After almost two years with having the same designed website & same features we decided in April to update our site so we could add new features, like "The Social Alarm Clock." Please note with this feature "Invite friends to wake you," means you invite them to choose your morning alarm tone, like wake up to Happy Birthday sounds on your birthday; friends CAN NOT change the alarm time you set.
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Its been three years since we publicly announced and launched Sleep.FM and it's "The Social Alarm Clock® ," concept. Many may wonder why after 3 years are we finally getting around to releasing it?

Besides our day jobs & finances keeping us busy, we did not want to release the concept until we got it just right; as a whole the idea needed some work/thought. Like if we allowed your friends to choose any sound to wake you, that could be an unpleasant experience. Some friends might want to be mean and wake you up to the sound of a fire alarm, per example. Thus, to ensure a pleasant experience each time, Sleep.FM's algorithm chooses the sounds(YouTube videos) your friends' select as your alarm. You, the user invite your friends to wake you to certain types of wake ups (Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy Valentines Day, Random 1980s wake up and lots more) and your friends then choose from 3 Youtube videos. When your alarm goes off there is no doubt you will wake up to something that makes you smile.

There are other ways we are thinking too, like allowing you to choose the videos your friends select for you or allowing friends to search youtube and choose only nice, pleasant & familiar sounds(block any search results that wake you to awful noises). Overall it's a work in progress, but we are looking forward to seeing your enjoyment of The Social Alarm Clock, as well hearing feedback on how we can make it better for you :)

We welcome you to please start enjoying your first of many social alarms :-)

Thanks for using Sleep.FM.

"Don't wait to hear Happy Birthday, wake up to it!" - Sleep.FM

We wanted to apologize for the recent problems we had with the site, which started on Tuesday Sept 21st. The problem was noted while at our full time gigs and we were eager to rush home and fix. Though, ironically the previous night the Internet connection we use to work on Sleep.FM had gone down and was finally fixed in the late evening of Thursday, Sept 23rd.

You may have noticed due to the issues we were having with our Sleep.FM domain name we sent you to our test/production site, in which we currently are testing out our latest features & new design.

Many may wonder why make a new design; if it's not broke don't fix it. Unfortunately, the new features we have added and will be adding do not work properly in our current site. New features like flight status alarm, typing alarm time + sound like www.sleep.fm/Weather7am and others worked best in our new interface. If you preferred the flipclock to the new digital one, don't worry we will bring the flipclock back; option to switch between flipclock & digital!

Overall, we apologize for our downtime and confusion we may have caused! We are very excited for our upcoming site update & future updates this new design allows us to create!

Thank you for using, Sleep.FM - The Social Alarm Clock®
Ryan, Muthu and Susannah

We are happy to say our iPhone app is now available for purchase in the app store!

Wake up to our one of kind alarms sounds, like...
- Current Weather Report (Temperature in either Fahrenheit or Celsius (New))
- Today's Forecast
- Status of your Airline Flight(delayed or on-time) (New)
- Spoken Time
- Funny Rooster Alarm
&
- Choose Your Favorite MP3 as alarm

Further, you can set three different alarm times each with their own unique sound; i.e. Alarm #1, wake to favorite MP3, Alarm #2 wake to Current Weather and Alarm #3 wake to Today's Forecast. Also, connect to Facebook or Twitter and wish friends a good morning when your alarm goes off.

We are excited for future updates to our app and can not wait to hear your feedback!

Thank you for using Sleep.FM!

We are excited to have launched an updated homepage with new features!



New features in this update include....

- Today's Forecast that covers your weather conditions for the next 12 hours.

- Suggestions in various weather files to bring an umbrella or wear boots!

- Location detection based upon your IP address; no zip code entry needed!

- Added an additional voice - a familiar radio voice who is heard in all major US markets.

Thank you for using Sleep.FM and please tell your family & friends about us! Also, we love hearing your feedback on our forum, thru Twitter and or using our contact form!


"Sleep in, schools are two hours late!" - Sleep.FM

We are elated to be apart of the first DreamIt Ventures program! The experience was invaulable to Sleep.FM and we personally want to thank Mike Levinson, David Bookspan and Steven Welch for an amazing opportunity!

Catch us & our fellow DreamIt teams in the video below!
Thanks for watching and we encourage all entrepreneurs to check out DreamIt Ventures!

"Go back to sleep, X is canceled!" - Sleep.FM

I began work on Sleep.FM in November 2006. At the time I was working at a great company, with great people, but longed to start my own company! Up until this time a lot of my energy was focused on purchasing my first home. In the end though, I saw that if I bought a house, creating and starting my own company while paying a mortgage would be extremely challenging! So..., I took the money I saved for a house and started up!!!

In the beginning of November 2006 I thought to create an online radio station for sleeping, so I searched Godaddy and was happy to see that Sleep.FM was available. I began Sleep.FM's web design soon after and via the net, hired Muthu from an outsourcing web developer site. We immediately hit it off over instant message and started what has been a great working relationship and friendship! I never gave much thought at the time that this would turn into a vested team and one day we both would be living on the same continent, but....



As seen in the picture and under amazing circumstances and even a better opportunity for Sleep.FM, Muthu and I had our first real world conversation. During Sleep.FM's development, Muthu lived in Australia for 9 months and then moved back home to India in September 2007. In March of this year it so happened that circumstances separate from Sleep.FM brought him to live here in the US! We had made plans to meet in the middle of April, but an awesome opportunity changed our plans and we had the pleasure of meeting each other in the real world in Philadelphia! We further solidified our friendship and team unity during the course of an amazing two day conference/opportunity that we will speak more of in the future!

The Internet is an amazing resource that continues to revolutionize and enrich our daily lives! It has brought and allowed two like-minded individuals from different continents to build a friendship and create a new form of communication through a centuries old wake up device!

"Don't wait to hear Happy Birthday, wake up to it!" - Sleep.FM

We would like thank the press and bloggers from across the globe for their support!

Below, please enjoy articles we have stumbled onto!

Sleep.FM - Wake Up Little Suzie! by Shachar Pessis: AllMyFaves.com
Top Search Terms on Twitter: Sleep.fm by F. Lardinois: ReadWriteWeb.com
Turn Your Laptop Into an Alarm Clock by Dave Johnson: Bnet.com
Sleep.FM: Wake Up to the Web by Sardar Mohkim Khan: StartUpMeme.com
Use Sleep.FM to Wake Up with the Web by MysticGeek: HowToGeek.com
Sleep like a rock, wake up like Iron Man! by Josh Lowensohn: Cnet.com
Wake up like Iron Man! by Kevin Purdy: LifeHacker.com
SleepFM: Wake Up with Smart Online Alarm Clock by Kaly: MakeUseOf.com
DreamIt Ventures's First Graduating Class by Jason Kincaid: TechCrunch.com
Sleep.FM - Social Alarm Clock by Allen Stern: CenterNetworks.com
Sleep.FM, Let Your Friends Be Your Alarm Clock by Kris Abel: CTV.ca
Sleep.FM - The Social Alarm Clock by Kristen Munson: www.SocialMediaMom.com
Sleep.FM by Matthew Murphy: www.emilychang.com/ehub
Social Net-Waking by Brian: www.urbanbohemian.com

Articles linked below have been translated to English by Google.
Please choose remove frame to read entire article
Arrive Sleep.FM: Wake Up Web 2.0(Spanish) by Jose Mendoila: Engadget.com
Sleep.FM: an alarm clock online social(French) by Marc Rees: PCInpact.com
Sleep.FM invented the clock online social(French) by Atelier.FR
Sleep.FM (Dutch) by Tonie: www.bright.nl
Sleep.FM: nice way to wake up (Spanish) By Rosta:www.Bits20.com
Sleep.FM article in Croatian www.net.hr

If you have written an article or blog post that is not included here, we'd love to hear from you! Please click here to get in touch!
Again, thank you for your support and interest, Sleep.FM

At the end of September I made my way up to New York for Centernetworks' first mixer. There I met some cool people who informed me of the New York Tech Meetup. The NY Tech Meetup is a forum run by the founder of Meetup.com and Fotolog.net, Scott Heifferman. Scott and his crew choose five to six new startups and provides each five minutes to demo something cool to the New York Tech Community. I, fortunately missed the cut off date for the October Meetup, so I submitted Sleep.FM for November's Meetup. I, say fortunately, because as the month of October went on it was evident that anomalously Facebook and Microsoft would be presenters along with the chosen startups. All in all, about 15 to 20 companies submitted to present at the event and on Friday, November 2nd I received word that Sleep.FM was chosen - AWESOME!

On Monday, November 5th I drove up to NYC from Baltimore to meet with the IAC tech guys who were graciously helping the presenters prepare for their presentations. While at the venue, it struck me that I will be presenting in the IAC building which houses Match.com, Ask.com and LendingTree.com to name a few - very cool! Also, when I arrived I met with Dawn the co-organizer of the event where she showed me the list of presenting companies. I had to do a double take, because there were only two new, unknown startup companies on the list; Drop.io and Sleep.FM. I looked again and realized that Sleep.FM will be presenting alongside Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Vimeo and Tumblr - AWESOME!

The day of the event I woke up around 4am to practice and prepare my presentation. I did so until 6pm, where I finally resigned myself to just chill and mingle with the other presenters. I was seated in the front row, where I had the opportunity to speak with Alex from Microsoft's PhotoSynth project. PhotoSynth is an amazing technology that provides a innovative, mind blowing interface to simultaneously view thousands of images and to also find all images on the Internet of a building or a structure. At 7pm, the event started and Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel, demonstrated his , a la "Minority Report," computer interface. After Jeff, I was the next presenter and surprisingly enough, I was more excited then nervous. I began with my eight sentence introduction that detailed the what, why, when and how in regards to Sleep.FM, which also prepared the audience for Sleep.FM's promotional video. The video lasted 1:30 and around the 1:00 mark where the audience viewed a user, using the service I heard a few people clap, then a few more, then more, until the entire audience filled the venue with applause. WoW, WoW, WoW - great to hear! I quickly thanked the audience for their warm response and then headed into demonstrating the web site! I showed the audience my Sleep.FM room and then went into Zanna's room to detail how users interact with each other. From here, it was time to wrap up the presentation and answer some questions from the audience, like, "Who is your target audience?" and "How did you come up with this idea?" I answered the first question saying, "Anyone who sleeps and wakes," as this is not just telling each other to wake up and good morning, rather this is a new way to communicate with one another! We don't use email just to say hello and my users are not using their Social Alarm Clocks just to say , "Wake up!"

Sleep.FM is honored to had the opportunity to present alongside these well established companies and we thank Scott and his crew for this amazing opportunity! We are excited about the promotion and market dissemination of time based audio messaging and are working towards the day when waking up to just an alarm buzzer is old fashioned and lonely!

Susannah and I arrived at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco on Sunday evening at 8pm and we unloaded all our bags and technology onto the bellhops carrier. We were excited and honored that Sleep.FM was a semi-finalist for the TechCrunch40 conference and wanted to be well rested for the event, so we crashed upon reaching our room.

On Monday morning around 6:20am we donned our Sleep.FM t-shirts and loaded up our Tablet PCs to Sleep.FM. A tablet is great to have when you want to give on the fly presentations. We spent most of Monday walking around talking to attendees about Sleep.FM. The conference wrapped up at 6pm on Monday, so Susannah and myself went up to our room to browse the Internet. In doing so, we stumbled upon TechCrunch40 attendee votes, where we noticed Sleep.FM had received 2 positive votes even before our Tuesday demonstration. This was exciting and uplifting news for us!

Tuesday morning we set up our DemoPit station at 6:20am. Around 7am or so attendees started to flow into the DemoPit and from there it was 12 hours of non stop great conversation about Sleep.FM. It was great to display and get the word out about Sleep.FM to the attendees. We loved hearing all the positive and passionate conversation, especially those who gave suggestions, those who asked, "How did you come up with this?" and a father stating, "This is great, my son is going away to college and his Mom will still be able to wake him up!" At 6:20pm, we tore our station down, went up to our room and checked our votes. Our ranking was a 4.0 out of 5.0 with 36 additional votes from Mondays previous two. I thought that was great, but it was better then great as comparing other DemoPit companies only four others received more positive scores and amount of votes then Sleep.FM! Awesome!

The last picture here, is one I really like, because it shows me standing tall in San Francisco! I feel elated to have this experience and positively dealt with all that came with it. Sleep.FM has become a large part of my life and I am excited to see the day when Im watching a movie and the star of the show is awakened by her Social Alarm Clock; one that sits on her nightstand, through her mobile Internet device or through her PC to TV connected setup!