymnastics, and track and field. I used to do both, so am a little nostalgic!
Shyam: The basketball finals. The USA has the best men’s basketball team it has had in a long time, and bringing home...
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Sonar Team Spotlight: Mark
It’s been a busy week on Sonar’s blog! But guess what? We’ve got one another Sonar Spotlight for you, this time featuring Mark Ha, one of our awesome engineering interns. Mark was born in Canada, raised in Massachusetts, and is one year away from graduating from Princeton University.
You’ll be a college senior in the Fall - exciting! What do you study? I’m a Computer Science major and have...
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Feature Focus: Sonar Status
Happy summer, friends! Time for another Feature Focus to help you get the most out of being part of the Sonar Crew. Up next, Sonar Status! Sonar Status: like a “local tweet” to tell other people nearby just what’s on your mind. Every time you update your Sonar Status, people who you are already connected to within 400 meters will get a push notification. So what the heck do you put in that box?...
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Sonar Spotlight: Tomáš Vrabec
Hello there, lovely people of Sonar!
This week, our Sonar Spotlight takes us to the faraway lands of the Czech Republic. Meet Tomáš Vrabec, a software tester for Xacti who, on the side, writes for photography magazines and also enjoys taking photos himself!
Nice to meet you, Tomáš! I love that you’re passionate about photography. What sort of work do you do with photography magazines?
I write...
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Just a heads up: Gollum's in Miami
Wynne, our product designer, found a Lord of the Rings character nearby while she was in Florida!
Who knew Gollum was into Gossip Girl and The Colbert Report?
Let us know if you’ve ever spotted anyone famous or awesome on Sonar! Just tweet @xsvengoechea. You and your screenshot may be featured in an upcoming blog post!
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Join Sonar at the very first Inside Startups...
This Thursday, from 7-9pm, Sonar will be a part of the first ever Inside Startups Club!
Our CEO/ founder Brett Martin will be speaking, along with Richard Talens (CTO/ co-founder of Fitocracy), Jared Cocken (Chief Product Officer of Fitocracy), and Sam Lundin (CEO of Vimbly). Come hear their presentations, then join us for Q&A and networking sessions! If you’re interested in the NYC...
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Hola! Bonjour! Oi! Hallo! Which languages do you...
Hey international friends!
We love our Sonar fans across the globe, so this month we’re embarking on a project to get Subby in your hands in a whole bunch of languages, and we need your help! If you speak Spanish, French, Italian, German, or Portuguese, we’d love to hear from you. Our goal is to bring Sonar to more people, and there’s a way for YOU to help!
If you speak any...
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Say hi to Michael Bloomberg and other folks...
We love hearing about your experiences with Sonar! Today, one of our users, Douglas Watters, sent out this wonderful tweet:
Douglas, we hope you ended up saying hi to Mayor Bloomberg, Robby, and Ryan!
Douglas was using Sonar’s nearby feature, which shows you other users who are close by and lets you say hi to them by sending a chat message. It’s a great way to get the conversation...
Sonar Fun Facts: Our team has been to over 50...
Who said working at an up-and-coming startup doesn’t give you time to travel the world? Turns out, the Sonar team is a well-traveled bunch! Together, we’ve been to over 50 different countries, highlighted in yellow on the map below:
Pretty cool, huh?
Here are some more fun facts about the places we’ve been!
Our most well-traveled team member is Ximena - she’s been to 29 countries and 4...
Sonar Team Spotlight: Katie
Hey there! Hope you had a wonderful weekend. This week, our featured team member is Katie, who hails from the Pacific Northwest and works on marketing, PR, and business development here at Sonar.
Pacific Northwest, huh? What brought you the East Coast?
I was born in Seattle and moved to Portland after about a year because it’s more bike-friendly and has better coffee. After stints in...
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Sonar Team Spotlight: Wynne
Happy Friday, friends! We’re capping off the week with a Sonar Team Spotlight on Wynne (pronounced “Winnie”) Chan, Sonar’s product designer. Wynne was born in New York City but grew up in upstate New York. She moved back to the City to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and has lived here since. Outside of work, Wynne likes to make pottery and knit. Read on to learn more!
...
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Sonar Fun Facts: Coffee Edition
Through past blog entries, Facebook posts, and tweets, we’ve given you guys a little glimpse into the lives of Team Sonar: our desks, our childhood accomplishments, our fashion choices. We hope this gives you some insight on the people who fuel Sonar. But what fuels the people who fuel the app?
Approximately 16 cups of coffee. An informal poll of Sonar team members showed that the team...
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Hey @jpgordon814, thanks for the Tweetlove!
Happy almost Friday! We can always count on our users to brighten our morning.
You’re welcome, Josh!
Have something you’d like to share about Sonar? Just send us a tweet!
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Sonar Spotlight: Corey Hubbard
For our Sonar Spotlights, we love learning more about who our users are, and you guys never cease to impress us. This week, we interviewed Corey Hubbard, a Chicago resident whose current project is launching a startup incubator in his neighborhood.
Nice to meet you, Corey! The startup incubator you’re working on sounds really neat. How did this idea develop? I’ve always been interested in...
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Thanks, @StevenKissinger, for the Tweetlove!
Over the weekend, the folks at the App Store asked followers to tell them about the best new app they’ve recently discovered. Here’s what one follower, Steven Kissinger, said!
Thanks, Steven! We’re glad you’re enjoying the magic of Sonar.
Want to share more about your adventures with Sonar? Got feedback? Want to be featured on our blog? Send us a tweet, show us some...
Sonar Team Spotlight: Shyam
This week, the Spotlight will be on one of our fine interns – meet Shyam, an engineer here at Sonar and a New Jersey native! Shyam is a senior at Carnegie Mellon studying electrical engineering. Outside the office, he likes to play and watch basketball and soccer.
Hey Shyam! Hope you’re enjoying your summer in the city. Your major sounds really interesting – what sort of stuff do you do in...
CE Week and Digital DUMBO Summer Camp Kickoff
Sonar finished June strong with two awesome events!
Last Wednesday and Thursday, we were at CE Week, demoing our app, handing out stickers, and spreading the Subby love. It was awesome rubbing elbows with big names from the tech industry and meeting our fans! One of our favorite parts of the event was the energy and enthusiasm - we made some new friends who downloaded Sonar on the spot or asked...
Sonar Spotlight: Andrew Davis
Hi there! This week’s Sonar Spotlight features Andrew Davis, the chief strategy officer of Tippingpoint Labs, a Boston marketing agency that he founded 11 years ago. A big part of Andrew’s job is traveling around the world and speaking with all sorts of clients and industries to help them develop their digital marketing strategies. We’re glad to hear Andrew keeps Subby with him during his...
June 2012
11 posts
Sonar + foursquare =
Yesterday a shiny new version of foursquare rolled out… with more Sonar in it! We’re very excited to share that we’re one of a small number apps invited to integrate within foursquare, and you’ll now be able to enjoy the benefits of Sonar from right within the foursquare app, whenever you check in.
Here’s foursquare’s blog post announcing the news, and below...
Sonar Spotlight: You!
Hi, Submariners! Usually on our blog, we post entries about Sonar - our newest features, events we’ve been at, cool stuff we’re working on. We love that you guys check back in to learn more about Subby, but this time, we’d like to turn the attention to you - our users. We thought you’d be interested in learning a little about yourselves! Here’s some insight from the past 30 days on our...
Spreading the Tweetlove!
Here at Sonar, we love our users, and we love it when you guys enjoy our app! So we thought we’d share a recent tweet from one of you. Thanks Andrew! Safe travels!
Have feedback? Send us a tweet!
Feature Focus: Sonar Presence
You may recall that we celebrated Sonar’s first birthday a few weeks back with a super fantastic new set of features. Now that our cake hangover has finally subsided, we thought it might be helpful to revisit and dive into the specifics of some of the most prominent new features.
We’ll start today with Sonar Presence. With Sonar Presence, our goal is to make Sonar more valuable even when you...
Welcome, summer!
Hey there, beautiful people of Sonar! We hope you’re enjoying the second (official) day of summer. The next few weeks will bring a new batch of Sonar events and adventures. Before we give you the lowdown on the exciting things coming up, we’d like to recap what we were up to in May and June - it’s been a busy couple of months!
Brett spoke about how mobile technology is now being used...
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Northside Entrepreneurship Festival: June 14-15
Hey folks! Last Thursday and Friday, Sonar took a short journey across the East River to partake in the Northside Entrepreneurship Festival in Brooklyn. And what a trip! For two days, we chatted with Sonar enthusiasts, demoed our app to Sonar enthusiasts-to-be, answered questions, hung out with other startups, and handed out Sonar stickers and t-shirts aplenty.
On Friday, our CEO Brett...
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Sonar Spotlight: Roger Chang
An Instagram photo of Roger taken by Katie. Thanks, Katie! Hello there, Submariners! We hope you’re all enjoying the first few weeks of summer. You’ve probably seen our Sonar Spotlights before, but this one is different. This interview is the first in a series that feature the fine folks on team Sonar - that’s right, the people behind the app you know and love! First up: engineer...
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Sonarize Your Summer
Whether you’re packing your bags for an exotic locale or heading to an event down the street, be sure to take Sonar with you this summer! For those of you who will be in New York City, Sonar’s home base, why not check out one of these upcoming events? While you’re at it, use Subby to make connections with friends and soon-to-be friends, and don’t forget to explore our...
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Sonar Adventures in London
Last week, a few of our team members packed their bags and left New York for a quick jaunt in London, England. What made us cross over the pond, you ask? The team was selected by UK Trade and Investment as one of a handful of US delegates for London’s all things tech conference, Digital Shoreditch. And what better reason to say hello to all our Sonar pals over in the UK!
So off we went to...
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Sonar Spotlight: Ashwin Desikan
Hey, hey Sonar friends! It’s a gloomy day here in NYC, but we hope to brighten yours up with another Sonar Spotlight! Our latest community spotlight features Ashwin Desikan, an American expat exploring the streets London, data scientist at VisualDNA, and a volunteer for the UEFA and several voter registration organizations.
*Want your very own Sonar Spotlight? Holler at @xsvengoechea
X to the...
May 2012
9 posts
4 tags
Sonar Spotlight: Reeme Idris!
A warm hello to our wonderful Sonar users! We hope you’ve been enjoying our new features but in case you missed it, check it out here! After a wonderful sunshine-filled weekend, we’re feeling refreshed and ready to roll here in the sub. Here’s another Sonar Spotlight to get you through the week! Today we’re featuring the lovely Reeme Idris – a London-based fashion stylist and producer. After...
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Sonar, It's Your Birthday, Happy Birthday Sonar!
Hello, beautiful people of Sonar. Brett, here! Today we’re celebrating a whole year’s wild ride aboard the yellow submarine and we hope you’re partying with us! On this momentous occasion, we find ourselves right back where we launched, on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt New York. We have some awesome features for you that we hope you’ll love, but we’re also talking a bit about the bigger picture and...
