The Official Poken Blog

Today we are announcing a new strategic partnership with TeMeSe (The Marketing Store official affiliate in Turkey) who will offer Poken products and services to the burgeoning Turkish market.  Turkey has quickly become of the hottest countries for Social Networking, currently ranking #3 in active Facebook users behind only the USA and UK.   TeMeSe has been chosen as Poken’s exclusive representative and reseller in the Turkish market.

The Marketing Store Worldwide (TMSW) is a global full service marketing communications agency behind some of the biggest and boldest campaigns in the advertising industry for brands as diverse as McDonald’s, Mars, Shell and Nestle using worldwide known licenses such as Shrek, Ice Age 3, and Kung Fu Panda.

We are extremely excited to partner with such a high-powered, creative, powerhouse in the Poken ecosystem.  To read more about this announcement, please check out our press center…

• Read More >> http://www.poken.com/pr/2010-08-30-temese

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The New Poken Cloud

There’s a big shift in the pokenverse this weekend! We are officially moving the Poken Member Hub to the cloud. Specifically, Amazon’s Cloud (EC2), the high-tech hosting platform built by the same team running the world’s largest e-commerce store.

Amazon’s EC2 hosting will bring Poken’s online capabilities to an entirely new level. The first thing you will likely notice are performance improvements. Accessing the site, viewing your contacts, editing your profile, etc, should be quite a bit snappier! Particularly for users in the USA or Asia. The list of benefits will be mostly “under the hood” as they say. Better reliability, ease of maintenance, and improved storage capabilities. The net result … we believe you will love our new home in the cloud!

Read more…

Lift Social Business Card

Big news folks! Today we are introducing our first service offering, called pokenEVENT!

A pokenEVENT is a customizable event package that includes a mix of physical devices (pokens), a branded social business card, a branded networking platform (the Poken Member Hub), full post-event analytics, and more.

We built pokenEVENT specifically for event organizers, and the equation is simple: Poken improves networking at the events and helps them stand out in a crowded event space. Improved networking = greater customer satisfaction. The result: Increased repeat attendance, stronger word of mouth, and an additional compelling sponsorship opportunity!
Read more…

‘Friday Night Lights’ in 2010 Switzerland have nothing to do with American high school football and everything to do with blue waters, palm trees, and, you guessed it, pokens.

On January 29th, “Urban Oasis” at City Beach in Basel, Switzerland featured pokens in an effort to build their brand community while adding interactive entertainment.  Amidst the soft lighting, eclectic music, and paradise decor people discovered the full poken experience, from the green glow of pokening, to the dynamic website, poken.com, and of course the many networking opportunities that followed.

This pokenEVENT was especially pivotal for the Poken team because glowing pyramids were in the mix.  ”Huh?” you ask, “What do pyramids have to do with widgets, APIs, and, wait for it… Shindig?  ”Everything” is your answer.

Read more…

The latest feature of pokenHUB is our maps widget – a mashup of Google Maps and our new Open Social widget platform.   So now  Poken not only displays the contact details and address that your fellow Pokenites share, but it also shows you where your friends are located – view your Poken network geographically !  It’s fun, check it out.  Zoom in, zoom out, click to find out more… you get the idea.

Want to expand your network ?  Find a pokenEVENT, currently represented by a purple pyramid… what ?  (There’s a story, but we’re going to keep up the suspense on this one just a little longer… )  In the meantime,  know that at these events you will find fellow Pokenites with whom to build your network and get to know your community.

Still wondering how Planet of the Apes fits in?  Simple, your friends’ locations are represented by our beloved blue gorilla.   It’s genius, hehe.  We are, however, planning to eventually show other poken types as well, so hang tight if you want to see your geisha or ninja on the map.

For more info (all brilliant ideas welcome!) about building 3rd party widgets using Poken’s Open Social platform and API, developers should contact our development team at api@poken.com.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We at Poken are starting the year in high spirits, and hope to share with you some of our energy and enthusiasm.  First, of course, I would like to wish you all health, happiness, and much success for 2010!

As an introduction, let me say that Poken’s current product offering, including the ever popular pokenSPARK^TM , the new pokenPULSE^TM, and our redesigned member site pokenHUB^TM are only the tip of the iceberg, as relates to what we’ve been working on to continue offering the most innovative, fun, and useful technologies for real world social networking.

Poken recently launched its new pokenEVENT^TM and pokenAFFINITY^TM products, offering a small preview of the nature of our business beyond social networking / fashion accessories.  An increasing number of corporate partners, including big names such as KPMG, IBM, BMW and Mobistar are turning to Poken to answer a need that marketers have long sought to fulfill: Bridging the gap between your online and offline worlds.

Read more…

Martin Brossman interviews pokenites to get the inside scoop on what all the buzz is about.   Their stories capture the essence of Poken.  Throw out your business cards because now you’ve got the “electronic social media business card,” as Brossman calls it, or as we here at Poken say, “your social business card.”

…Amy’s new poken, a.k.a. “Pauly” (the martian) let’s her connect with people instantly: she gets their basic contact information, their picture, the social networks that their on, when she pokened with them… and she’s just beginning to experience all the magic of the pokenHUB.  Amy, so glad you like!

Read more…

Hi denizens of the Pokenverse! Greetings and salutations as the spider once said (or wrote in her web).

It would be a bit of an understatement to point out that we’ve spiffed things up around here at poken.com.  We’ve overhauled the marketing section of the site- new content, new pretty pictures, new fan interactions. Our goal was to make sure y’all knew Poken was about you.  We want to rotate in and out new stories, photos, experiences and Poken fan fun, so please let us know about any of that stuff.

Read more…

On a product related note, based on popular requests, we also have some new social networks for you to add to your Poken card. They are:

• Meetup.com
• Vimeo
• Friendfeed.com
• Dopplr
• Brightkite
• Last.fm
• Digg.com

Not too shabby. Keep your eyes peeled (who came up with that expression anyways?) for new ones coming soon!

And you thought September 23rd was just another Wednesday…

Not so Pokenites, not so.  Today, the PokenPULSE^TM steps elegantly out onto the scene: it’s sleek, it’s sexy, and it will forever change the Pokenverse.  Are you the edgy-trendsetter?  The lover of elegant design?  The champion of practicality?  Do you Poken – and love it?  If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of the above… get ready to meet your soul mate.

For sure, it’s hot, but this baby’s ‘beautiful on the inside’ too.  PokenPULSE^TM is the new Poken with 2GB on-board flash memory, hundreds-of-contacts storage between uploads, and easily updatable firmware.  USB what? Business cards – huh?  We’re killin’ birds with one hot stone, glowin’ green, and savin’ a few trees while we’re at it.

Read more…