We have been working for about 2 months on a brand new web project. It will fall under our new incubator/accelerator program and is in the health services vertical.

We'll have more details in the next few months.

We are pretty excited to be a default handler for ical files. 30 Boxes does a very slick rendering of any time/date based information (ical, rss, etc.) and this is a handy way to preview any web calendar using your browser.

Here is some additional info via Cybernet blog.

As we mentioned a few weeks back, new forms of blogging are emerging. Today, Business Week writer Stephen Baker is composing a story via twitter.

Unfortunately he is bumping into some content management tracking constraints, but it is certainly a new way to involve people in an emerging discussion.

Stephen, have a look at our blog format. It is new and a bit different. We are hoping that people get new ideas from it. The meaning and ultimate use of twitter has been elusive since day one and as it fragments, coalesces, and ultimately gets repurposed its impact will remain difficult to fully articulate!

Congratulations to Zach Allia! A longtime 30 Boxes user and avid community participant, Zach was finishing up at Northeastern last summer when he decided to hack together an application for Facebook.

Challenging Facebook head on, he took a chance with a virtual gift application that became an instant hit. As his users climbed from tens of thousands to millions in a matter of weeks, Zach began a roller coaster ride that has landed him in Palo Alto working for Social Gaming Network.

As his user base took off, we were able to bring Zach's app into 83 Degrees so that we could help him with scaling and hosting. Free Gifts also became a major publisher for fbExchange and an instant hit with big marketers looking to crack into the world of social networks.

Zach was approached many times by folks looking to acquire Free Gifts and to hire him. He took his time, said "no" many times, until he finally found a company and location he felt excited about. We are very excited for him and applaud his long term approach toward the brand he created -- Free Gifts is one of the rare Facebook apps that does not engage in any spammy or aggressive recruitment. It is naturally viral and we hope that his vision stays intact with its new home.

We are excited to be named a winner in the Productivity category. Thanks to everyone who voted for our 30 Boxes product.

On a side note, we made use of Direct Messages on twitter to encourage voting to some 1,200 folks who follow @30boxes and the results raised some usage questions.

We found plenty of receptive folks excited to vote but we also saw some loud complaints over twitter about using direct messages in bulk form. It is a tough dilemma because on one side you clearly produce voting results. The question is at what cost?

Twitter itself is still a new medium and the boundaries shift frequently. For 30 Boxes, we've decided to hold back on future direct messaging because we can't find a compelling argument to make *anyone* irritated with us.