After launching Giphter 4 months ago, we figured it was about time to start communicating with our users. So on this very important day, Nate and I are proud to announce the unveiling of our shiny new blog! Stay tuned for news, updates, feature releases, vendor additions, business reviews, technology breakthroughs, and anything else that could possibly be labeled as Giphter related.

In case you’re a Giphter newbie, here’s a few milestones to get you up to speed. Be sure to also check out About Us to learn about the founders and why Giphter was launched in the first place.

• August 4, 2007 - Giphter is born. Operating from a home office in Birmingham and a pool house in Avon, CT, the concept starts to take shape.
• October 15, 2007 - Giphter launches in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison Originals signs on as the first vendor, selling a group certificate redeemable at roughly 40 of Madison’s best independent restaurants.
• December 1, 2007 - BirminghamMenus launches a group gift certificate good at 20 (and growing) of the best independent restaurants in Birmingham, just in time for the busy holiday season.
• January 22, 2008 - The Cincinnati Independents sign on as Giphter’s third group, offering a gift certificate redeemable at roughly 30 of Cincinnati’s best restaurants.
• February 13, 2008 - After learning and evolving throughout the holidays, Giphter launches version 2 of their accounting software for vendors, offering a much more flexible version of their payments system. More details to come…
• February 22, 2008 (today) - Giphter launches a blog, offering a forum to communicate updates and interact with users.

So that’s the scoop. Check back soon and often. Please don’t be afraid to offer your own comments, because hey, at Giphter the P-H stands for Friends!