Since our launch just over a week ago, we have received a lot of great feedback on Backboard, with most people excited by the idea, but left wanting more. More security, more file support, more tightly integrated comments, and more moderation options for Backboards.

We agree, and are working to deliver on these requests over the coming months.

Today, I’m excited to announce the first round of feature improvements to Backboard.

More file support - Along with JPG, GIF, and PNG, we have added support for three popular image file formats: BMP, TIFF, and most importantly, Photoshop files (PSD). Many graphics designers have requested the ability to directly upload their source files, instead of having to Save them For Web, first. This is now supported!

More moderation support - Addressing what was by far our most common request, it is now possible to delete Backboards that you have created and no longer need. Click on My Backboards and then click the X next to the Backboard you want to delete. 

This release also brings many small changes and bug fixes to all parts of the site, so your Backboard experience should be much smoother.

What else do you think we should add or change? Let us know by posting a comment below, or getting in touch!

I’ll change directions today and write about a technique Increo has found extremely useful when making decisions between a large number of choices with a large group of people with varied (and sometimes strong) opinions.

Increo has used this technique extensively for names (Increo Solutions, Backboard, Increo Suite) and even to narrow down interview candidates from a large pool of applicants.

1. Make a long list of all the possibilities. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm.
2. Remove anything that everyone agrees does not make sense.
3. For each possibility, have everyone vote whether they like it or not. Each person has unlimited votes, and voting decisions should be based on first impressions.
4. Go through the entire list, then remove half the possibilities–those with the fewest votes.
5. Repeat until only one option is left.

Essentially this results in the result that is okay with everyone–usually not a favorite of anyone on the team, but something everyone can live with. And, even better, from my experience, the results tend to grow on you. I look back at the other potential names for Increo, and I’m awfully glad we discarded them.

Thanks to Sarah Arora for first suggesting this technique.

The second-largest source of Backboard traffic is the Japanese blog 100shiki. We’ve also been written about in Chinese at Darksdream and at Bitelia in Spanish.

One of the more interesting parts of running a software company today is that you never know where your software will make a splash. Telephony service Jaxtr has a huge user base in India. Google’s Orkut dominated the Brazillian social networking scene after a few of Brazil’s VIPs joined. It seems like the instantly global phenomenon starts as instantly multi-regional, then fills in the gaps. Our key takeaway: founding teams must be flexible enough to adapt to the regions where users begin adopting their software.

Increo places a high priority in making our software available for use wherever you are. While we are not quite yet ready to translate Backboard, keep watch for multiple language availability and support in the near future.

Since the public Backboard launch, we’ve heard from many users with kudos, feature requests, and even the occasional bug (now fixed). I thought I’d share some of the more interesting uses we’ve stumbled upon:

Education - In Larry Ferlazzo’s education blog, he posts about utilizing Backboard for a simple assignment for ESL learners. They could find a picture, write about it, and others could give their feedback. For more, take a look at Larry’s Blog.

Flight Simulators - Participants at Flight Simulation Forums are using Backboard to get feedback on screenshots from their best flights.

Designophiles - Here at Increo, we’re passionate about good design and user experience. We were quite honored to find Backboard at CSS 2.0, a site that features well-designed websites as inspiration for the web design community.

Web Designers - We built Backboard to be very useful for designers seeking feedback from teams and clients. I’m happy to report that several Backboard users have posted links to Backboards requesting feedback on their own web designs.

Note: We discovered these uses posted on your blogs and forums. Tell us how you’re using Backboard.

Increo launched Backboard officially today and announced our funding by top-tier venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Check out our press release for more details.

Our announcement prompted a review on TechCrunch and a nice interview on VentureWire which you can view with a free trial account.

We’ll keep you up to date as the day unfolds.

The Increo team has spent the last week updating Backboard to reflect the Stanford users’ feedback. Most notably you will see a new document player–which allows you to easily navigate from page to page in your word documents and power points. This Flash player eliminates the need for a PDF plug-in and we think you’ll find it to be a seamless, elegant solution for viewing your documents.