We've been listening to our users, like bikehugger, who asks "Possibly not enough coffee, but has anyone else just stared at Active.com wondering how to register for an event?" (http://twitter.com/bikehugger/statuses/998940596).  Our users want to a) find the events to register for and b) run through a no-hassle registration process.

Here we're addressing "a" - making it easier to find stuff to do.

So we've been working to make search a bit easier and a bit more relevant.  I'm happy to invite you to our highly experimental, closed search beta.  The first 100 users can sign-up at http://labs.active.com/users/new, using the invite code "blogsearchinvite".  

Watch this screencast to get a better idea of where we're headed.

Congrats to Ben Weiner and Kelly Korevec for the public launch of dailymile.com.  I admire the way dailymile focuses on building user communities around events.  The UI is easy to use and intuitive, and they've amassed a good userbase while in private beta.  I especially like the feature where users can submit events, and this is something we're contemplating doing here at Active too.

You can read about their launch here.

update: turns out we have an older feature that allows users to submit events here.

I guess this is what passes for fun around here.

The lesson, as always, is don't brag that you can do the same number of sit-ups that you could do when you were 12 unless you can do the same number of sit-ups that you could do when you were 12!

This is all the result of a "warped" corporate culture here at Active where we are encourage to... well, BE active.  A great example of this is the Active X program that our Art Director, Arch Fuston has put together.  There's a full and a lite version for those of different fitness levels.  It's great fun and a killer workout, as I'm sure Damon will attest.