Since you won’t get any reply when you leave a suggestion – write into the help center if you need a reply – but here are a few interesting things we caught in there that I wanted to respond to:

Please allow sharing of logins/passwords with multiple people for free.

We do that! The free account allows you to start active sharing with 1 person AND you can receive passive sharing from an unlimited number of people. Read this article for a how-to.

The mobile app (for the iPhone) should be free.

Hm, well, we don’t have the mobile interface rolled out yet – but it’ll be free.

When I register at a new site, I want save it to Passpack at the same time, rather than having to go back and retype all the info into an entry.

Yup. That’s coming in soon with Auto-login 2.0 (in private Beta testing now).

“Copy password to clipboard” button for logging in to sites without the standard auto login.

You can do that now from your password list, here’s how. Also, the Auto-login 2.0 will extend that feature greatly.

Also, don’t forget that we use the number of votes a feature request gets to help us prioritize the development schedule. Right now, the mobile versions and Desktop improvements are leading the pack – so use the checkboxes on to vote for your favorites.

And we were chosen as a Red Herring 100 Europe finalist.

US Tour

From Boston to San Francisco, it’s been a whirlwind tour pitching, demoing and meeting great people. I actually lost my voice!

The event that spurred all this on was Passpack having been chosen as a finalist to pitch at Mind the Bridge. Special thanks out to Marco Marinucci, Elisabetta Ghisini, Matteo D’Aste and Fabrizio Capobianco — great people, doing wonderful things for the Italian business community. Also congrats to fellow startup Zooppa for taking home the grand prize!

Still a meeting or two to go, then I’m back to HQ to get Passpack 7 wrapped up.

Passpack 7 Testing

We’ve been incorporating feedback from the testers  little by little and are finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t thank these guys enough – really an active, constructive crowd.

What’s left to do? A few more usability items that have been waiting for attention (yes, I’m personally the bottleneck on this one) need to be taken care of. Then updating the help materials and… launch!

Hold onto your seats.

Some of you have asked me on twitter and facebook how things are going at Passpack. I know, the underlying question there is really “Will you guys still be standing?”

The short answer is: Yes.

How We’re Riding Out the Recession

1. We Sell

The Pro account release added a revenue stream to help support the company beyond our funding. Break even wasn’t planned for at least another year, but we’re quite happy to be spot on the forecasted free/paid ratio.

We’re also bumping up the release of a Black Box appliance for small enterprises originally planned for much later in 2009. This is still under construction, but go ahead and ask me for more details if you’re interested in beta testing or a taking part in case study.

2. We’ve Cut Spending

Back in late December, we made some tough choices, moving our staff from full-time permanent positions, to on-call and consulting work. Only recently has our new formation stabilized: Francesco full-time on the product, Dani part-time on customer support, Olga part-time for the administrative tasks, Louise chipping in on the blog and me straddling the fence between product development and general administration.

I’ll be pruning the company page over the next couple of days to reflect this.

3. We’re Aiming for Slow & Steady

Rather than pouring resources into trying to get “magic traffic spikes”, we’re focusing inward on the product instead. It’s the better investment.

Right now we’re working on improving the experience for new users just getting started, and on completing those key developments we’ve already got underway. Are we going as fast as we originally wanted to? No (especially given #2). But slow and steady, we’ll win the race.

In other words… it’s a mess [smile].

So we’ve built a new blog! (sneak peek here).

And I’m cleaning things up during the move. Here’s the idea:

• No more support articles. Those go in the knowledge base.
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• The basics, and intro to password articles go in the library (also new) so that (1) we can modify them at will without stomping on basic  blog etiquette and (2) your RSS doesn’t get smothered as we publish more.
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• News-ish post. Basically This Week in Privacy and the occasional comment. Strong personal opinions in the personal blogs only. Mine’s here (I rarely post).

What To Do with the Old Blog?

I LOVE throwing things out. So I’m trying very hard to avoid mass historical revisionism.

The posts on wordpress.com will remain as-is, with commenting closed. But I’m concerned about folks who stumble across old help articles, and get outdated information.

There is, I admit, one temptation I couldn’t resist.  I changed every PassPack to Passpack on the new blog (the fact that it remains unchanged on the old blog irks me… but I’m resisting further temptation).

Can You Help Me Out?

First, what do you think of that shiny new blog ? (I’m still working on it, so comments, pinging etc. are closed for the moment)

And can I (pretty please) replace the help articles here wordpress.com with a simple link to the Help Center?

Anything other ideas for building a better blog?

A Walk Down Memory Lane

We started 2008 with the announcement of Sharing and we’ll start 2009 with the release of Sharing (hooray!). We started 2008 introducing the help ticketing system and 2009 will start off with some self-service help and  automation. That should make things faster!

What Else?

Here are some highlights of everything in between. In 2008 Passpack:

• got funded and came out of Beta

• released an open source host-proof hosting library

• dropped the capital P in PassPack and changed the logo

• got chosen as a Cnet Webware finalist

• released Secure Messaging

• turned 2 years old!

Right now, while the recession raves on, Passpack like every other business world-wide is forced to cut back drastically on costs. So while we may be (alas, I know) running later than expected, we ask for a bit of patience on your part. So sit tight.

What’s in store for 2009?

You guessed it – milestones, challenges and of course more releases. We have a 2009 full of new stuff to roll out, especially during the first few months. We take all our user’s requests into consideration and the majority of them are great ideas but keep in mind that start ups need time to grow.

Passpack Holiday Tip

Start thinking of your New Year’s resolutions ahead of time and while you’re getting your last minute holiday gifts, don’t forget an important one this year…

A top highlight for me was having the chance to ask Tim O’Reilly “Don’t you think there’s a need to keep relevant information private in Web 2.0, or at least to share it with people you really trust?”

Tim answered with a firm“Absolutely”. Thanks, Tim! We think so too.

A few hours later I got to take part in another informal, unexpected event: a 60 second TechCrunch Pitch! improvised by Mike Butcher. Adrenaline was high when Mike invited ten startups to pitch via Twitter. My voice is at minute 12 or so. Thanks again Mike.

If we did or didn’t get the chance to meet in Berlin, I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on the event.

[Photo credit: Luca Sartoni]

Our Passpack socialite-to-be wants to make the most of his time in the German capital and meet any Web 2.0-ers who may be itching to know just what Passpack has in store after Secure Messaging? So check out his Expo profile and contact him to meet up or just get a coffee…

The Passpack office is buzzing like a busy bee with all its new additions and if you have been following the blog, you probably know what’s keeping us so busy. Here’s a rundown on what’s been going on and what you can expect.

OpenID

It’s coming. Francesco, Giuseppe and Grzesiek are working hard on giving OpenID the final touches it needs. So sit tight because it will be up and running in no time.

As for all the talk on which OpenID providers will be on the “whitelist” – it’s pretty clear from the past post that you all have blacklisted the idea of a whitelist. And with very good reason. We’re thinking this over and we’ll talk more about this in another post.

Mobile

We have been hinting here and there about Passpack Mobile and I am going to hint again. We tried once before but incompatible mobile browser capability prevented us from releasing a Mobile version. Beta 6 gave Passpack the necessary foundations to grow as an application and be able to implement more features – one of which is mobile.

When can you expect it? – Now why would I ruin the surprise by answering that…

Sharing

What’s this you say? We haven’t talked much about sharing but here is another morsel of fun – Tara, Laura and Gianluca are currently setting up the user interface needed for sharing…

What Else?

There are tons of things on our ‘to do’ list and this is just a taste of what’s to come. Our main focus at the moment is getting OpenID ready for you, but keep your eye out for the rest…and more…

Passpack has just published a Facebook Fanpage! Yay!

Passpack’s blog has incorporated ‘Behind the Scenes’ and ‘Passpack Lounge’ but Facebook is where we will really have some fun.

Passpack’s RSS is incoporated in the fanpage so you don’t have to miss out on any posts. We will also be keeping you up-to-date on upcoming events and best of all you can check out our photo albums and videos (a bit scarce now, but just give us time).

We’d love for you to become our friends/fans on the Passpack Fanpage and send us all your funny videos or stories, thoughts on Passpack, pics of your pets…etc etc

The Passpack team is expanding all the time and we would like to keep you guys up to date on our new additions. You may have read the post on the women of Passpack, which gave you a taste of some of the crew but here are a few you haven’t met and a few others we’ve just met ourselves!

Francesco Sullo – Now don’t tell me this name is not familiar. Francesco is the CEO and CTO of Passpack and one of the two co-founders. His wife’s name is Tara…um, she’s the other co-founder of Passpack- you’ve probably heard of her too! Francesco is the brains behind the development and security of Passpack. When he is not spending countless hours thinking of new ways to improve the application, Francesco can be found…wait, that’s all he does.

Oh and by the way, he has a band. Francesco’s the singer, writer and guitarist and when he plays live, he does a little comedy act in between if you’re lucky. Check him out on MySpace.

Gianluca De Stefano Silvestri is one of the new Designers. He was born and raised in Rome (born in Anagni – near Rome). He has a splendid 16 month-old-daughter. He’s quite the creative person – in his free time he likes drawing, especially portraits and he also dabbles in video. He’s a guitar player (must run in the Passpack blood!) and can’t get enough of music like De Andre’, Pink Floyd and particularly likes experimental music. It’s not surprising to hear that he’s also a fan of M.C. Escher…mmmm…I wonder if we’ll see that influence in his work here at Passpack!

Laura Annibali is another of the new Designers. She didn’t make it in the Who’s Who of Passpack Women, as she too is a new addition. Also a Roman native, Laura loves Queen and anything Freddy Mercury. She considers herself a 70s and 80s rock kind of gal. She may just be a kid at heart with hobbies such as comic books (anything Marvel, anything Spiderman), Playstation and Wii. Laura loves cats but can’t have one in the house, or her enormous dog Lea might just eat her up! She’s a twin, so who knows if it’s actually Laura sitting next to me at the office every day…

Giuseppe Finocchiaro (aka Joe) is one of the new Developers. He’s from Floridia – that’s not a misspelling of the citrus city – it’s in Sicily. He’s quite the dynamic character and when at the computer he often has to stand up and walk around, just to let off some of that energy. His hobbies are underwater fishing and jogging (sometimes around the office). If all goes well (his words, not mine) he will marry his sweetheart next June. But we may not have to cross our fingers too much – as his fiance’ Sara currently lives in Sicily, the two love birds are known to speak up to 10 times a day!

Grzegorz Woźniak is another Passpack Developer with a not so easy to pronounce name (Francesco has almost mastered it)! Grzegorz moved from Poland to Italy to study at the University of Bologna. His interest in ancient Roman history has brought him here to us. He’s an avid tennis player and moonlights as a tennis instructor. He sometimes suffers from a bit of homesickness for his hometown of Szczecin, but he is more than happy that his path has brought him to Italy and to Passpack!

WELCOME NEW GUYS!