Hello, Skitch!

Well, that was fun. I feel like all that I’ve been doing over the last few days is giving out Skitch invites and inviting more people to try it! I think we should back pedal a little to explain what exactly happened and why I’m surprised at the response.

Ever since I got my hands on Skitch people have been asking me for copies. I had told the plasq crew that I’d do an overview of it for my site, so I did, and they were nice enough to give me a few “invites” to give out as a result. Those invites, and many more, flew off the shelf faster than Cris Pearson could send them out. Based on this response, I knew people wanted Skitch as badly as I did, and so I had decided that the moment it was made available – I’d be sure to tell everyone about it.

Fast forward to this past Thursday, when Skitch was scheduled to go public beta, and I was all set to blog, instant message, and tell my contacts in the Mac news industry that I wanted them to link to Skitch. So I created a simple blog post, showing off Skitch and announcing that it was public and bam! Instant flood. So I ended up sending out hundreds of copies of Skitch (and I’m still sending them out at a rate of 10 or so an hour trying to keep up) and I’m really surprised that somehow my blog because the destination to get Skitch invites.

As you can see from the statistics graph on the right, my blog got a huge spike in traffic since all this Skitch stuff happened. And even though this is a personal blog, my blog is no slouch, so seeing such an increase really does show that people are really interested in Skitch. Read some of the comments on the release post, people are coming back to say thank you and tell me how much they like Skitch!

You can still help

I’m running out of invites. I’m sure I could ask plasq for more and they’d hook me up. However, my main reason for doing all of this was to see Skitch get out to as many people as possible. So, how can you help? Please blog about Skitch if you have a copy. Don’t link to my blog, unless you want to, but primarily link to the main Skitch site. Also, don’t be afraid to embed their demo movie on your site (it even works on WordPress.com blogs!). Lets see if we can repay plasq for their generosity, time, and effort that they’ve put into Skitch. Oh, and when it goes GOLD – buy a copy.

Update at 11:34am EST: plasq is planning a full scale release of Skitch in a matter of hours. Until then, read below.

Update at 5:10pm EST: Ladies and Gentlemen: Skitch. May she treat you as well as she has treated me.

Update at 5:40pm EST: plasq is getting signups like crazy!! They won’t be able to get through them all very quickly and I still have 20 something invites left. So hurry up!!

Update at 10:12pm EST: I get off for a few hours and this place blows up! I ended up going way over the initial set of invites I was given but the plasq team was nice enough to hook me up with plenty more. So keep the requests coming until I run dry!

Update at 10:57pm EST: I just wanted to take a moment to clear something up. To put it simply; I didn’t make Skitch. I also didn’t produce the video demo for Skitch. plasq is full of highly-dedicated and talented individuals that work very hard at creating Skitch, Comic Life, and even the video demo below. Do not mistake me for someone who had any part in Skitch. I’m simply friends with with plasq crew and a loyal Skitcher!

Update on June 16, 2007 at 11:30am EST: I wanted to let everyone know that I’m still sending out invites at a rate of about ten an hour. If you’d like one, keep the comments coming and I’ll give them out until the well runs dry. For more information about what has happened since Skitch was release; take a peak at the recap post I just published.

Update on June 21, 2007 at 10:43am EST: I’m out of invites!! Phew, that was exhausting. Well over 200 invites were sent out and many of you have taken the time to link to the Skitch page from your blog and flickr accounts. Thank you very much for participating. Enjoy!

Today Skitch is being released as a semi-public beta with a fully public beta coming soon being released in a matter of hours. Semi-public, in this case, means invite only. Prior to today you had to tie down one of the plasq crew to get an invite, but now they’ve extended that ability to those of us that have had the privilege of using Skitch over the last several months.

Would you like to try Skitch? Leave a comment on this post, send me an email, Flickr Mail, Viddler message, Twitter me, IM me – whatever just get me an email address to send the invite to, and I’ll hook you up.