I have received tons of response to my previous entry, with users pledging to pay for premium services or offering to make donations. The feedback has been wonderful and overwhelming. To respond I have now added a PlateWire donate page for US members. http://www.platewire.com/donate.aspx

To those members willing to give a donation of $25 or more, I will be granting a Lifetime membership status, which will include access to premium services (Once launched in early February) such as multiple plate registration and a broader view of statistics, amongst many other cool features.

Once again, thank you to all of you that have helped make PlateWire a great site, with so much more in store!

Cheers,

Mark Buckman

As things begin to take shape with PlateWire (Investor interest, funding, legalities, etc.) it is becoming quite obvious there is much to be done. Although PlateWire is currently covering it's own costs (Hosting and such), plus some, it still hasn't quite covered my salary, it will be a couple of months before it reaches that level.

Until then, I'd like to offer my services as a developer. If you or someone you know is in need of a Web Guru to develop a web based application, I'm your man!

Below you can find a link to my current resume. Please contact me if you need references or further details.

Resume (Word DOC)

PS: I am not looking for any permanent position, preferably a 1-3 month contract situation.

PlateWire New Zealand is now open and looking for users to help iron out the bugs!

PlateWire Australia will follow shortly! Please keep the feedback coming!

ABC's NightLine is working on a story based around sites like PlateWire. They captured some good footage of my basement office where PlateWire was born and asked some good questions. The show will air this Friday night, January 19th 2007.

Friday's Weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal had an excellent article title "The Snoop Next Door" (No transgression is too trivial to document online). Jennifer Saranow does a great job discussing web sites that have sprung up around similar concepts such as PlateWire.

What did you think of this article?

Your opinions of the other sites mentioned?

TO ALL USERS:

This site was begun as a way to "let off steam" and report erratic driving at the same time. However, letting off steam does not include vulgarity and personal attacks against others who are enjoying the same privilege of posting as you are.

We recognize, and are grateful for, the attention that the national news media has garnered upon us. But, this also means that the eyes of the nation, and the world, are upon us via those same media operations. Do we really want the rest of the world to see us a a bunch of loud-mouthed, foul-mouthed cretins, whining and arguing amongst ourselves over which laws we want to obey and which ones are inconvenient to us? Do we want other, potentially influential visitors, to stay away because of these kindergarten antics?

I say a resounding NO! While we are against censorship, a sense of common good must prevail. And so, we are making a few changes, in reflection of the international community, of all ages, who may visit our site:

1) Profanity is forbidden. If you can't think of a better way to say it, use a dictionary or a thesaurus, or simply don't post. (#$!&* replacements will be tolerated where applicable)
2) Debate is good, personal attacks against those you disagree with is not. If you wish to debate an issue, then stick to the issue, not the personality, intelligence, or other characteristics of the poster.
3) When posting a wire, if you don't know the plate number, don't make up a cute saying. Put in the letters/numbers you DO know, and "X" out the rest.
4) Learn the difference between a WIRE and a BLOG entry. Wires are to inform the public about vehicles and the driving environment; Blogs are to discuss driving issues.
5) Recognize that this is a dynamic site: it is learning, improving, and improvising constantly, at the will of the creator, in response to his visitors. Demands to change, pouting about design or usage issues, and general childishness will not be tolerated. If you want something different than what was originally designed into this site, then start your own...put your own effort, dollars, time, sweat, and frustration into doing your thing, rather than criticizing those who have already done it.

Violations of the above will result in removal of messages, wires, and/or, ultimately, the user.

Thank you to DRIVETEACH for putting this together

Finishing touches on PlateWire New Zealand and PlateWire Australia Beta's are almost done! Open registration will start next week.

If you have questions about PlateWire NZ or PlateWire AU, please direct communications to International@platewire.com.

Just a quick note to send thanks to Boing Boing for doing a humble write up on PlateWire!

Tattletale site to complain about bad drivers

PS: I am still suffering from this Cold/Flu so I am not at my full capacity, I will respond to all feedback as soon as possible!

Thanks for understanding,

Mark

I've been so busy working on the new site design that I completely missed the fact that this past weekend PlateWire passed 3 Million hits! The majority of this traffic has been since November 20th 2006, thats just over a months time! No wonder our Alexa rank has been climbing steadily!

Thanks to everyone for helping make this happen!

Once again, I remind everyone that I am not a designer, but I did my best effort to make a cleaner more appealing layout until I can find a designer. I have made minor functionality improvements, with many more to come in the next couple of weeks.

Once again I want to thank everone for their feedback, I am honored that so many of you appreciate my hard work!

Please keep the feedback coming!