Fox will be relaying user feedback to management and translating that feedback into product features. Fox worked previously for two leading start-ups in the identity and OpenID space - as VP of Product Development at JanRain and as Community Developer at Vidoop.

The launch and private-beta of Panels was announced back in September by founder, CEO and Portland serial entrepreneur Craig Barnes. Barnes says Panels was "inspired by the nutritional panels found on food that are mandated by the federal government". The service provides information for blog readers about companies that a bloggers write about in their posts, thus keeping readers on a blogger's own site.

[Editor's note: I'm not sure I buy the nutritional panels explanation of this idea's genesis. There sure are a lot of services like this already, though Panels does look particularly sophisticated. - Marshall]

UPDATE:
Literally at the time of publishing this post, Panels was moving out of the private-beta mentioned in the article. The email alerting us to the launch arrived just shortly after this post went live. We want to extend a congratulations and our well-wished to the Panels team!