The “First 50” program we initiated a couple of weeks ago is going well. By now everyone in the program has received their chumby. Many of these First 50’ers have expressed their initial impressions to us and to the world via their blogs and posted images and videos on Flickr and YouTube. We’re probing into their experiences regarding ordering their chumby, receiving it, the packaging, the process of turning it on and connecting it to their wi-fi networks, creating and playing their widget channels and connecting chumby to their iPods(TM), as well as the enclosed documentation and the extra “bling.” We’re happy that these “First 50’er’s” experiences seem to be very positive ones. Of course the point of the program is not just to feel good about the things we’re doing right, it is also to discover what we need to do better before we start selling chumbys to the rest of you. So we can all thank our First 50 test pilots for making the whole Chumby experience better for everyone. We’re listening very closely to their issues and suggestions. Of course we hear loud and clear that many of you want to buy chumbys now, and we thank you for your patience — trust me, we can’t wait to sell them to you either! We’re going to make chumbys more broadly available in September, so you won’t have long to wait. And, thanks to the First 50’ers, the chumby you’ll be getting will be even better.
And, once you do get your chumby, the whole point of this device and the service, The Chumby Network, behind it is that it gets better over time. Unlike most other consumer electronic devices, the capabilities of your chumby will continue to improve — we expect that you’ll love your chumby even more next year than you do this year. Additional capabilities will accrue to your chumby magically from us and, potentially even more interestingly, from the hacker/developer community who will take the chumby in directions we never even imagined. This is where the “openness” of chumby is new and hopefully a big step forward for consumer electronics.
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