The goal of this mission is simple.  Select a few of your favorite talks (each are under 20 minutes), and invite friends / acquaintances to watch them with you.  You’ll laugh, cry and be inspired.  Once your party is done, give the Akoha mission card to one of the guests so they can host a party of their own and play it forward.

You’ll find all the talks on the TED Talks website.  We’ve included 7 that we highly recommend below.   The total running time for these videos is approximately 2 hours - it should be enough for a TED talks watching night. Simply make the video full screen (icon on the top right hand corner of each video), press the play button and open your mind.

This mission is inspired by Benjamin Zander’s TED talk on music’s ability to create new possibilities and new connections.  If you haven’t seen this video yet, please do as soon as you can.  It will move you - and you will always remember the notion of looking for “sparkling eyes”.

The goal of this mission is simple; share a live musical performance with someone.  Find out what’s happening in your area and invite a friend to an upcoming musical event.  Or perhaps, share a previously recorded performance with a friend of yours.  The underlying idea is to spend some time appreciating a live, moving musical performance with someone close to you.

While you’re doing it,  give them the mission card so they can play it forward.

We’ve pushed some very visible site updates which you’ll find next time you log into your account.  Notably:

• We changed the footer graphic look.  Ooo, spify!
• We made sure that the feedback page doesn’t dramatically scroll down anymore when loaded
• We fixed that annoying broken wrapper problem on the notification list
• Oh, if you’re using IE6, the header in the confirm card page shouldn’t break anymore …
• … also, if you’re a die hard IE6 user, error message boxes are fixed in the feedback page …
• .. and we did fix the errors when hearting and loading the profile page in IE6.
• Basically, the site is now usable if you’re an IE6 user
• Have a loooooooooong username?  No problem.  We do up to 30 characters now.
• The spinner in the login section of the landing page spins in the right place now.  I was getting dizzy.
• We added new karma headers.
• Remember that reaaaaally confusing “Missions played:” part in your profile?  Well, you can forget about it.  It should be much clearer now.
• You’ll no longer have 2,000 “wildcard.pdf” instances in your downloads directory.  The filename of Akoha printed cards changes according to the mission played.
• (oh .. you can’t print other peoples’ cards anymore.  Not that you could before …. @_@)
• Bob can add play information even after the card has been confirmed by Mary
• The error message actually makes sense now when you try and friend someone twice

We want to hear your feedback!  As always, if you have any questions, catch us on our Twitter page or contact us through the Akoha GetSatisfaction page.

Our Akohans don’t play Akoha for attention or praise. It flies against the very nature of the game. They spread acts of kindness selflessly, without thought of praise or reward.

But once in a while, it’s nice to hear that you’re doing well. It feels good to know that you’re making a difference, and that it is appreciated. That’s why I wanted to take a quick moment to publicly acknowledge some of our amazing players. The combination of their persistent, meaningful, clever and fun game play coupled with their abilities to to infect others with “Akoha fever” has not only made the days of countless individuals, they inspire us all to continue working for real world change.

So without further ado, I want to highlight the following individuals for their dedication to spreading random acts of kindness and making this world a better place:

acton, adelemcalear, allison, anand, antic, bessmunk, cc, danielkehoe, dcoombs, dgryski, digininja, Divalisa, donella, dru, emmaclare, emmapersky, evablue, fumpT, fxt, genevievelamy, hklbry, hmhalff, imelda, janafalls, jeanfahmy, kanter, kymberlie, macournoyer, matthazinski, millette, MindBoosterNoori, missrogue, paulasimoes, pecus, rodbegbie, rowanthorn, Silly, Tal, Talon2claw, Tamu, targeteer2k. trib. WhitneyHoffman, xutopia, ygingras, Zelnox

I wanted to take this moment to congratulate all Akohans in the system for helping to spread happiness in their community.  Well done!

We’re proud to announce the new Akoha Inspired Minds Deck, drawing inspiration from the TED organization.  This mission kit focuses on getting inspired by thought leaders in the field of philanthopy and social activism.  By playing missions such as “Share a TED book“, “Make Your Own TED Wish“, “Share a Documentary” and “Share a Live Musical Performance“, you will have your own chance to participate with other Akoha and TED members by sharing calls for world change.

Akoha’s founders Austin Hill and Alex Eberts came up with the concept of Akoha at TED 2007 while discussing ways to make the world a better place.  Being able to attend TED 2009 as a speaker bears special significance to the team, and gives us a great opportunity to look back on the many ups and downs that were had over the past two years.

At TED 2009, we will be sharing the stage with an exciting mix of thought leaders, such as Seth Godin, Bill Gates, Jake Eberts and Tim Berners-Lee.  Unfortunately, the presentations will not be available live, but TED promptly adds them to their Talks page once the conference is done.

In the days before TED, we’ll be showcasing certain cards, along with the videos and talks that inspired them.  Stay tuned to this blog by subscribing to the Akoha RSS feed for more updates.

You can follow us on Twitter too:

• The Official Akoha Twitter Account
• Our CEO Austin Hill is on Twitter.  He talks about what it’s like to be a serial entrepreneur and to inspire world change.
• I’m the Akoha Community Manager, and you can find me (Sean Power on Twitter) as well.  I’ll make sure @akoha and @seanpower follows you back, though it might not happen right away.

Trying to figure out how to play your next Akoha card?  Check out this blog post that outlines a few tips on how to play Akoha.

Want to talk to us?  Find out different ways that you can reach us on our blog.