Archive for the 'Facebook' Category

More Reviews for Kinzin

Wow - a whole series of reviews have come out in the wake of Kinzin’s new photo finishing subscriptions. Here’s a small sampling:

Three Kid Circus says:

For the delivery service alone, Kinzin is going to make me look like a rock star. But the online hub for interested family and friends is really cool, too - and keeps all those (photos from my) “Mommy Weekends” safely segregated.

Pumpkin Products chimes in with:

Kinzin allows you to upload pictures and stories to your page. You can create memory books, journals, family newsletters, and even more, all on Kinzin! But my favorite feature of all, by far, and the one that has initiated a truce of sorts with the grandparents, is that you can sign up for an additional service that mails your best 10 photos from every month to the address/es of your choice(…) No one has anymore excuses for why they don’t have pictures of your children featured prominently on their mantle. Plus, it’ll help out those non-computer literate members of your families (we all have ‘em). Zero effort from you, and voila! You’ve kept everyone up to date!

Modern Mama Marvels loves that the invitation process doesn’t require your relatives to go through a cumbersome sign-up process:

It’s an easy, private photo sharing site that even my most technologically-dumb family members can navigate. I was easily able to share our account with them and they were easily able to (…) view the pictures that we uploaded.

Ebony Mommy surprised her Mom with the Kinzin prints:

I chose a surprise tactic in the actual sending of my pictures just to get my family’s first reaction to receiving the images. Each grandmother was thrilled to get pics of their grandsons- one was so excited she called me immediately gleeful in the surprise of these recent pictures. She stated that while she enjoys getting pictures online having the real tangible photographs is something she really treasures. Getting through the protective layers of wrapping to get the special pictures of her boys made the moment even more exciting. Her strong hint that this is the perfect gift idea for families who live apart from grandchildren and loved ones definitely let’s me know we’ll be using Kinzin again…

It’s wonderful to get some positive feedback. We were a little nervous having the reviewers be the first people in to use the new print functionality, but it seems to have worked just as designed (thanks to the best development team ANYWHERE - I love working with these guys).

Crazy MomCat reviews Kinzin

Crazy MomCat has posted a review of Kinzin today. She starts out by describing her ongoing concerns about privacy, her frustration with existing photo sharing sites that make privacy hard and bombard your visitors with ads for photo finishing services. Then:

“…I think I’ve finally found a solution to all of this. Kinzin is a new site dedicated to protecting your privacy while letting you show family and friends what is new with you and your family.”

That’s great stuff. She loves the new photo “print and mail” service as well, which she uses to keep her Father-in-law up to date with the latest photos of the kids. Thanks, Crazy MomCat. Everything we do, we do for you! :-)

CBC Television Interview With Kinzin’s Michael Fergusson

A few weeks back, Michael Fergusson was interviewed in a 6 o’clock Vancouver news piece on the MySpace security breach. Watch the clip here, from the comforts of your own computer screen:

From “Launch” to “Garage”, techy event speaking.

Kinzin "These Are My Kids" at Launch Party VancouverThe Kinzin team spent the better part of their Friday evening at Launch Party Vancouver 03, showing off the application These Are My Kids. If you haven’t read or heard what this latest app is all about, please read more here.

It was a fantastic evening, to say the least. Michael, Frank, Julie and Paul held court all night to the many new fans wanting to find out more, take a look at the interface and have a spin for themselves. We are extremely grateful for the interest and enthusiasm for These Are My Kids from those of you who attended, and we very much appreciate the time that each person gave to learn more about it. It is an incredibly rewarding feeling to have such a great tech community come to such an event and to support the work that is being produced. It was inspiring and exciting.

A quick, but very necessary thank-you to the organizers of LPV: Maura, Danny, Dimitri; and to the sponsors as well: Sun Microsystems, Strutta, Techvibes, Layer7, QC Docs and Growthworks. This event is a treat. Looking forward to the next.

And onto the next…

Monday night, Michael Fergusson will be at the Vancouver Facebook Garage Event at the Vancouver Film School. There may just be a little room left on the event page, so add your name and come check out Vancouver’s newest and hottest Facebook applications. There are amazing things happening in this city, and this event shows off the best of what’s being developed for Facebook, and beyond…

And if you can’t make it out, just follow along on Miss 604’s live blogging rendition, and watch the night unfold before your very own monitor-watching, live-streaming eyes. :)

Kinzin at Launch Party Vancouver 03

TAMKKinzin will be showcasing their latest application, “These Are My Kids”, at the third installment of Launch Party Vancouver this week. Sun Microsystems, one of the key sponsors of this event, will be unleashing their Start-Up Essentials program, and Kinzin has a neat connection to Sun as well: Joyent, Kinzin’s first choice for an application infrastructure, uses the Sun Fire X4500 server. Michael Fergusson will be there to hold court at the Lamplighter Pub in Gastown, along with a few other Kinzin team members. Launch Party is a great chance for local technologists, community builders, investors and sponsors to all gather to meet one another and discover more about the great technology produced in Vancouver.

“These Are My Kids” is launching next week and we’re excited for parents to discover the application that solves many of those problems that often come with posting photos and updates of your kids for the loved ones who want to watch them grow. Read more about the application and its features.

If you’re in Vancouver, come down to the Lamplighter between 5:30 - 8:30 this Friday and meet the many companies and technology builders in Vancouver that will be there to show their work, meet new people, and have a lot of fun!

Introducing “These Are My Kids”: Beta

These Are My Kids Beta

Kinzin’s newest application, “These Are My Kids”, is ready. Almost. The latest app from Kinzin is currently in the Beta phase, soon to make the leap to full launch. The app is quite stunning as-is in every way, in design and technology - it’s easy, efficient, creative, useful, private and fun - but we’d like to perfect it, so we need your help and your feedback.

A Little Bit About The Application “These Are My Kids”:

In a few points, or less, here’s what the app is all about:

  • Resolves all of your photo headaches and problems of multiple publishing networks and accounts - it’s an all-in-one!
  • Easy access to your personal photos by invite only - no sign-ups, no accounts, no hassle for the end user (your defined friends)
  • It’s Private - Only those friends explicitly invited to view your photo books will be able to see your content
  • You’re creating beautiful photographic books of your children’s lives to keep forever (soon to be available to print as well!)
  • Photos and Comments are delivered to all of your loved ones with the greatest ease, inside of outside of Facebook, and even in the mail (coming soon!)

Add “These Are My Kids” here and let us know what you think! You can comment within the application (there is a prompt along the top of the app), or join the Beta Testers Group for the app and comment in the Discussion Board. You can of course comment here as well.

Before Going Forward, We Must Go Back: Raincity’s Dave O. Talks To MF on Kinzin, “Are You Normal?”, Facebook and The Online Family Experience

Michael Fergusson on RCS RadioWhile Kinzin is getting set to release their next web application that will allow families more opportunities to share, Dave Olson at Raincity Studios posted this episode on Raincity Radio just before the Holiday season. It’s a great interview (in fine Dave O. fashion) with Kinzin’s Michael Fergusson - there’s a lot in this conversation that is interesting and inspiring: on Kinzin, web applications, privacy, family, our online habits and how Kinzin wants to work along side of, or “on top of”, social networks to help the online world share what’s important and valuable to them.

Get the podcast here.
photo credit: Dave O.

“Vancouver’s Biggest Facebook App” (According To…)

Adonomics
…US!
No, not quite. We’re not *that* cheeky. But there are some cold, hard facts that do make the Kinzin Team take notice and feel pretty swell about all that’s evolved with our Facebook app, “Are You Normal?”.

Paul Prescod, Kinzin’s DAD, uses this neat Facebook analytics and advertising platform, Adonomics: it’s OPEN and FREE, and quite fun to play with, if you’re into Facebook analysis. And really, who isn’t? Adonomics gives you statistics on your daily active users, gains and losses, measured in days, weeks and months and displays your Facebook ranking overall.

So we thought we’d take a look and compare our app with the likes of another Vancouver success story, this city’s most successful app to date, Hockey Pool. (Go Canucks.) Hockey Pool grabbed a pretty substantial audience right off the bat (kudos to Ben - it’s a great application!) The unfortunate reality for this application is that it’s seasonal, and as Paul pointed out to me, it helps that our app is, well, not . :)

According to the chart, we’re beating Hockey Pool (gasp!) in two out of three metrics and could be closing in on the third… Thanks to Adonomics, we can officially state with zero discrepancy that “Are You Normal?” is Vancouver’s biggest Facebook app for installs. Hey Ben: Maybe we should have a go at a Hockey Normalcy app….

How Normal Are Your Habits?

Habits“Are You Normal?” has just released the latest survey - it’s a doozy that most can relate to or comment on: How Normal Are Your Habits? We all have them, good or bad, and it’s kind of nice to be encouraged to get a small glimpse into your true habitual self. Visit “Are You Normal?” here to begin.

The Kinzin family continues to receive some excellent contribution and suggestions from users all over the world - want to be a part of the party? Please suggest topics or write full surveys on our discussion board or become a fan and give us your thoughts on the fan page.

Look for new surveys weekly!

User Contribution At Its Finest

Last week , Are You Normal? crossed over the 500K mark and yesterday hit Number One on Facebook’s Application Directory Recently Popular list.

Over 500k
So what we’ve done is reach out to our many users and ask for their input, ideas, contribution and advice on the content of our application. We’ve had great response world wide and are continuing to receive survey ideas, topics and completed surveys.

It’s been pretty neat to speak with some of the fans of the application, via Facebook messaging for the most part. At the same time, it’s been useful to hear from those people who are not so hot on AYN, but who’ve given some solid constructive criticism and suggestions for ways to improve.

Our latest survey, Are You A Normal Conspiracy Theorist? was written by a local Vancouver artist, and the photography we’ve gathered from all over via Flickr, graciously from Gabriel M., Steve Jurvetson, x-eyedblonde, Yaniv Ben-Arie, CT Snow and Jon Rawlinson. Thank you to all - the app is what it is because of you!

If you’d like to contribute content, visit our topic suggestion page.




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