The Road to "Dublin": One, Two, Trade, Four, Five

So, we're getting close to the end of our updates as part of our "Dublin" release. On Wednesday July 28, we'll drop the need for an invite to enter Empire Avenue. This, however, does not mean that the site is out of Beta. We are still only part of the way to truly accomplishing our goal. At this time though, I'd like to take a moment to thank two sets of people.

1. I'd like to acknowledge the hard work of the entire Empire Avenue crew. This project and product has no one master, no one originator; it is truly a masterpiece of collaboration and I am proud to be a small part of it. Thanks also to the understanding of our significant others, friends and family who have seen very little of us in the past 10 months while we've put it all together (and had to deal with our incessant talk about Eaves and Empires).

2. The amazing Beta testers and early adopters of Empire Avenue. Yes, we're about to open the doors to anyone who wants to be a part of the site, but look at what you have helped us create. Without you, this site would be a shadow of itself. I look at the amazing blogs and the amazing communities on the site and can't help but think, no matter the future, you've come together for a moment in time and helped in the birth of a new global product. So a heartfelt THANK YOU!

Now. You might have noticed some further "Dublin" related changes going live in the past 24 hours. I'd like to point them out simply because they may be changes that you might not otherwise notice.

a) The Trading Post: We've updated the Trading Post. We hadn't updated it since February 23rd, 2010. With the release of the Trading API we anticipate many apps taking the Trading allowed on the site to new levels. However, on the site, we've amalgamated all the Trading Post pages into one. To set a trade, use the Buy and Sell screens for any individual; to view trades, simply click the "Trades" button on any individual's profiles.

b) New Bottom Bar. Some of you have turned off the Bottom Bar, but you might want to turn it back on. It is much more functional with a lot of quick link icons to take you around the site! Naturally, if you don't like it, you can turn it off, as before, in the Profile/Settings.

c) New Buy and Sell screens. As part of the User Experience Achievement adjustments we've simplified the Buy and Sell screens.

d) New Search/View Recent Arrivals. You can now page through the Recent Arrivals, just in time for us opening the site. Go to Find People and look at the Recent Arrivals tab.

e) Cleaned up Home Page. We no longer have tabs on the main page, and the trades have been moved to the single Trading Post. Your personal statistics are now in the main page of your Portfolio – a much more visible place, we think! On that note, we’ve also made the 30-day graph the default graph on the Graphs and you can now view everyone's Portfolio Value graph, as well.

f) Most people have seen we have Influencer Scores on every profile; please click the number for a detailed explanation of what those numbers represent and how they are calculated.

Oh, no, we aren't *quite* done with "Dublin" yet. We haven't finished this part of the journey. Let me finish with another toast to all our users from 70+ countries. Let's create a network of which we can all be proud!