We have great news at Akoha!

We’re sending out a big batch of Starter Kits today!  Many of you who signed up to Akoha and requested one should be receiving them within a week or so.

Starter Kits stacked and ready to go out!

We’re very excited to our welcome new players to the game!!

Woo hoo!  We went through the mission queue and accepted many missions today.  You’ll find them by clicking on the Mission HQ tab inside Akoha.

The new missions are:

• Bust a bone marrow myth by Tamu
• Help someone by TAK
• Cheer someone up by TAK
• Give someone a hug by TAK
• Give Someone a Greeting Card by targeteer2k
• Pay someone a compliment by Tamu
• Invite Someone for Ice Cream by danielmilner
• Cook Dinner for Someone by cc
• Say You’re Sorry by comechi
• Tutor someone by lance
• Give a Friend a Memory by targeteer2k
• House cleaning help by conniecrosby
• Give someone bacon by boris
• Give someone a cookie by josh
• Invite Someone for Lunch by xurxo
• spend some time by Annieimp
• Send the next table a dessert by skinnyjeans
• Share a recipe by skinnyjeans
• Make someone a smoothie by skinnyjeans
• Make breakfast for someone by dgryski
• Give someone a Back Massage by fred
• Sing Someone Happy Birthday by janafalls
• Call up an old friend by tilman
• Give Someone a Cup of Tea by xutopia

At the bottom of the mission list, you’ll see a “See more” link.  By clicking on that, you’ll be able to see all approved missions.

Enjoy!

Akohans,

This post contains guidelines that will help you suggest great missions. The primary reason why we’re moderating missions is to make Akoha safe. We want to make sure that you, the player, are able to play missions with confidence. We also want to make sure that the missions are good in nature and inspire others to play them forward.

With this in mind, let’s talk about good mission attributes:

• It can be played forward. This is a mission that someone can easily pass from one person to the next. It is usually has a “one-to-one” ratio, meaning that you play it from one person to another person.
• It is good-natured, and is “a launch pad for kindness”. We want a mission library that promotes good actions in the world, although if your missions is especially fun or witty but still good-natured in spirit, we may let it pass.
• It allows everyone to benefit their own cause, not your particular one. “Donate to the Red Cross In Someone’s Name” won’t get accepted. “Donating to a Charity In Someone’s Name” will.

There are many mission types that are great in principle but does not work with our game play. “Donate Money to the Red Cross”, while perhaps noble in its intent, would not be approved for two reasons. First, it cannot be played forward. Secondly, it directly benefits a particular organization. Instead, the mission “Give To A Charity of Your Choice In Someone’s Name” would be more appropriate.

Successful missions are ones that prompt you to do an action for someone.

These are some of the reasons why missions might not be approved:

• Missions with religious and philosophical undertones will be rejected. We want to keep Akoha non-denominational for the time being.
• Political missions will probably not be approved. We want non-partisan missions.
• Missions that are not in English will be rejected. We do not want to alienate anyone who does not speak English, we’re simply not yet ready to handle other languages for the time being.
• Offensive, creepy or hostile missions will be rejected, no questions asked.
• Non-violent missions are essential. No room for debate on this one.
• We will not be approving missions that fall within grey areas, or subjective categories, for the time being. We’re simply not ready to accommodate these types of missions right now.
• Anything else that we haven’t thought of that might not be cool.

We hate rules just as much as you do, but safety needs to come first, especially while we’re all at such an early stage of the game.

Once you’ve got a great mission to suggest, you’ll need to get three things ready.

1. The mission title. For example, “Give Flowers To Someone”
2. The description. Think of this as a subtitle, a short and fun description of the mission. For example, “Flower Power”
3. The mission pitch. This is the description of the mission. It should include a description on how it can be played forward, why this mission needs to be sent out to the world, and anything else you can think of that would prompt complete stranger to play this mission.

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Fellow Akohans,

What a month!  We’ve enjoyed the initial tidal wave of new players, through TechCrunch 50 or by mail, and we’d like to welcome you all to Akoha!  We’ve been digesting your feedback and are rolling out changes to make it easier for new users to sign up and play.

We’ve also tweaked the registration, new user and support systems, and have some cool features planned that will allow you to more easily communicate with each other.  As a result, you’ll see some announcements from us this week.  Also, we have some good news to give to many of those waiting in the beta list about their starter kits.

Stay tuned, big things to come!

The Akoha Team