EkaBlog - Site Blog for Ekaweeka the Small Business Community

Please excuse our diminished post count as of late, we've been focusing on reaching out to people to come and join the community. We have also been developing a number of very exciting developments. To name a few, we'll have a Yahoo/Google/Hotmail/Aol address book importer soon, a Bulk Image Uploading Device, and a RSS feed crawler to help you all find the RSS feed on your blog (as it seems to not be so easy with our current platform).

Today however, we get the pleasure to announce that you can bring all your photos from your website, myspace or other online entity with the click of a button! That's right, we made an image "importer". We got the idea from This Next. They have a nifty method of bringing pictures from websites you are browsing, so we just made our own version where you specify your website url, send out the web bot (web bot is 21st an acceptable term in this web 2.0 age yes?)

The bot returns all the pictures it found while crawling your site and any other pages linked to from it. Then you pick the pictures to bring over to your profile click "upload" and in seconds all the pictures are up!

This is the ultimate method for bringing your pictures over because it will save you literally hours and hours of image uploading.

You can give this a try by looking for "Import" in the photo section of your account page, or "Import" in the Edit Photos Page. If you have questions about the photo import tool, send us an email we'll be happy to answer your questions.

The other development is the categorization feature. Go to your Edit Profile Page, under the headline, about, and type fields you'll see a section that says "My Category:", click "select category" and the drop down menus will appear. Choose your most relevant category, and click "add category". That's it you're done! Think you belong in more then one category? No problem, just go through the steps described above again.

That's it folks, more of these good things coming. Hope you have fun!

I'll admit it – what first caught my eye about Jessica's jewelry site was the unusual name she used for her pieces: Future Momo Jewelry. And her answer to my question about where this name came from, is just as unique and unusual as the jewelry sold under it.

Jessica is a non-profit fund raiser by day, but works her artistic “calling” into a busy life. Her work is inspired by nature – among other things – and quite literally!! She says, “I studied Botany at college and find that a lot of my inspiration is drawn from my love of nature. Whenever I feel the need for some creative ideas, I take a trip down to the arboretum or the conservatory in Golden Gate Park.” Jessica also draws on her Asian roots – often being drawn to Asian-inspired pieces. One thing she doesn't look to for ideas? Trends. Jessica says they come and go, but she wants her jewelry to feel timeless.

Future Momo jewelry is created using semi-precious stones such as garnet and smoky topaz, as well as crystals, Venetian glass, and vintage charms. Prices range from $20 for a pair of earrings to around $100 for a semi-precious stone necklace.

Jessica lives in San Francisco, and takes advantage of the artistic cities and surrounding areas to sell her items. She says she usually sells her jewelry at trunk shows in the SF Bay Area, and also sells at various brick-and-mortar boutiques, such as Stitch Lounge (in San Francisco).

Additionally, you can find her online, and www.futuremomo.com, and on Etsy at futuremomo.etsy.com, www.shoporangebutton.com, and right here on ekaweeka (http://www.ekaweeka.com/413/)

Jessica says when she's not fund-raising, jewelry-creating, or showing her things, she also likes to crochet and would like to learn how to knit. “I can sew basic things, but have never attempted anything too complicated! I also enjoy things like photography, embroidery and cross-stitching.”

So ... back to the story behind “Future Momo.” Jessica explains it, “comes from a song by one of my ex-boyfriend's bands, called "Give Us This Day.” In the song, there is a lyric that says "Every future moment... We may take them as they come.” He changed Moment to Momo, which is the name of my cat and means peach in Japanese, when he sang to me.”

If you live in the Bay Area and would like to see Jessica's jewelry as well as support other artists, come to Mafia Made, a yearly event put on by San Francisco Craft Mafia (organized in part by Jessica). It’s Sunday, October 21st from 12-5 at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. All the information can be found on the website www.sfcraftmafia.com.

For those of you using Ekaweeka to sell items, you'll be happy to hear we're working on direct payment methods. So soon when you sell stuff, the payment will go directly into your paypal/google account without our mediation.

Since we have cut out all fees for item sales (which means it's free to you to sell on Ekaweeka) it saves us money and you time to have the payments and orders sent directly to you when they happen.

All you need to do to while we get this new piece installed is go to your "seller details" located at: http://www.ekaweeka.com/userdetails.php and enter your Paypal and Google email payment address.

*** Also keep your eyes open for our rebrand, Ekaweeka land is about to get a lot more sexy!