chore(): release alpha.0

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+<a name="2.0.0-alpha.0"></a>
+# 2.0.0-alpha.0 titanium-octopus (2016-03-15)
+
+### First release of angular2-material!
+
+This inaugural release includes 6 components:
+* [md-button](src/components/button) (buttons and anchors)
+* [md-card](src/components/card)
+* [md-toolbar](src/components/toolbar)
+* [md-sidenav](src/components/sidenav)
+* [md-checkbox](src/components/checkbox) 
+* [md-progress-circle and md-spinner](src/components/progress-circle)
+
+As the alpha process continues, these components will continue to evolve. There *will* be
+breaking changes between alpha releases; the alpha releases are here for people that want an
+early look or who like to live on the edge and are very tolerant of breaking API and behavior 
+changes.

README.md

@@ -6,7 +6,32 @@
 This is the home for the Angular team's Material Design components built on top of Angular 2.
 
 ### Project status
-Nothing has been released yet. An alpha.0 is coming soon.
+The alpha has begun! See the [changelog](CHANGELOG.md) for more information.
+
+Individual components can be installed with `npm`:
+```bash
+# The core module is required as a peerDependency for other components
+npm install --save @angular2-material/core @angular2-material/checkbox
+```
+
+If you're using SystemJS as your module loader, your configuration for the angular-material
+packages should look like:
+```js
+// The core package is required as a peerDependency for other components.
+'@angular2-material/core': {
+  format: 'cjs',
+  defaultExtension: 'js',
+  main: 'core.js'
+},
+'@angular2-material/checkbox': {
+  format: 'cjs',
+  defaultExtension: 'js',
+  main: 'checkbox.js'
+},
+```
+
+During alpha, breaking API and behavior changes will be occurring regularly.
+
 Check out our [directory of design documents](https://github.com/angular/material2/wiki/Design-doc-directory) for more insight into our process.
 
 We are still getting our CI infrastructure (tests, lint etc.) set up, as well as building out