In preparation for a major enhancement, we have been quietly, but diligently upgrading everything about our business: sales strategy, customer engagement, product design and operations. Since the Forkfly 1.0 launch last year, the market for location-based mobile social commerce apps has exploded and we’ve been listening to all of the feedback. So the first thing we’d like to say is THANK YOU to all of our subscribers and merchants for continuing to patron Forkfly. Your input has and will continue to shape the Forkfly experience. To date we have a national footprint of merchants and subscribers including over 35,000 active Twitter followers. We’re proud to be a trusted brand for on-the-go offer-seekers and a dependable mobile marketing platform for restaurants, entertainment, hotels, wellness and other professional service businesses.

However, we’re humbled in our lessons-learned from the launch of our first product. The Forkfly 1.0 app has had its share of bugs and the feature gap between some of our new-to-market competitors has widened. The mobile app market has grown more sophisticated – and we get it:

• Businesses want higher intimacy and instantaneous messaging with their customers in an easy to update, geo-targeted and measurable dashboard

• Consumers want businesses to adapt to their nomadic lifestyles by providing personalized, social-media enabled interfaces that provide control of branded communications

So we’ve re-engineered our business to bring brands, publishers and consumers together into a next generation social commerce ecosystem. Everything from the business model, user-interface, customer service and device support has been re-conceptualized. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing details on the features and platform upgrades of Forkfly 2.0 as well as insight into our growth strategy. What we can share with you today – and are very proud to do so – is announcing a key acquisition and leadership hires:

As of last week, FlyMedia, Inc. (Forkfly’s parent company) has acquired Mealstub.com, bringing a suite of new features into the Forkfly platform. As part of the acquisition, Mealstub.com founder Spicer Mathews will be joining Forkfly as Chief Technology Officer. Spicer is an entrepreneur and technologist. He’ll bring deep experience in developing web 2.0 and cloud-based service offerings.

Chad Kruse has been hired as Chief Operating Officer. Chad is a natural multi-discipline business leader – blending experience with both start-ups and Fortune 500 businesses in the areas of strategy, marketing, fundraising, corporate development and everything else it takes to keep the lights on at a rapidly growing company.

Keith Gerr has been hired as Director of Social Media. Keith is a seasoned digital marketing strategist having led brands like Jenny Craig, Intel, Autodesk and InFocus into the social marketing arena. Blending customer insight, creativity and technology to inform brand experiences is his forte.

We’re excited to bring you the new Forkfly. Thanks again to all of our supporters.