In the last few weeks, we’ve had many great conversations with people about our company. I even had a great time meeting with the founder of a cool company called Presto.com.

It’s been very interesting to hear people say our name, Presdo, for the first time.

In spite of our desire to come up with a name which can be said the same by everybody around the world, using a made-up name like Presdo always runs the risk of unintended consequences.

So I am here to explain the origin of Presdo, and to settle once and for all how it should be pronounced. And have some fun too!

Presdo comes from the word presto. We like that the original word comes from magic tricks, in the same tradition as abracadabra and voila!. We also like that presto comes from music, which means to play the music “very fast”. These are great themes to be associated with, since our product is meant to be quick and provide a bit of magic to our users.

Oh, one more thing. Since Presdo is all about “do”ing things with other people, we don’t mind that the name mentions do too.

So, Presdo sounds like presto. That’s where the name comes from.

Oh, and it has one other meaning too… in another language besides English.

Feel free to tell us your favorite way to say Presdo!

One of the coolest features we don’t often get to talk about is the great way in which Presdo works with locations and events. Every time you create an event, you can save a location so everybody knows where to meet.

The Map link next to the address shows you on Google Maps where it is, and you can get directions too.

It’s very simple to enter a location when creating an event. If you already know it, you can just paste or type it in. Or better, you can also use Presdo’s location picker to recommend a place. When you’re creating or changing an event, just click Or, pick a location in the WHERE area.

You’ll see Presdo’s location picker.

We’d like to share some other tips with you for using it.

• You can change the type of places it shows by typing into the location picker’s Find box. For example, if you are looking for Japanese restaurants, try typing sushi to see nearby Japanese places. Of course, it’s not just limited to restaurants. Try typing AMC Theaters to find a nearby movie theater.

• You can also bookmark favorite areas to search. Click Near… and type a city like San Francisco or a zip code like 90210 to find places near these areas. The location picker will remember them so you can use them next time.

• When getting together with an out-of-touch friend or colleague who may have moved or changed jobs, how many times did you have to ask them, “where are you now”? Presdo makes finding a place near them easy. If your friends are already Presdo users, you can click on their names, like Near Cindy or Near Jake, to find locations near them. So, enter your own location into Presdo to be so invited, and encourage your friends to do so too!

• There’s even a convenient feature that finds locations about the same distance from everybody. Try clicking Near everyone to see what happens. Some people will ask, what happens if you’re in San Francisco and the other person is in New York? You’ll have to try it to see what happens!

–Eric

We’re very delighted to feature a new, tight three-minute video showing off the many cool features of Presdo!

It was recently created as part of a post about Presdo by DemoGirl, a blog that reviews new web software. DemoGirl makes learning about new web tools much more fun and exciting. Much better than looking at screenshots and reading FAQs to find out what a new product is about.

Just click over to watch the video.

We hope that after you watch it, you will sign up for Presdo and take it out for a spin.

Many thanks to DemoGirl for taking a few minutes to share Presdo in such an exciting way with the rest of us.

Thanks, DemoGirl!

At Presdo, we live by a few important standards when it comes to the product. “Incredibly cool” and “scary good” are two phrases often heard in the hallway when we ask ourselves if a new feature has lived up to our expectations.

Think about the last “incredibly cool” product you saw, or a “scary good” piece of work you recently heard about. There aren’t too many of them around. And the truth is, despite our trying to achieve this, it is difficult to live up to these demanding expectations every single day.

Yet, rather than talking about the people behind the product, I want to first talk about a group of people who became our early users and then went way beyond what we expected from them. Through their initiative and enthusiasm for Presdo, they gave us real advice, “tough love” feedback, and their encouragement.

On the days when we couldn’t quite achieve “incredibly cool” and “scary good”, they reminded us why it was so important to do so. They kept us honest. What we do here at Presdo is ultimately for our users’ benefit, and we hope that we have at least created something that is “incredibly cool” and “scary good” for them.

I want to thank the following people for their generosity in helping Presdo to become what it is today. You all earned my sincere thanks:

–Eric