We will work with Gary to tweek the design to be released prior to SXSW.

Gary is an graphic artist and partner in a firm called Pixel Praise.

Mark Smith and his group of developers are passionate about symbols and iconography, and created a vector drawing web app for people to design their own for free. Dubbed 'the Flickr of icons' since its launch in June, Mikons has taken the web by storm.

Q&A
.net: What is Mikons all about and who uses it?
MS: Mikons ('my icons') is a social website where you can personally brand yourself with an image that you created. It's a fun and interesting way to express your ideas, aesthetic sense, your passions, your self. We've developed the Mikon Machine, which is a free online vector drawing app, to make simple descriptive symbols. Mikons bridge the idea of unspoken languages, such as ancient cave paintings and petroglyphs, with the more contemporary art of coat-of-arms and graffiti logos through the creation of personal icons on the web.

.net: How did you come up with the idea?
MS: I was watching the Tour de France in 2005 when Lance Armstrong finished his brilliant career, and each day, his bike had a new series of icons that represented some phase of his life, which really inspired me. Nike and a New York graffiti artist, who goes by the name of Futura, collaborated to make over 40 icons, and there was a story behind each one. The idea hit me immediately to offer something like that to everyone. My fascination with this idea kept growing, when we considered the applications for Mikons and ways to deploy it. The community aspect seemed obvious. The online social community idea enables people to tag their Mikons and browse Mikons that others have made and connect from there. Some bloggers christened us the 'Flickr of icons' and that's what we were going after.

.net: How did you go about building it?
Alan Watts: As the Mikon Machine builder, I'd been experimenting with a web-based vector drawing engine for a project with Mini Cooper a few months before I began working on the Machine. With only a few technical difficulties in its development, I spent three solid months finishing the application, but we still needed a way for users to share their creations. Eric [interface designer] created the interaction processes and interfaces for the site, working with me to create tools for users to manage their own Mikons, share them with others (or keep them private), and put Mikons on T-shirts and other merchandise. We used a mixture of Ajax tools and more traditional server-side technologies to make those processes as streamlined and intuitive as possible.

.net: How do you monitor how it's being used?
MS: Every day, we look at the Mikons people are making, the Mikons sightings they're sending in, and the things they are saying. Every user we connect with, we solicit their feedback. Users are great at telling you how they feel and what features they might want. We're mindful, too, that uses are more interested in benefits than features. But users are not as good at telling you how they actually use Mikons, and getting into the details of their surfing habits. So we use Google Analytics' Urchin product to help us capture user habits and usage trends. Coupling our anectodal observations, user feedback and Google metrics, we have a sense of where users want to see Mikons go. This gives us a direction for our next phase of coding.

(Excerpted from .net Magazine November 2006 Issue) To read the complete story in the November issue, visit http://www.netmag.co.uk/.

Win a trip to the famous South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) Conference in Austin, Texas.

HELP US CREATE THE LOGO FOR THIS SITE...MIKONS.COM

From the SXSW website "(The Interative Conference) is an incubator of new, cutting-edge technology, the SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL Is ground zero for the world's most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators and new media entrepreneurs. In addition to captivating keynote presentations and scintillating panel sessions, attendees make new business connections at the three-day Trade Show & Exhibition. The newest element of the event is ScreenBurn, which adds specific gaming industry programming as well as a two-day Arcade to the mix."

You can stay on for the SXSW Music Festival the following week (at your cost...sorry our pockets aren't that deep).

Here are the rules.

1. Entrants must be over 18 and cannot be a member of the Mikons Team, their family members, investors or their family members.

2. Logo submissions must be original work created by the entrant.

3. All entries must be created in mikons.com using the Mikon Machine. As such, you will need to be a registered user in mikons.com.

4. All entries will be come the property of Mikonoclast, the parent company of Mikons.com.

5. Each entry/design must be tagged with LOGO CONTEST and a name unique to that design. By tagging a design with LOGO CONTEST you will be transferring all rights to that design to Mikonoclast.

6. The logo must connote a symbolic representation of the purpose for the website. Please read the blogs and the press releases on the site for more information about the purpose of mikons.

7. Logos can be submitted anytime between the beginning of the contest, January 17, 2007 to its end, February 13, 2007 at midnight CST.

8. Entrants can submit any number of designs.

9. All entries will be date and time stamped at the time it is saved.

10. PRIZE: Expense paid trip to the 2007 SXSW Interactive Conference on March 9-13, 2007. Expenses included are 2007 SXSW Interactive Pass, Roundtrip Airfare (maximum $700), 4 night hotel accommodations, and dinner with the members of the Mikons Team. Mikonoclast will make all travel and accommodation arranges. For those living in the Austin ares you will be awarded $500 in cash in lieu of the airline ticket and hotel accommodations.

11. DEADLINE: February 13, 2007 at 11:59:59 CST.

12. WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT: The winner will be announced on February 16, 2007 and published on the website.

13. The winner must decide on the airline reservations no later than February 19, 2007.

Click here to go to the Mikon Machine and make a logo.

Mikons!? What on earth is a Mikon? Well I had no idea when I first heard about it, but now I'm an addict.

Mikons is the brain child of Mark and Kenna Smith. The website has a built in tool, which lets you create cool icons with very little effort. You can then share your creations with other members of the site - very much like Flickr. It's not all fun and games though, the Mikon Machine (as the site creators call it) is the most advanced online vector drawing tool in the world.

Check out Dave Long's complete blog entry and his Mikons on From the Front-End.

Mikons is Number Two on Buzz Marketing's CEO, Tina Wells' Top Ten List

Excerpt from Top Ten List:
This website takes a new take on connecting with your friends via the web. It's a new form of self-expression that connects people through visual symbols (personal tags). It's a fun and new way to let your creative mind run wild while connecting with people anywhere in the world.

http://buzzmg.com/mailer/buzzreport.html

Austin, TX (PR Web) September 30, 2006 - Mikonoclast, LLC, the owners of Mikons.com, the website that let's you connect with people through visual symbols, announces the grand opening of UBU, the hip new store that let's shoppers truly express themselves.

UBU isn't your average mall store! Shoppers will find a number of unique ways to be creative and self-express, including, designing and getting a temporary tattoo using the Mikon Machine™ or pre-made stencils, and purchase quality, American Apparel, sweatshop free t-shirts with personal Mikons on them. That's not all - UBU has bumper stickers, iron-on transfers, dog tags, pendants, charms, and stickers. All of the merchandise at UBU can be personalized with previously made Mikons or by making a new Mikon right in the store!

Plus, UBU is donating a portion of all proceeds for anyone that gets at temporary tattoo or merchandise with one of Mikons.com benevolence partner Mikons like Miracle4Megan or Katrina Survivor.

"We started Mikons.com to provide a service and catalyst for self-discovery, self-expression, and community," said Mark Smith, Founder, Mikonoclast, LLC. "With the success of Mikons.com and the response from our exceptionally creative members we were inspired to find a way to extend that community in a physical location, which is why we have opened UBU. We're already seeing tremendous response to what we offer at UBU in just the few short weeks we have been open."

The Grand Opening Celebration is Sunday, October 1, 12:00PM - 6:00PM, in Lakeline Mall, Cedar Park, Texas. UBU is a kiosk located on the 2nd floor of the Mall near the Food Court.

About Mikonoclast, LLC
Mikonoclast, LLC is headquartered in Cedar Park, Texas, and founded by Mark Smith and Kenna Smith, the creators of Mikons.com, the first online vector editing graphic tool in the world. Mikonoclast, LLC is the owner of Mikons.com and is managed by Mark Smith. Mikons.com offers a new form of self-expression that connects people through personally created visual symbols and personal tags. Mikons.com is a service and a catalyst for personal self-discovery, self-expression, sharing, acceptance, and community, worldwide. Mikons was inspired by iconographic work done for Lance Armstrong by the artist Futura (Lenny McGurr) in collaboration with Nike to commemorate his heroic life and unprecedented Tour de France racing career. For more information or to join, visit http://www.mikons.com.

It seems like everything's been done on the Web nowadays, so adding a little bit of uniqueness to your blog, instant messaging or MySpace page seems near impossible. But one newly launched company is aiming to add some flair to the Net.

Cedar Park-based Mikonoclast LLC, owner of Mikons.com, launched earlier this month, giving creative types a tool to dream up their own icons. Mikons.com provides a simple graphic design program where users can log on and create their own symbol or borrow from Mikons' cache of clip art.

Founder Mark Smith says the company's presence took off after a blogging community latched on to the concept. The company's users obviously aren't hindered by distance; 40 percent of them are from other countries. So far, Mikons.com has signed on 846 users, and has created 2,098 icons.

"There's no language barrier with a symbol, so we have an opportunity where we can use symbols to connect people around the world," Smith says. "This provides a unique opportunity to create a global Web community."

Because the service is free, the bootstrapped company derives most of its revenue through sales of custom-made merchandise. So if you really love that picture of the demented squid you made on Mikons.com, you can order a custom-made T-shirt via the Web site.

~Giselle Greenwood

From Emily Gertz in Knowledge in the Public Interest Blog
Knowledge Management for Social Innovation

Mikons allows users to create their own iconographs, tag them with keywords, and share them with others on the system -- offering the potential to build up a shared iconic vocabulary as Mikons.com endures and expands.

This eHub interview with Mark Smith of Mikons sheds light on what goes into developing an online communications system. if you've never considered what's is involved in building a team and creating and marketing such a system, it's relevatory.

In its mix of idealism and business, Mikons seems poised on the edge between the 1990s wave of internet hype, and the practicality of early 21st century commerce-plus-collaboration:

eHub: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months? The next 2 years?
Mikons: In six months, we are still learning what the community wants and addressing that. We want to focus on the Connect experience, increase the merchandise offering and the buying experience. At the end of six months we are engendering more mashups and collaborations. We have no intention to compete with anyone; we have no - build fast and sell early agenda or try to be the next myspace plan. We just want to be a catalyst for people connecting in a way that is meaningful to their lives. And whatever that is, that's good.

In two years...in a word, evolution. Possibilities include: some aspects of a new symbolized language has evolved, people are co-brand themselves with major corporate brands, the benevolence aspect of Mikons will allow benevolence organizations to connect with people in more meaningful ways. Our intention is to connect people through the telling about themselves through images.

For example, buy a t-shirt with your mikons on them and get a free sticker, or buy four 4 inch stickers and get the fifth for free. These stickers are great for car windows, bedroom decoration, laptop customization, anything...Mikon It!

Just make your minimum $7 order and choose your sticker and the cost will register as $0 for the sticker.

The stickers are premium vinyl and contour cut so the shape of the sticker is the shape of the mikon... how unique is that?!?! This is a limited time offer.

If you are a Katrina Survivor (left) or a Volunteer (right) for example, put one of these in your set respective of your experience and order a product with one of them in your set and we will donate $2 from the purchase of a t-shirt and $0.50 on the purchase of a 4-inch sticker set to a charitable Katrina Relief Fund.

If you have a benevolence organization and would like to include your logo or mikon on Mikons.com we would love to include you. Mikons and its users can help bring your cause awareness and you can have another revenue stream out of the goodness of the hearts of the mikons community. You can request further information by emailing us at benevolence@mikons.com

So this site [Mikons.com] has to be one of the coolest sites I've seen in a while. It allows you to create vector based icons quickly and easily on the web. It's also one of the few uses of Shockwave that doesn't seem gratuitous. It allows you to then share your nifty new creations with others. They even have a library of prebuilt "clips" that you can use to make your own original creation!

The interface is clean, simple, and works. Anything you might want to do to create an icon there's a tool for. You can create shapes, draw lines and curves, add and subtract and manipulate the paths. They have buttons to scale, rotate, and flip objects as well as group and ungroup objects together. They allow you to move objects up and down in the stack of items. You can control the thickness of your paths, as well as the alignment of objects to each-other. All in standard easy to understand methods. You can also add a grid to help layout your objects. And to top it all off there are also convenient keyboard shortcuts for most of the tools/commands.

While there are many more productive web services out there, this is by far one of the most well thought out. I can't wait to create my first mikon… (look for it here soon!)

http://macevangelism.blogspot.com/2006/06/mikons.html

You can claim, share or draw your own mikons in a shockwave drawing feature. The sharing function allows you to put a creative commons license or traditional copyright on your mikons. You can also keep them private and hidden if there are any mikons you’d like to keep as your personal little secret.

“Mikons,” the company says on the front page, “are your own personal tags that symbolize your life: your challenges, your dreams and your passions.” If you’d like to put these symbols for your life on t-shirts or stickers, that option appears to be coming soon.

The site is very functional and looks great. The company is especially proud of the drawing technology - which they say is “the first online vector editing graphic tool in the world.” This particular application of that technology seems to warrant most - either thankfulness that some startups have a sense of humor or existential concern that anyone would want to symbolize their inner self with clip art.

The company says that their service is similar to timeless visual communication methods throughout history, like petroglyphs. They hope that people will put their mikons on MySpace profile pages, blogs and a wide variety of physical merchandise that will be available soon.

Read the rest at techcrunch.com

Austin, TX (PRWEB) June 7, 2006 -- Mikonoclast, LLC, announces the worldwide launch and general availability of www.Mikons.com and the Mikon Machine™, a tool that offers a new language—created without words—to connect the world. Mikons.com is a new take on a historic form of self-expression that connects people through visual symbols and personal tags.

The initial phase of Mikons.com enables members to use the Mikon Machine™, a free vector graphic drawing tool built to create transportable symbols called Mikons - my icons. The Mikon Machine™ allows members to design from scratch or remix graphics from the Mikons library to build a personal set of Mikons. Once these Mikons are created, members have complete control over how and where they choose to publish and share their Mikons: perhaps with family and friends, everyone you know, or even in other community websites. They can be kept private too. Mikons.com uses the Creative Commons model for Mikon copyright licensing. The benefits for all members include:

• A complete, yet easy-to-use tool for creating personal Mikons

• A graphics library to help members get started

• Personalized symbols and word tags

• Browseable library of the most recently created, shared, and viewed Mikons

• Search tools for locating specific Mikons or members

• Tools to manage the grouping, sorting, and removal of any Mikons

• The ability to export personal Mikons to other communities, email, and more

• Social activities like journaling and joining Mikons communities and friends lists

• Personalizing Mikons merchandise

Members have access to the Mikons Store, which allows them to share their Mikon creations and express themselves beyond the Internet world. Products include stickers containing their personal Mikons and t-shirts printed with their personal set of Mikons. Additional merchandise items such as iron-on-patches, charm and silicon bracelets, dog tags, and more, will be available in the coming weeks.

“The launch of www.Mikons.com brings to life the vision that we have to transcend contemporary spoken languages with a new commonly understood symbolic language for a modern era. This new form of communication, Mikons, acts as a catalyst for personal self-discovery, self-expression, sharing, acceptance, and community, worldwide,” said Mark Smith, Founder Mikonoclast, LLC. “We are thrilled, indeed thankful; to introduce this revitalized form of ancient cave paintings through the greater Web community. As with the paintings and glyphs of our ancestors, Mikons allows people to individually create and universally connect beyond the trappings of the spoken word.”