Skimblers,

Get updated with Skimble's iPhone app v1.1 release!  The 2010 launch of our initial iPhone app was very exciting with over 20,000 downloads.  This month, we've released even more awesomeness in:

English

& French

That's right, Skimble's gone global and released some pretty neat features with its latest update.

New Features:

· Twice as many activities: dance, martial arts, aerobics, horseback riding, inline skating, volleyball, ice hockey, field hockey, ice climbing, and more
·  Discover and track nearby runs, rides, hikes and more - saves your battery!
· Improved swimming tracking: track sets and laps
· Post your activities to Twitter and Facebook
· Nearby updates: see what people nearby are tracking
· Be active for a chance to win this month's contest prize: $50 Gift Card from REI or MEC

New PRO Feature:
· Offline Mode: Track your activities with no internet connection and upload them later (great for the wilderness and iPod Touch owners)
· Even more progress charts and statistics broken down by activity

TechCrunch Europe gave us some founder love over the weekend alongside the international launch of TheFunded Founder Institute in Paris (and Singapore, LA, Denver).  Skimble is mentored by an incredible roundup of world class mentors:

• Aaron Patzer, Founder and CEO of Mint.com
• Philip Kaplan, Co-Founder of Blippy, Founder of Adbrite and F’d Company
• Alain Reynaud, Founder of FairSoftware.net

and the list goes on!

In addition, we've received more Skimble iPhone App love including great reivews by:

• Cult of Mac Favorite: Skimble Tracks ALL of Your Active Life
• TechTarts - Skimble: The Ultimate Companion to Track Your Activities (and get back into your skinny jeans!)

Keep it coming and please let us know how we can continue to make Skimble the ultimate companion for your active life.

Be active to win big (in more ways than one)!  This month, Skimble will be giving away Skimble Action Packs including your choice of Skimble t-shirt and a $50 Gift Card from REI or MEC:

What do you have to do to get the goods?  Just be active with Skimble.  Each day in February that you track at least one activity on Skimble, you earn one contest entry.  At the end of the month, winners are randomly chosen from these entries.  That's pretty much it so get on it and be active!

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Need some motivation?  Invite your friends and follow some people who got their 'action' on last month!  Congrats to the Skimble Leaders of January 2010:

• Sebastien V is an advanced ashtanga yoga instructor with a pretty impressive video on his profile...just saying.
• Matt Y is an all arounder who likes running, biking, rock climbing, yoga, and gym fitness.
• Tony M swims like a dolphin but prefers ninja-fighting pandas (refer to profile pic)!
• Inuk S - In oder Aus in Switzerland: pilates & aerobics indoors, biking & hockey outdoors.
• Sean N is enjoying his personal-best triathlon w/ his favorite activities: hiking, cardio and yoga.
• Cedric M keeps fit in the city by playing basketball and lifting weights.
• Dan C tracks his urban and adventure hikes all around Taipei, Taiwan.
• Katie J spends her time learning yoga and hiking around New Mexico.
• Gian F is a trooper road bike riding long distances on cold mornings in Florida.
• Chris B achieved his personal best while mountain biking pretty damn hard.

Think you're adventurer?  We sure hope so!  And we all know adventurers love hearing about and being inspired by other adventurers.  This year @NatGeosociety releases their Adventurers of the Year:

Khadija Bahram, Educator
Stephen Bouey + Steven Shoppman, Road Trippers
Maya Gabeira, Surfer
John Grunsfeld, Astronaut
Marc Hoffmeister, Veteran
Albert Yu-Min Lin, Explorer
Dean S. Potter, Sky Flier
Louie Psihoyos, Filmmaker
Diane Van Deren, Ultra Runner
Katey Walter Anthony, Scientist

It's OK, we didn't make it either!  Not to fret - stay active and have fun getting on Skimble's Learderboard.  Track and share your activities and adventures around the world.  Our January Leaderboard results are in and we'll tell you this week who made the list and why you'll want to get on it too.

Half dome is gorgeous piece of granite rock, prominently located in the valley of Yosemite National Park.  Many people come year after year to hike its 16.5 mile roundtrip hiking trail.  You think you can just scamper up it?  Sure, you may have the sheer willpower but do you have the permit power?

Here's the latest news straight from NPS.gov on Half Dome Permits:

Permits to hike to the top of Half Dome are now required on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and federal holidays when the cables are up.  This is an interim measure to increase safety along the cables while the park develops a long-term plan to manage use on the Half Dome Trail.

This year, NPS is limiting the number of people to hike up it to 400/day, which will reduce that ominuous backlog at the cables during the final haul up to the top...and hopefully it'll prevent or reduce injuries and accidents along the way.  You can get your permit from one week out to four months in advance only through the National Recreation Reservation Service.  Don't try to simply get these once you're the park - the rangers will not be amused.

If you're wondering if this extra bit of Half Dome planning is worth it?  Most definitely.  Back in 2008, Gabe and Maria rock climbed the Snake Dike route on Half Dome while our friends hiked up it.  We met at exactly the same time on top:

ChicMeetsGeek™ is an event designed to bridge the social gap between the cultural chic and intellectual geeks.  Curious?  They've officially launched their webiste and here's their promotional video for the upcoming event:

Their next event is scheduled at the ultra-chic Automattic Lounge at Pier 38 in San Francisco on Thursday, February 4, 2010, to recognize BUILD.org, a nonprofit social venture that empowers underprivileged and under-resourced high school students with an education in entrepreneurship.

Maria invites you to climb rocks with her in support of ChicMeetsGeek™ and the BUILD charity during the upcoming event's Silent Auction.

‘Rock On’ prize package for you and a friend:

• learn to climb or improve your climbing skills with Maria Ly of Skimble
• choose from a local climbing gym or nearby, outdoor crag
• climb in style with a Skimble schwag pack including T-shirts
• full climbing gear and nutritional snacks provided for the day

See you there!

When you're not sharing 'action shots' in foreign lands, you're probably getting and staying fit at a local gym.  Throughout the years, Gabe and Maria have been frequent gym rats at many of the Touchstone Climbing gyms across northern California.

The commuity is fantastic and we've built many friendships while wrestling with the plastic holds.  Today, you will find us at the first installment of the TRS4 competition series at Great Western Power, Co. in Oakland CA.

The nice folks at Touchstone Climb have given the community the heads up that Skimble will be there in action and giving away some Skimble schwag including muscle and racerback tank tops - how sweet is that?

If you just want to come out and support your climbing friends, it'll be a fun time with free food and beer (when you're done climbing!).  At the end of the night, they usually come up with a few 'creative' contests and give away prizes.  During Maria's first ever TBS(3) competition, she bouldered a chair and won a free chalk bag!

Good luck to all and, remember, it's all about having fun and achieving your personal bests!  Follow Touchstone Climb for the latest updates about new routes at all of their gyms.

The Outdoor Retailer Winter Market conference has kicked off this year in Salt Lake City from Jan 20-24, 2010.  We're experiencing all the fun through the many @ORWinter tweets, facebook updates, and blog posts.  Here are some ways you can get fun and 'thought provoking' updates:

#ORWinter Tweets and Hashtags

To start you off, get the latest Twitter tweets about ORWinter by searching the #orwinter hashtag via Twitter Search, a TweetDeck hashtag search or Twitterfall.  Here are some things that may or may not be happening at #ORWinter:

@outsidehilary: Callista from Fox 13 shooting the @salomonsports Quest boot at #ORWinter all mtn demo.

Meanwhile, Ambler Apparel issues a press release in ALL CAPS to try and let Callista know she'd be warmer and even more stylin' with one of their hats on ;)

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@theclimbergirl: My 100% unbiased opinion is that the @keen_shoes booth has the most rockin music right now. #dancepartyKEEN

@keen_shoes responds: KEEN kids sneak peek #ORWinter

= kiddy dance sequence begins... < insert awesome video, anyone? >

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@outsidemagazine: Test gear for Outside. Sign up for the Outside Gear Army @outsidemagazine. #OR #Gear http://bit.ly/nbFzf

@skimble responds in rhyme: let us test out gear, wherever far and near. we'll do it in style, across the miles. srsly, we're engineers! #OR #ORWinter

Outdoor Retailer Blog Posts

PembaServes, the outdoor brand evangelists, are often found tweeting and blogging about the outdoor industry. 

They'll be covering OR Winter Panel: “Boots on the Ground: Real People Getting Things Done with Social Media”.  “Boots on the Ground” is the first of a series of “unofficial” social media panels created by key influencers of the outdoor industry.  It would be great if this was streamed live because we'd be watching :)

Trailspace, the gear site, regularly attends the OR markets and have already provided some great blog and photo coverage of this year's conference:

For more photos and videos, check out Mike Lewis' visual ORWinter gallery on TransworldBusiness.

Got your attention?  Great.  The InsideOutdoorRetailer, an OR blog, brings us industry updates and a special request we can all get involved with:

Haiti needs our help.  OIA is recommending working through http://www.americares.org to funnel contributions, especially of gear that will be necessary in urban rescue and portable living arrangements.  This is the time to shine as an industry for outdoor recreation.   Other groups with people and programs on the ground or very soon will... http://www.medicinesglobal.org, or super easy text the word 'Haiti' to 90999 to put $10 to the American Red Cross. 

Please do it now and help the Haiti earthquake victims in need.  Hope everyone has a great time at Outdoor Retailer Winter 2010 and also remembers to show a little (or a lot) of support for current issues from around the world!

A nice follow-up from the publicity Skimble got from a TV segment in France!  Many people have downloaded the Skimble iPhone app and we're now featured as one of the top 'New' applications in the iTunes App Store:

Thanks for all the support and encouragement.  In case you're wondering, we're currently translating the app into French, thanks to a few amazing volunteers, and hope to release that soon :)

If you haven't already checked out the Skimble iPhone App, please download it now and remember to show us some love and rate our application.

Merci beaucoup.  Skimble: surveillez vos performances sportives!  Oui oui.

From the great social media grapevine, we've found out about the Summit on the Summit's Mt. Kilimanjaro climb to raise awareness about the Clean Water Crisis:

Did you know...

• 1 billion people don't have clean water to drink
• More than half of the poor in the developing world are ill from causes related to hygience, sanitation, and water supply
• The daily requirement for sanitation, bathing, and cooking, is about 50 liters per person

SOTSK is raising awarness with the help of a team of well-known advocates: Lupe Fiasco, Alexandra Cousteau, Isabel Lucas, Jessica Biel, Santi White (Santigold), Kenna, Emile Hirsch, Kick Kennedy, Jimmy Chin, Michael Muller, Elizabeth Gore, Simon Isaccs, Bernise Ang, Melissa Arnot, Dr. Greg Allgood, and Jason Walsh

It's day #3 of their climb of 19,331 ft Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.  At this point, they've already climbed 13,000 ft and here's the team reporting from camp:

So far, the SOTSK team has raised over 4.5 million liters of clean water.  The money raised will go to the following charities: Children’s Safe Drinking Water, UNHCR and PlayPumps International.

Skimble's climbing with the SOTSK team in social media spirit and hope you'll join them in raising awareness.

How can you help?

• Donate: One cent equals one liter of clean, safe drinking water.
• Spread-the-word: social media everything!  Mashable has a great post about the initiative. Share, tweet, fbook, and blog to create more awareness!  Check out the official Summit on the Summit website, the SOTSK Twitter page including SOTSK Twitter Tools, YouTube channel SOTSVideo, and the SOTS.K Facebook Causes page.

Thanks to the SOTSK sponsors, including HP powered by Intel processors (incl. fun footage of the SOTSK team in Bootcamp training) and Pur Water Filteration Systems.

Good luck @SOTSK team, climb on, and bring clean/safe drinking water to everyone!

The latest program on French station M6's show Capital gave a behind-the-scenes look at success and innovation from around the world.  

The program included candid interviews with industry leaders such as Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and angel investor Jeff Clavier (@jeff) of SoftTechVC.  Now you might be wondering, what's it like to live a startup life?  In the program, you'll get a sneak peak into the startup life of Maria and Gabe of Skimble:

Although there isn't really a typical day for us, the camera captured us:

• Working from our apartment in San Francisco
• Rock climbing and usability testing at Mission Cliffs
• Demoing the Skimble iPhone Application to Robert Scoble (aka @scobelizer)
• Networking at the Startup2Startup Holiday Dinner
• and more!

Here's us living the life of the bootstrapped startup, turning bedroom into 'office':

You can download the segment with Skimble on Capital here.  If you live in France and Switzerland, you can stream Skimble on Capital here.  If you're already there and wondering, when will Skimble be localized for the French audience...well, with the help of some volunteers, we hope sooner than expected! 

Special thanks to Alain Reynaud of FairSoftware, journalist Emmanuel Creutzer, Pierre Creisson of Camicas Productions, and Guy Lagache of Capital for making the program all come together!