12 December 2008 marks the second annual Spouse 2.0 Day! The day dedicated to remembering those running your other startup.

In its inaugural year, Spouse 2.0 generated 4,250 references in google for a day dedicated to the significant other of startup-founders (and IT folks at large).

2008 saw massive investment in Web 2.0 start ups, the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, and the fastest rate of growth and change on the Internet and Social networking since the tech bubble burst in 2000 – Entrepreneurs have never been busier.  Spouse 2.0 day is an opportunity for start up founders and staff to take time out to remember their other start up – their personal relationship or family.

The day encourages everyone to buy a small gift for their significant other and blog, tweet or share about it all over the web. Posts will be aggregated into a combined feed (accessible from the site) for the world to watch.  This doesnt have to be limited to blogs and Twitter, however, and could be a nice message on your partner’s Facebook Wall.

Last year, I bought @MrsAngell a Jamie Oliver cookbook (as she is a massive fan of cooking) – and this year I have gone for something a little more “traditional”…but I obviously cannot spill the beans yet – ’cause she ain’t got it yet! 😉

So anyway, in the spirit of love and companionship I want to tell my best friend, that I love her more than she knows and I thank her for her patience, care and support.

I love you honey. 🙂

As many of you know, today (in America at least) is Spouse 2.0. Some people assume that it’s like another opportunity to mirror Valentine’s Day, which is fine; but thats a holiday for love and Spouse 2.0 is about thanks, spun with a geeky name to make it more accessible for us geek types.

Let me explain my situation a little bit.

Julie is my loving wife. And obviously we care about one another a great deal, but being a start-up founder is very hard on the loved ones in your life. Constantly being at the computer distant conversations by the cool glow of an LCD screen (or three). And while she might tolerate my somewhat poor relationship behavior, because of the hope of financial freedom or because I am doing what I love; the fact remains that it must be incredibly hard.

Now while this is true for so many other partners out there, its my firm belief that Julie has it harder than most. You see, not only does she also work full time and do an amazing job looking after the 2 little ones, but she has to deal daily with TWO “start-up” founders in her house.

She cooks us dinner, cleans our house, does the shopping the laundry and basically makes our lives such that we don’t really have to think about much other than Particls.

She is a Particls user, however, so I do find some solace in the idea that we actually save her some time – somehow evening the score. But I don’t actually say “thank you” nearly as much as I should. So, here, in this public forum; “Thank you Julie”.

But alas, she does tolerate far more than even a cool and reasonable person, so I was more than happy to purchase her a gift (or two) to show my appreciation for her help and patience. I (well, actually “we” because Chris came with me) bought her the Jamie Oliver book “Jamie at Home” and the newish Michael Connelly book “Echo Park”.

So my last act of Spouse 2.0 day is to publicly thank Julie for her endless devotion to 2 start-up founders who love her unconditionally.

Happy Spouse 2.0 day Julie, and all the other Spouse 2.0’s out there.