MyGrowUp.com company blog

Release on Sep 23, 08 - Subdomain and Chinese (other) Language

2008-09-23T22:51:00.004-04:00

This is a important Release:

1. Personal Page (Sub-Domain) - user now can visit his/her page by username.mygrowup.com
2. Enable multiple language - user can enter foreign language, such as Chinese, in any field, such as Category, Map, Description etc.
3. (Released on Sept 30) - Change profile layout by drag-drop widgets

Release on Sep 8, 2008 - new paging

2008-09-09T09:43:00.002-04:00

In this release, we change the paging of items to be conventional style: list all pages and select any page will go to that page, instead of existing growing paging design.

Release on Aug 20, 2008 - add map (location) to photo/video

2008-08-20T22:43:00.004-04:00

A great new feature for you:

Easily set location on map for each photos and videos.

Aug 23: Minor release - Improve Batch operations box, add batch adding location
Aug 27: Minor release - Add a staging page after uploading: skip, set location or edit each item.

Release on Aug 12, 2008

2008-08-12T22:26:00.000-04:00

Add batch download for each period collection

Release on July 30

2008-08-02T10:56:00.002-04:00

This release contains:

1. Quick Upload: Automatically put uploaded photos to associated period collections according to photo original date. If period collection for the year not exist, create one automatically

2. Merge period: Select a period, merge it into another period.

Release on July 22, 2008: Add comments and guest book

2008-07-22T21:46:00.003-04:00

Now a user can comments on any items (photo/video/journal) and period of other users.
Also can leave words on any user's guest book.

Release on July 4th, 2008

2008-07-04T23:10:00.002-04:00

Release for following changes:
1. Dynamic help system and more on-spot help
2. New home page (features grouping, new login box etc)
3. Share/post items to Facebook
4. Add tips on some pages
5. In Facebook/MySpace apps, click mygrowup logo will bring up a separate browser for mygrowup home page

Release on Jun 08, 2008: upload video to YouTube and more

2008-06-09T08:08:00.004-04:00

New in this release:

1. now all videos will be uploaded to YouTube
2. re-organized history logs in the profile pages
3. use tab view to organize "catagory", "Tagged People", "From others" in left side menu part.
4. Now user can cancel account

Release on Jun 2, 2008: Add Hi5 application

2008-06-05T09:57:00.000-04:00

MyGrowUp application officially on Hi5.com

Release on May 10, 2008

2008-05-12T11:33:00.002-04:00

Major changes in this release:

1. Separate People tag and Catagory, have a separate people list same as the catagory list.
2. When tag a friend in a photo/video, automatically add a separate period album to the priend's profile, so next time the friend login, he/she will see those photos tagged by others.
3. Add Title to Journal and make item count to include the number of journals. Internally, change the implementation of journal to make journal as another type of items.
4. Send auto notification email to all friends for following actions:
(For each same action, only send once within 4 hours, configurable)
- Add new items
- Tagged friends

Release on Mar 25, 2008: Add to MySpace application

2008-03-26T14:02:00.003-04:00

We successfully added MyGrowUp application to MySpace open social network platform. The user experience to use myGrowUp application is samilar to use the application on Facebook and Bebo.

Release on Feb 13, 2008 - Add making eCard from your photos

2008-02-15T10:41:00.003-05:00

When you view you photo, on the action menu, you can click "Make e-Card" to create a beautifly ecard with the current viewed photo. Currently we have limited template to select, but enough for general use. Enjoy!

Release on Feb 2, 2008 - Bebo Application

2008-02-02T11:14:00.000-05:00

Now Bebo users can add MyGrowUp application the same way Facebook users do.

Also add some minor features such as batch select items use Ctrl/Shift key

Family Collection Concept

2008-01-27T21:55:00.001-05:00

Difference between Family and Group:
Group is a profile which can be modified by group members. Group members can update items in a group profile.
For example, Britney Spears is a group profile, any members joined this group can update items (with some restrictions for members who is not the group owner).

Family itself is not a profile, it just a logical collection of profiles of family members with following features/functionalities:

1. Family collection is a center place for the family collection owner to update profiles of each family members without login to each profile. It is useful for parents to manage profiles of each child.
2. Any user can create a Family collection, then add other users (such as sons, daughters, brothers etc) profile to the family collection (need to be accepted). The user who create the family is the owner of the family collection.
3. All members can see any other members' profile.
4. Easy share items among family member profiles, any photos/videos tagged with another family member will be automatically added to that members counterpart period.
(Considering to differentiate user names used in tag)
5. automatically, dynamically generate family profile (it is a virtual profile, no backend data) with photos/videos with more than two members tagged.

New To Do list

2008-01-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

- Bebo Integration
- MySpace Integration
- Family Tab (add family tab, similar to group when implement, .. see a separate paper )
- Email to upload
- when tag photo, tag list should include friends (bold)
- Group should add a guest password for view only (so non-member also can view it)
- comments or wall
- public profile on home page
- Have a separate page for login to show friends activities
- Customize url http://wwww.mygrowup.com/user/hongliuli
- Customize photo card
- Preference
- Theme for each profile
- For grabbed photo (in external table), should check if been deleted by original owner, if so, show a deleted icon instead of a broken image icon.

Release on Jan 19th, 2008 - Tag photo and get FB photo tag

2008-01-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

This release allow user to tag people in their photos and the tags automatically get listed as categories.

When user add Facebook photos, the original tags on the photo also fetched to MyGrowUp.com account.

(Also fix bug to enable display big life roll in view mode)

Release on Dec 25, 2007: Be able to edit Life Roll

2007-12-31T10:36:00.000-05:00

Add ability to edit Life Roll (previously called MyGrowUp Roll):

1. User can select more photos in their period to be in Life Roll.
2. Private period will not be in Life Roll.
3. Share Life Roll to anyone with email address

Release on Dec 16, 2007 - MyGrowUp Roll and Import Picasa photo

2007-12-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

We added an exciting feature - MyGrowUp Roll

MyGrowUp Roll is a flash slide show that will display your selected pictures (if no select, will use Period Picture) in the timeline sequence. This release only roll your period picture, no selection yet. (next release will allow user to select which picture to be in the roll)

Summary of the release:

1. MyGrowUp Roll - Currently only roll your pictures set as Period Picture. The roll will be displayed in profile page as well as FBML window.
2. Now user can add photo to their MyGrowUp profile from Picasa
3. Make Slideshow in period to be displayed in separate window
4. Small fix: store login timestamp into db when login from Facebook

Release on Dec 9, 2007

2007-12-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

Add view count and misc Layout improvements:

1) Add view count and visitor numbers, also show pictures of the visitor if click on # of visitor URL. This also can further to be used to award users who get most visitors

2) Enabled photo/video/other/journal tabs even though the items inside it is 0. This is in order not to confuse user where to add journal/video when the tab is disabled

3) In horizontal timeline, do not grey unselected period icons.

Release on Dec 1, 2007: Improve Facebook integration

2007-12-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

1. Set default period picture (use the first photo in the period) if user did not set.
We consider this as a important feature to allow user and friends to see a more vivid MyGrowUp FBML profile.

2. Add "Add this application" button in FBML profile to entice a visiting friends to sign up.

3. Change MyGrowUp FBML profile whenever change period or item

4. Make it possible to display period picture in FBML profile if the picture is a Facebook photo

5. Display private icon for period in FBML profile, also disable click on private period.

Release on Nov 29, 2007: Improve Facebook integration

2007-12-01T23:14:00.000-05:00

Important improvement for Facebook integration:

1. Display MyGrowUp app timeline profile page to Facebook friends (FBML).

This change is important, it can enable friends to see your grow-up periods immediately so entice friends to click on your MyGrowUp profile

2. Clean up layout to fit item list page into Facebook canvas
(make three columns of items if left nav bar is not hid)

3. Use Facebook new publish mini-feed api (publishTemplate..)

4. change Admin page to show number of user sign up easily

Historical Moment for MyGrowUp.com

2007-11-19T14:01:00.000-05:00

*** Nov 18, 2007 *** will be a historical date for MyGrowUp.com.
MyGrowUp.com get 70 subscribers from Facebook in a short 2 hours time frame during evening with a $80 advertise budget during these two hours.
From today, we are confident that MyGrowUp.com will grow fast even with very limited Marketing budget. We welcome investors, but we are not very eager to do so at present. We want to grow MyGrowUp.com to a certain size until we actively search for fundings.
Here is our new Advertise layout:
--------------------------------
MyGrowUp
Application

Timeline photo, video in
your profile. Your friends
love to navigate your digital
life from childhood to today.
A true forever memory!

Congradulations!

New Release on Nov 16, 2007: Tightly Facebook Integration

2007-11-16T23:46:00.001-05:00

Today released a almost 100% integrated Facebook MyGrowUp application.

Here is About MyGrowUp Application wording in Facebook
------------------------------------------------------
A better way to organize your Facebook photos/videos.

From your childhood to now, different periods of your life have been recorded on thousands of digital photos and videos. You will want to enjoy memory of certain periods such as your first grade in school or your honeymoon trip, but easily sorting out these photos/videos has always been a challenge, but not anymore.

We are sure you will love using MyGrowUp's timeline based digital media organizer to streamline photos/videos on your Facebook profile.

Following is message I send to some current MyGrowUp application users in Facebook:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your using MyGrowUp to organize photos/videos in you grow-up life.

Now MyGrowUp application is 100% integrated into Facebook platform. All you need to do is to click on MyGrowUp application and login to MyGrowUp once and only once.

With the new MyGrowUp application, you can enjoy following new features:
1. Organize your Facebook photos in MyGrowUp timeline based periods (click "Add Item" button to add photos from Facebook)
2. Notify your Facebook friends through mini-feed of changes you made in your MyGrowUp profile.
3. Your Facebook friends can view your MyGrowUp non-private periods.

Please give us more precious feedback.

Thanks
MyGrowUp team

Here is new wording in Facebook application search result
--------------------------------------------------------
Timeline your digital life
By MyGrowUp.com
Organize your Facebook photos, videos in the timeline based albums. You friends love to navigate your photos and videos from your childhood to today. MyGrowUp application gives you place to enjoy forever memory

Here is wording for Ads on Facebook
------------------------------------
MyGrowUp Application
Timeline photo, video in your profile. Your friends love to navigate your digital life from childhood to today. A true forever memory!

New Release on Oct 28, 2007

2007-10-30T12:38:00.000-04:00

This release is to start a award compaign, accumulate points for each friend a user added. Detail please see http://www.mygrowup.com/growup/topPointsUsers.htm?cover=1

Also changed hompage to emphasis Britiney and Michael's profiles as demo profiles

New Release on Oct 08, 2007

2007-10-14T13:24:00.000-04:00

Add a new important feature: Send period album URL to email. Only email receiver can view the period. The URL sent out can be invalidate by period owner by re-generating a new URL.

New Release on Oct 6, 2007

2007-10-07T08:06:00.000-04:00

A major release to improve user interface:

1. A much cleaner item list page:

Hide links previously on each item to a action arrow button.
Move photo/video/journal tabs to left side, remove redundant photo/video/journal menus on left site
Left side menus can be arranged by drag-drop

2. A professional looking slide-show, which will show big photos and can change background color
3. A more user-friendly way to add new timeline period - add new period in-place instead of in a new page
4. Organize item in All Category only

New Release on Sept 3, 2007

2007-09-04T10:52:00.000-04:00

1. Use www2 as web servers (faster to deploy)
2. Get Original Date of a digital photo, and show a conflict sign if the date does not match with period. (Scanned file do not have original date, so no conflict sign shown)
3. Automatically load next page when click last detail view photo of current page. (need more improvement using synch call)
4. If photo size is less than 600x450, do not display big photo icon

New Release on Sept 1st, 2007

2007-09-01T21:29:00.000-04:00

This is a important release related to photos:

1. A much improved photo batch upload with much user-friendly interface such as photo preview, photo rotate, real-time progress, resume broken transmit and much more.

2. A larger photo are saved for better view

Release on Aug 26, 2007

2007-08-26T22:34:00.000-04:00

Nothing but improve home page looking and feel

In next release, we are going to improve user experience on batch photo upload and give user a 1M photo

2007-08-20T09:34:00.000-04:00

Major changes in this release are on home page to increase search engine awreness:
(see http://www.mygrowup.com)
1. Move all js down to the bottom page
2. Add more relevance keywords description in title meta tag
3. Add more keywords related wording at bottom of home page
4. Re-write head line wording to:
Not just another photo, video sharing site, MyGrowUp provides an unique timeline-based digital life album which is secure for you and your children.
(Previously it is: In this world's best scrapbook you can anchor the fleeting memories of life into a lasting MyGrowUp.com profile.. (not exactly..))

2007-08-06T12:07:00.000-04:00

New release on Aug 05, 07 - Paging, inline edit, new Homepage

2007-08-06T11:58:00.000-04:00

This new release included following changes:
1. Advanced paging functionality on large item list page. We used AJAX to allow user to manually incrementally load all items for a period tag or global tag.
2. Inline edit an item instead of go to a new page. Good for user experience
3. New homepage aims at the first time visitors. We are trying to make homepage simple and "to the point". A new catching title and new simplified animation were included. Following is the snapshot of the new homepage:

MyGrowUp.com banner

2007-07-26T15:50:00.001-04:00

New release on July 23, 2007

2007-07-24T16:21:00.000-04:00

New Release include following features:

1. Group - Group profile can be built by group members.
- Share profile through group is quick and easy

2. Organize items. Now you can order your items by drag-drop

Security Levels and Rules in MyGrowUp.com

2007-07-06T08:22:00.001-04:00

How to view a public profile in MyGrowUp.com

2007-07-05T17:00:00.000-04:00

I will use Michael Jackson profile as example:

1. Search for [Mich Jac] (or [ja m], michael etc), click on Michael Jackson link in the search result page

2. Now you will see Michael's profile is organized in time-line and featured tags shown in the following picture.
(Featured tags are shortcut to see items within the topics you may most interested. the owner of the profile can specify which tags to be featured tags)

3. You can either click on (A) time line period of Michael's profile, or click on (B) featured tag. You may even click on (C) Tag tab directly to select tags

If the period or tag you clicked contains both photo and video, photo tab will be displayed by default. If there is no photo, then video tab will be displayed.

From this simple illustration, you will see that MyGrowUp.com is the best web service site to manage personal lifetime media.

Next time, I will discuss how MyGrowUp.com provides most convenient security tools to secure personal media and easy for selected friends to share.

New Release - Enhanced security functionality

2007-07-03T16:13:00.000-04:00

Now user can define own Friend Types and assign friends to different Friend Type. At Period level, user can specify which friend types can access this period.

MyGrowUp security settings have three hierarchy:
- The first level - profile security,
- The second level - period security
- The third level – items security
An item can be viewed only after you pass all three level security checks

First level security check: Profile

A profile can be set to either Private, Friend, or Public
- Private – No one can see this profile
- Friend – Only friends of this profile can enter the profile
- Public – Anyone can enter the profile

Second level security check: Periods
After passing the First Level Security check, the second level security check will decide if a period can be accessed or not. A period is set to either Private, Restricted Friend, Friend, or Public
- Private – No one can see this period
- Restricted Friend – Some Friend Sets can be assigned to a period. Only the
friends in these friend sets can access this period
- Friend – Only friends of this profile can access this period
- Public – Anyone who passed level 1 security can access this period

Third level security check: Items
Finally, after passing first and second level security check, a item can be viewed or not will depend on security setting of the item. An item security can be set to either Private or Public
- Private – No one can see this period
- Public – Anyone who passed level 1 and level 2 security can access this period

New profile: Britney Spears

2007-06-30T12:38:00.000-04:00

We put Britney Spears profile in MyGrowUp.com: http://www1.mygrowup.com/growup/user/bspears

This is a public editable profile, we encourage you to edit the profile to make the profile the best profile of Britney Spears on Internet

MyGrowUp.com Version 06/2007 Screenshot

2007-06-29T14:40:00.001-04:00

Richest Coverage of Michael Jackson by MyGrowUp.com

2007-06-22T16:50:00.000-04:00

We put full coverage of Michael Jackson's grow up history in MyGrowUp.com: http://www1.mygrowup.com/growup/publicPeriodList.htm?userId=15114

We are continues to enrich Michael Jackson profile by organize his Bad Tour, Dangerous Tour, History Tour, Victory Tour etc into easy to navigate by time line and tag.

How to organize your photos, videos and any files in MyGrowUp.com

2007-06-21T08:04:00.000-04:00

In this era of digital information representing various parts of everyone’s life, MyGrowUp.com solves one big problem for everyone – how to streamline the cluttered digital information of your entire life.

Starting from your babyhood to now, you (or your parents) can submit photos, videos, journals, school essays, and nearly everything to MyGrowUp.com.

In "Period" page, create your album in time line.

In every year, you can also create multiple albums.
In "Period Detail" page, you can view items in different layouts.
- Icons list.
- Detail view.
- Slide show.
When you add or edit photo, video and any other item in MyGrowUp.com, you can attach different tags on one item. Then in "Tag" page, you can view items by selected tags.

How to add friends to view your MyGrowUp profile?

2007-06-19T09:47:00.000-04:00

MyGrowUp is private and secure: only the people you wish to view your profile will be able to do so. Once you sign up to MyGrowUp you can invite your friends and relatives to see your photos, videos, journals and any type of files in MyGrowUp.

Make sure that the share type of your user account is "Friend". You can change it in "Edit Profile" page. (In "Periods" page, click "Edit Profile" link to open it).
Ask your friends sign up in MyGrowUp.com with "Friend" share type.
Go to "Family/Friends" page, Click "Add Friend/Relative" link, select friend type.
Wait for your friend accept you as a friend.
Once your friend accept you as a friend, you and your friend can see each other from "Family/Friends" page.

Use above steps, you can add relatives to see your profile.

If your account share type is "Relative" and your friend's account share type is "Friend", you can see his profile but he will not be able to see your profile.

How to build a large social networking web site: (MyGrowUp.com)

2007-06-19T09:08:00.000-04:00

I have been designed and implemented two large scale web sites. MyGrowUp.com is the latest one. Here I would like to share the secrets of how to build a large web site which uses 100% open source solutions and can scale up to hundreds millions of user subscriptions. Here are 10 things I am going to talk about:

1. Can I build a large web site with all free open source programs? what is "The Gang of Four" open source architecture?
2. How to scale your database so you can easily add more database servers to serve increasing subscribers.
3. What is the best open source cache solution to maximize database server performance
4. How to store tera bytes of multimedia files by adding cheap file servers dynamically.
5. How to load balance your web applications so you can easily add more web servers to serve billions of requests
6. What are other open sources that are necessary for a large website such as Video convert and streaming, server healthy monitor etc
7. What is the best solutions for hosting your web site (If your funding is limited, never go to big hosting company such as RackSpace, also never host by yourself)
8. How to make your web site known to mass without spending big marketing money
9. How to use Javascripts to design some fancy web 2.0 interface (such as those used in MyGrowUp.com)
10. How to integrate your service into Facebook F8 platform

Addition: How to implement a small web site for your business

Internet provides the best foundation to anyone who got a good idea and can put it into success without having funding from venture capital. I benefit from it and I would like others to share it.

Here I will talk about question 1 in the list. I will get motivation to continues on question 2 to 10 next time if there are many diggs on this article. Besides, I do not have complete answer on some item such as Facebook integration because I am still working on it.

1. Can I build a large web site with all free open source programs? what is "The Gang of Four" open source architecture?

Yes, 100% yes. You can build a large and reliable web site without paying a penny on software. The phrase "The Gang of Four" is another term for the popular LAMP (or LAMJ, so I called): Linux, Apache, MySQL and Php/Pearl (or Java). People may ask - are they reliable? I do not want to spend long writing to answer this question. Here I just give some well known web site I know which used these programs:
1. Linux: Even big enterprise such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs used Linux as production servers
2. Apache Tomcat: Walmart is one of the largest online shopping site, its massive web servers are based on Apache Tomcat
3. MySQL: A lot of Goolge, Yahoo services are using MySQL, others include MyGrowUp, Digg, Facebook and more.
4. Php, Java: too many to list here.

Please digg.

Upgrade JSTL from 1.0 to 1.1

2007-06-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

In MyGrowUp.com, we upgraded JSTL from version 1.0 to 1.1.

1. Use Tomcat >5.0
2. Download jstl.jar and standard.jar to WEB-INF/lib
3. Change include tag from
<%@ taglib prefix=”c” uri=”http://java.sun.com/jstl/core” %>
<%@ taglib prefix=”fmt” uri=”http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt” %>
to
<%@ taglib prefix=”c” uri=”http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core” %>
<%@ taglib prefix=”fmt” uri=”http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt” %>
4. In web.xml, use tag

What is MyGrowUp.com

2007-06-18T11:51:00.000-04:00

MyGrowUp.com helps people to securely organize their life-long digitalmemory (pictures, videos, journals, music...ETC) in 2-dimensions: bytimeline in vertical and tags (catagory) in horizontal. Thus greatlysimplifying the way people manage their growing-up memories.

In the long term, this web site targets every one; however, initially itwill be most appealing to parents, whom are interested in creatingprofiles for their children. However, as generations pass, parents willpass this down to their children and eventually MyGrowUp will cross theage barrier.

Just because MyGrowUp is geared towards an older niche, it doesn’t meanthat it wont attract younger users. Think about it this way, time neverstops; everyone eventually will grow old and eventually settle down. Once they get there, MyGrowUp will be there for them. That is why MyGrowUp hasso much potential as a social network. It is geared towards a later andlonger stage in life, adulthood, where users will not only use it forthemselves but also for their children. The seemingly self replenishinghost of users will allow MyGrowUp to grow as a social network, andhopefully a morbidly obese one...

Jawad Shuaib, the founder of Shuzak.com wrote in his article “6 StartupLessons For The Year 2007” [1] "There may never be a site as big as MySpace again." As the president of MyGrowUp I have one question: “How many middle age men or grandparents do you see on MySpace?” Theconvenience and of MyGrowUp and the demand for such a tool will propel itto compete even with social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.[1] http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/6_startup_lessons_2007.php