We just released the biggest update to our client since the launch of our public beta back in September ‘08.

Don’t worry, you can still do all of the things that the Raptr client already does.  You can still see when and what games your friends are playing in real time.  You can still launch all of your favorite games directly from the Raptr client versus having to search for them on your hard drive.   And those of you on Windows can still keep your games up-to-date via our intelligent auto-patching system.

But now, in addition to all of those great features, we’ve added instant messaging so you can chat with your friends directly from our client whenever you’d like!  You have been asking for this feature and we’re very excited to be able to make it available to you for both the PC and Mac clients.

We’ve also fixed some other issues that we noticed a few people have been encountering. For example, some of you may have experienced problems in Vista where Raptr was reporting you as playing a game that you hadn’t played in awhile. That issue should now be resolved. For everyone on our Mac client, you’ll find the range of games we detect will be increasing dramatically over the next couple of weeks.

We encourage you to try the new client out.  It’s also a great time to add some more friends to test out the IM functionality and to make your Raptr experience as fun as possible.  If you want to see which of your friends are already on Raptr, check out our handy Friend Importer.

If you’d like to see the full list of features added with this client release, you can check out our official release notes.

Otherwise, feel free to give any feedback you may have on our forums.

You may have noticed that your profile page now features a new module called “People You May Know” below your friends module.  We built this feature because we think that it will help you connect with friends that are already members of Raptr.  In future releases, we will allow you to remove people that you don’t want to appear in this list again.  Over time, the hope is to refine the algorithm so that it will become more and more accurate!

If you have any questions or feedback about this feature, please drop by our forum and let us know!

The response I gave my cousin when she asked if I wanted to join her for lunch was, “Oh, I would love to but I can’t. We’re having a Fire Eating Competition at work.”

The Challenge

The night before, at a local bar in downtown Mountain View, we all gathered for drinks after our off-site meeting. I was enjoying my single-malt, cuing in every once in a while to the banter going on amongst my colleagues when I heard a distinctive voice above all others, “A hundred to one, you’re not gonna finish it.” As the Raptr office manager, my ears are trained to pay attention to everything going on.

The feeding frenzy circled in, “Do it, Pat! Bet ten and you’ll get a thousand bucks!” Pat’s response, “I don’t know if that’s enough incentive for me if it’s as spicy as you guys say it is. I don’t want to die.” He had the opportunity we all wanted and a few felt slighted by his nonchalant demeanor at the chance he was presented with, “What more of an incentive do you need than to beat Dennis?” But that wasn’t enough. The comment that pushed him over, “It’s all mental, dude. That’s why I know you won’t do it.” Keep in mind, I don’t think anyone has ever seen Pat genuinely upset and this is the closest I’ve ever seen. He looked at Dennis, chuckled and said, “You’re kinda pissing me off.” He was in, a dollar to Dennis’ hundred.

That same night, Baz sent me an email with the address of the location and links that pertained to this restaurant, including a Myth Busters segment on this restaurant’s Fire dishes. I prepped an email and we had 10 takers. At 12:30 pm we were off in 4 carloads to a reservation for eighteen, some went merely for entertainment purposes. We pulled up to a dinky shopping plaza in Fremont where our nemesis, My Thai, awaited us.

The Trial

We ordered the dishes that would put us to our doom along with a drink of whatever we thought would help us along in our struggle. Some ordered Thai Iced Tea, some ordered Coconut Milk, while Michael decided upon a new strategy: to numb himself to the heat with two beers. While waiting, we scoped out their “Wall of Flame” to look at who our predecessors were and more importantly, to locate Dennis’ photos amongst the many on the wall.

Kevin refused to watch the video clips as to not psych himself out. Dave brought a workout towel to quench his perspiration (even though he only ordered Mild, instead of Fire but we won’t mention that). Ranah brought his own decanter of water. I tried to convince myself that it was going to be so spicy that I was going to puke to psych myself out. And Aaron came equipped with a camera to capture our pain.

The Rules: 1) It can be any dish 2) The spiciness level has to be Fire 3) There can be no remnants left on the plate 4) It has to be finished in the allotted time frame

We had 40 minutes.

Ranah, Thomas, Kevin, Michael, and myself ordered curry with rice. Pat, Hacky, Tommy, Rico, and Wally ordered noodle dishes. The reason why it is important to state this fact: there is speculation that the noodle dishes are harder to finish.  O_O

Ranah annihilated his dish within less than 10 minutes for 1st place. Dennis stated, and I quote, “Wow. I’m impressed.” That’s huge. Michael’s booze-drinking technique landed him in 2nd place. Thomas trucked along not far behind without one whimper or grimace, coming in 3rd. Pat, with a hundred bucks on the line, triumphantly came in 4th. After a choking/coughing spell where I thought my eyes were going to get launched out of my head, I happily came in 5th. Finally, Kevin, with his hands shaking, and a sweat of determination on his brow, defiantly brought us in for the finish. The six of us smiled for a group Polaroid and were placed on the “Wall of Flame”.

The Aftermath

A few of us felt a bit of a high, some claimed hallucination. The Noodle Eaters were disgruntled and stated that the Curry Eaters had an advantage because the curry was easier to eat. We provided Pat as proof otherwise and surmised that the real reason for our success was the leadership and inspiration Ranah provided to our side of the table.

All in all, our fire eating competition was a success. We showed determination and pure mental will power and the willingness to try, successful or not. And plus, Monday’s topic of Breakfast Conversation was worth it:  informative and graphic, as usual, it circulated around bowel movements and fiery sensations below the waist.

At Raptr, we constantly monitor the feedback from our users with ideas on how we can improve our site.  Our responsibility then is to take those great ideas, build them, and hopefully help improve the lives of millions of gamers.  Today, we have released two new exciting features on our site that our users have been asking for.

People Who Have This Game Also Play

Figuring out whether you like a particular new game can be tough and so can finding new games. Our new module hopes to solve both of these problems. We have aggregated the games that our users have in their libraries and put them through our secret sauce to display recommendations based on them.

So if you know you like a game like Halo 3, you can see what other people who like Halo 3 also play. Similarly, if you have no idea what a game is like, you can take a look at the similar games to get an idea of whether you’d like it!

Improved Social Network Sharing

As some of you may already know, we allow you to broadcast your gaming activity to other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, Ping.fm, and Plurk. We can even update your playing activity as it happens so your friends can join you in your gaming as it happens. However, some of you have asked for the ability to share your activity in a summarized form instead.

Our latest release includes a redesigned settings screen and the new option to share your activity as a daily summary. You can even choose what time of day we send the alert. Simply go to your Account Settings->Sharing and check the daily summaries checkbox under the service that you are connected to (and make sure you have your timezone set up).

We have a ton of great improvements coming so keep your eye out here for all the latest updates. In the meantime, make sure to let us know what you think and what you’d like to see on our forums!

You’ve gotta love a company whose motto is “For Gamers. By Gamers”. We imagine that many of you gamers already know who Razer is but, just in case you don’t, they are the world’s leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming products and peripherals. That means they make all sorts of great stuff like mice, keyboards, and headsets specifically made with gamers in mind.

A lot of people in the office have Razer gear that they love. Aaron and Jay have the Lachesis mouse and they both love the ability to change the sensor sensitivity on the fly.  Michael and Hackett love the DeathAdder mouse for its ridiculously smooth and responsive controls.  And Pat has the Destructor mousepad which he says has helped his Starcraft game.

As our latest partner, Razer will be able to  better understand what your needs and wants are in order to continually strive to raise the bar on their products. They have an amazing team that cares about what you have to say and wants to continue to make great products for gamers. To that end, be on the look out for various contests and promotions that will include chances to win special Razer stuff for you to flex in the gaming world.  So brush up on your skills and get your game on!

Here’s what the president of Razer, Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, had to say about our partnership:

Razer products have traditionally been created and marketed for hardcore gamers and with this new partnership, Raptr is providing us with the best way to build a deeper connections with our existing gamers as well as reach new gamers in a consumer-friendly and innovative way. We feel incredible synergy with Raptr, specifically in our goal to continuously engage new gamers and introduce them to the very best gaming products and services available.

You can get more info about Razer and their products at their Razer’s website or check out the official release on this news.