First things first: The Robot Co-op has launched 43things! Go check it out right now. It’s a portal for ambitions where you track the 43 things you currently want to do with your life. It’s growing fast to become a unique view into the dreams and desires of the human race. Check out my 43 things, sign up, check it out. You can read the rest of this when you’re done playing…

So, I first got in contact Josh Petersen back in late May of last year as he had been tracking the pre-release hype of Rails and was intrigued. That lead to a visit to Seattle in late June where I got a chance to hang with Erik, Daniel, and Josh for a few days to help them explore the idea, inject a (over?) dose of cocky Less Software mentality, and of course convince them that Ruby on Rails was exactly the platform they wanted to develop 43things on.

Over the following months, Josh and friends retained 37signals to work on the user interface, hired Ruby programmer Eric Hodel and three more guys to have a team of seven working on the company and their first Ruby on Rails application. I kept growing inspired by the idea behind 43things, the confidence shown by the Robots in Rails, and impatient to see the final result.

How fitting then, that the Robots would launch 43things on the first day of the new year. Just in time for you to enter all those New Year’s resolutions and committing to them in public. I’m already busy getting lost in the intensely intriguing world of desires. I could easily see one spending hours and hours and hours browsing the depths.

So there you have it. The second poster-app for Rails. Smashing! Huge congratulations to Ivan, Todd, Bob, Erik, Eric, Daniel, and Josh. You did it, guys. Can’t wait to see this thing skyrocket.