Codestin Search App

Meetro is a company that, although they pay equal attention to their clients on all supported platforms, has always been a very Mac-friendly enterprise. For those catching up, Meetro develops geographically-aware instant messaging software for both the Mac and Windows in order to make it easier to meet your neighbors or those around you when you're traveling… online. Their new office in San Francisco was only a few blocks away from the Moscone Center, and I was invited to drop on by to check out the new digs and talk about some new things to expect in upcoming versions of the software.

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The first thing I was informed of when I arrived at the Meetro HQ was that they have beer on tap. At the office. I forget exactly what kind (sorry, folks), but I was assured that it's much better than what the tap tells us.

The entire office radiated simultaneously with too much fun (frat-house style?) and lots of hard work. Meetro's CEO, Paul Bragiel, was found holed up in the back room in the dark, doing… something.

"The fluorescent lights hurt my eyes," he said. "We're about to get some new track lighting actually… tomorrow!"

We sat and chatted for a bit about moving offices and life in the big city (for both of us), and then we got down to business. "We're about to release new versions of Meetro that will finally limit who can see you online," Bragiel said. Let me explain: When you log onto Meetro, you can see people who are logged on within 1, 5, 10, 50, and infinity miles from you. It's the "infinity" part that causes a problem for some people—particularly women on Meetro—because they/we often get completely deluged with very persistent IMs from people who are not only nowhere close to where we are, but are usually several continents away. This, ultimately, destroys the entire purpose of Meetro, because you're not really talking to people who are close to you, now are you?

Bragiel said, "Yeah, I know that can be a problem, and we've had a lot of requests for this so we're gonna do it. What will happen is that it'll show you people who are within local distance of you, but outside of a certain distance, they can't see you unless you have them on your buddy list." Sounds like a perfect plan to me, but what about people who really are interesting and maybe want to establish contact with you? "They can send you a note, via our asynchronous little messaging system. I know it's kind of MySpace-ish, but oh well. It works," he said. "If you decide they're cool, you can add them to your list and talk to them."

"Let's go get some beer."

Vice President Vincent Lauria was hard at work when we emerged from Paul's cave of darkness. Or at least he looked like it.

I asked the question that's been bugging me for a while:

When will Meetro for Mac be available in Universal Binary? I can barely take Rosetta any longer!

"It's on the list," I was told. "Sooner than later for sure." Hrm, not exactly the most encouraging response I've heard all week.

The Meetro office is not all work, though. Dan Bragiel demonstrated his superior stuff-spinning abilities by spinning a throw pillow (even after having a few beers).

And then it was decided to take a group pic.

"Hi Ars!"

Thanks guys for inviting Ars to come on over and visit. Get on that Universal Binary stuff, stat!