Check out a pretty cool feature that lets you put all your friends faces right on the foreground of your iPhone or iTouch. A quick glance lets you get a sense if they've made an update, and instantly tap to launch their robo card.

The image above is from my home screen with all the folks from Particle added.

Give it a shot:

1) In your browser, go to their robo page. For example http://robo.to/jedward

2) Click the "+" button at the bottom of your mobile screen. Choose "Add to home screen".

3) Done!

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Here are some simple steps for adding a background image to your Robo.to page.

1. Add the Customizer module. You do this by scrolling down to where all your modules are listed and selecting it.

2. Select a color theme from the drop-down menu. This is set to "default" if you haven't changed it.

3. Once you have selected a color theme, you will see the ability to upload a background image. Select the tile or wallpaper image you'd like to use and upload it.

If you are uploading a large wallpaper image, make sure it isn't larger than 1.5 megabytes in file size or it will be rejected. Heavy files will make your page load slower.

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Automatic reminders are set within the Date Module of your Crusher event page. You can set reminders to send 1, 3, or 7 days before the event - by default this is set to 'none'. To edit or turn-off automatic reminders, simply click 'edit' at the top right of your Date Module.

There is another way to remind people. If you aren't too shy about using your own voice, you can turn-off automatic reminders and choose to manually send announcements instead.

From your crusher event page or from your guest list page, click Send Announcements. Your can send an announcement to any batch or combination of the following batches:

• People who responded positively
• People who responded negatively
• People who have not yet responded
• Invitations sent to mailing lists

You may choose to send announcements whenever and however many times you like.

Go to Crusher now!

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Hey! Robo.to is growing at an astounding pace! So, in the flurry of nuts & bolts, and the clicking & pinging clamor of stretching metal, you may encounter an error or two as we race to support the daily influx of new users. It's no "fail whale" by any means, but hey, we know it's down right frustrating when your video ain't working.

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There's a lot of anxiety around putting on an event and we want to alleviate that as much as we can. When you send off invites via Crusher, it help to have visibility into where it is in our system. A new invite status column in the Edit Guest List page now shows you the status of each invitee's invitation.

To see, go to your event page and click Edit Guest List.

What the status labels mean:

Sent
We've successfully sent the invitation to this email address.

Waiting
It's waiting for our robot to wake up and get to work. If this lasts a long time please let us know and we'll give it a kick.

Stumbled
Be patient. There's some trouble with the email address. We tried to send it but for some reason it failed. We will automatically re-try a total of four times. After the fourth...

Failed
We tried several times to send this invitation and it failed each time. You can click "Resend" to try sending it again – or re-invite the email address manually in case you had a typo.

Digest
This person has their email notification set to put all invitations into a "Digest" - so we won't be sending this person an individual email invite. Instead, a note about your invitation will be included in their daily digest. It's up to you if you need to be more direct.

Ignore
This person has their Crusher notification set to "Ignore" all invitations - so we won't be sending this person an email invite at all. You might want to try contacting them another way.

Unsent
Essentially an error state. You shouldn't be seeing this. If you are, please hit the feedback button and let us know.

Responded
This person has RSVP'd to the invitation.

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It's true, there are some cases where inviting people via the Crusher invite flow (enter email addresses + hit send) may run into some snags. Some friends have strict spam blockers and unless it comes from an email address they know it ends up in the spam/bulk folder. Sigh.

We do a good job in avoiding these as much as possible. You can help us by adding no_reply@crush3r.com you your address book. This tells the robots that we are safe.

Here's a way to get around it all:

1) Create an event page like normal.

2) In the "Invite People" pane up top, select Open Guest List (see image).

3) Email your friends about the party and include the URL of the page.

Done! When they click the URL to go to the page they will be able to add themselves into the guest list and RSVP.

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You can set up a booth at your party that lets your guests make Robo.to updates. It's kinda like having a 'photo booth' but instead of photos it makes short video status updates. Publish these updates in real-time on your event invite page.

Click here to see an example invite page

1) First, create a new invite page using Crusher. Enter all the relevant party info, and invite your guests. Include the 'Custom' module. Note: You don't have to use Crusher. You can do this with a website or blog, basically any service that lets you embed some code.

2) Go to Robo.to and copy your badge embed code which you can find under the "Share my face" link at the bottom of your Robo.to page. Paste this embed code into the custom module within the Crusher invite page.

3) Later on during your party, download the Maker app and set it up to run on a computer as a full-screen kiosk. Follow the simple setup instructions and have it point to your existing Robo.to account.

You're finished. See your updates publish on your invite page.

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In Robo.to you can now set privacy settings on contact information you want to share. If you wish to make use of use privacy settings beyond just Public/Private, you can further specify the strength of your relationship with people within your Contacts.

1) Go to your Contacts page and click "Edit". 

2) Click the "Relation" button next each contact.

3) Relationship strength has three levels:

• In my inner circle (closest)
• A friend
• A contact (furthest)

By default, anyone you add to your Contacts is automatically set to the furthest level, a contact. This covers the majority of people in your address book which are acquaintances and people you meet in Robo.to who you just want to watch.

When you add your real friends to you Contacts you can set them to the middle level, a friend. And among those friends you can elevate those few who are closest to you, your inner circle.

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Ever wanted to invite your entire church choir or lacrosse team and didn't know each and everyone's personal email address? Crusher now lets you invite group email lists!

All you have to do is enter the group email address like any regular email address but precede it with a hash "#" symbol.

For example: #team@crush3r.com  Inviting the entire Crusher team to your party is a great idea, but that's just an example.

When your invitees receive the invite and click to go to the event page to RSVP, they land on a page where they quickly negotiate who they are. No membership is required so they can just enter their individual email address and it's done. If they're already a member, all they have to do is log in.

Go to Crusher.

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Welp, since our last post, and through all the helpful feedback we've been getting, we realized we had a small typo in the embed code. If you got the code from the widget customizer, your robo.to might not link back properly in all browsers. Our bad.

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You can grab your embed code and manually edit the parameters we listed here, or make it easy for yourself and just click "Customize Badge" from your Share page.

Play with the scale by dragging the corners, add or remove the text and border, have it loop or not, then copy the embed code - easy!

Here are some example uses. Let us know of others so we can list it below.

• http://www.jantzie.com
• http://ideabarrage.com
• http://progrium.com
• http://flubberzz.blogspot.com
• http://www.killersausage.com

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My project last weekend was to clean up the iPhone (or mobile web browser) view of Crusher. Here's a screenshot. More big look/feel improvements coming soon.

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Often it's tough to know if you're choosing the right date for your event. Those you most want to attend might not be available at that date. In such cases, use the date poll feature in Crusher (http://crush3r.com). Here's how:

1) Create an event page as you normally would with all the event info and customization included.

2) In the Date module, select the date poll feature (see image) and add any number of date options you are considering. Save. Notice on your event page that date poll is on.

3) Start inviting some guests to poll. Invite only those who you'd really want to be able to attend. When they see the event page, they will be able to vote by responding to each of the individual dates you picked.

4) Soon you'll notice the positive and negative RSVP's on each date in your event page. Once you feel you've gotten enough votes, end the poll by selecting the best date.

5) Notice that the date you selected became the main date of the event. The RSVP's gathered so far will automatically carry over to your guest list. No need for those guests to RSVP again. Guests can change their RSVP whenever they want.

6) Invite everyone else!

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Here are some basic instructions on how to get your contacts out of your current address book as vCards that you can import into Robo.to. This is the best way to get your contacts into Robo.to as it includes the entire set of contact information (name, phone number, email, address, IM). Using the Plaxo route only imports email addresses.

For now, here are the steps:
 
1. Open Address Book version X.0 or greater.
 
2. Highlight the Group labeled "All" to view all of your entries. Then...

If you want to export it all your contacts into a group vCard, go ahead and select File > Export > Export Group vCard.

If you want to export just some contacts, first select the Name of the contacts then go ahead and select File > Export > Export Group vCard.

3. Enter a name for the file and a location where it will be saved.

4. The file that you have s aved can now be imported into Robo.to.

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Wow, you can now mention your pal's usernames in Robo.to by preceding it with a " : " symbol as in the example image below. An alert appears to that person you mentioned. Clicking on the yellow alert number pulls up your status update which mentioned them.

You can mention your pal's username in Robo.to and then relay your status to Twitter. When your status prints in Twitter it resolves to your pal's Twitter username. Neat!

Give it a try. There's also a nice auto-suggest feature as you start to type in case your memory is bad.

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As you change your email address, phone number, or move from city to city, keep it easy on your trusted friends by sharing your latest and greatest contact info in via your Robo.to account.
 
1. Enter and save your info in your My Account page.
 
2. Go to your Crowd page and select who you'd like to share it with.

The next time your friend pulls up your Robo.to card from their phone (or desktop) they'll be able to see it and easily initiate a call, text, or email - and you'll start getting praises more often such as "Hey, you're looking so much better today!"

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Add your robo.to video status update as a badge on your personal website or blog. It automatically displays your latest!

Make your badge using the customizer. Or manually edit the code by going to your "Share my Face" page to grab it then tweak the following:

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There are three ways you can add your friends to your crowd listed below.

Note: Soon you'll be able to install Robo.to as an iPhone or Android app on your phone. That would enable you to easily keep your crowd in sync with your mobile address book. We're still working on that.

1. Import your address book by signing in and clicking the "Add my Friends" button at the bottom of your Robo.to card. From here, choose the "Pick from my address book" button. This will launch a widget that lets you import your contacts from wherever they are on the web.

2. Add a friend one at a time by entering their email address (name and phone number is optional). It must be the same email they use for their Robo.to account.

3. Add a friend from their card if your friend already has a Robo.to account. Look for the "Add to Crowd" button below their video status. Click this to add the person to your crowd.

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Until you have the mobile app installed in your phone (coming soon), the way to get your photos and video published as your Robo.to status update is to simply email it.
 
1. First, add the Uploader module by selecting it from the menu at the bottom of your Robo.to card. Then copy the unique email address it prints out for you. Add this to your mobile phone address book.
 
2. Select what you want Robo.to to do when you email it a photo or video. If you have your Facebook and Flickr module activated with your account you can select to relay it to those services as well.
 
Try it! Take a photo or video using your mobile phone then email it to your Robo.to address.

Note: Long videos will be cropped down. Larger images will be cropped to a square.

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