We now have over 1250 fans on our Status King page.
Out of 80 reviews we have 4.7 out of 5 stars. That is pretty dang good.
It took a long time to get to this point (we started back in January), but I think the Status King content is excellent and it is only going to get better as we move forward. We have been mentioned in the USAToday and on Mashable (one of the top 10 blogs in the world). Recently I talked to a guy who created one of the top 10 apps on facebook. I believe Status King is going to be a top Facebook app.
My favorite part of facebook is the status updates. On several occasions I have been forced to try and cover a burst of laughter that hits as I read a friend’s hilariously clever facebook status during the middle class. Trying to stop the laughter usually turns into sort of an embarrassing snort.
Before Christmas my family was discussing facebook. My oldest brother, Theron, had the idea of putting funny facebook statuses on T-shirts. My younger brother Jordan (17 years old) decided he would want a T-shirt that says: “Jordan is available” and then have the little facebook box “What are you doing right now?” on it. The ideas bounced off each other and withing a day or two we had a business plan. The result is Status King.
I always thought the Pilgrims and Indians were the first to celebrate Thanksgiving. False.
I always thought that President Abraham Lincoln was the first President to call it a holiday. False.
I thought it was about eating loads food. False.
President George Washington was the first President to ask the nation to celebrate it. It is about being thankful for the Constitution we have. And it was a day of fasting and prayer in thanks to God for establishing our country.
I just wanted to show you the new Acrobat PDF viewer. It is pretty amazing. I know one of the fonts in the book is messed up. That happened before I uploaded it. Sorry, I just pulled a junk file so I could show you the embed viewer.
Watching our new President-elect's acceptance speech yesterday was a surprising thrill. I found myself caught with some emotion and I felt proud to be an American as our country symbolically steps away from racism.
Proposition 8 also passed. This was an enormous relief for me. An answer to prayer and a wonderful win to protect the family and hold off a collision course between gay rights and religious freedom.
But my emotions were bittersweet. Obama's rhetoric is downright socialist and scary and the gay rights activists have already filed suit against Prop 8. I was listening to Glenn Beck just during the election. A young man called in and asked, "What do I do now?" Glenn gave some great advice: "Get a copy of and study the constitution. Learn everything about it. Read the Federlist Papers. Learn what Founders really taught."
If you are a Mormon then you might have already heard Elder Packer's talk last month on the Constitution called "The Test". Here he talks about a celebration the Saints held in honor of the US (a country that had just chased them from their homes):
"Three things about that 1849 commemoration were both symbolic and
prophetic: first, that the young men carried the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence; next, that each young woman carried the
Bible and the Book of Mormon; and finally, that the old men—the Silver
Greys—were honored in the parade.
"After the program they had a feast at makeshift tables. Several
hundred gold-rush travelers and 60 Indians were invited to join them.
"Then they went back to work."
Lets celebrate the peaceful elections this country just afforded us. Let's honor this historical moment in our history as we prepare for our first black President. Let the rising generation grasp to the Constitution and Declaration of Indepenence in hand with our holy writ, and let us turn to our wise "silver greys" for council. Now I got to get back to work. (:
As the election has neared, my attention has left the Presidential Election and gone to the Proposition 8. I have donated to the campaign and spent many hours in the front lines of the blogosphere. It has been messy and disturbing to say the least. Who will win tonight, I do not know. But my feeling is that all the big media and money against Prop 8 will not hold when it is placed up against the tight knit communities of churches and close families. My feeling is that family and trusted friends still wield the greatest influence, even over Hollywood and the Media elite.
But even if Prop 8 pulls out in a win, a sobering realization has set in on me, a time of great religious discrimination is not far from us. We have been framed as “Haters”, “Bigots”, and “Discriminators”. If I was an outsider reading and watching their statements about the Yes on 8 campaign, I would wonder if Prop 8 was the re-institution of slavery. In contrast here are the actual words to be added to the constitution: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
Google (who openly opposes 8 ) is in hot water for allowing Yes on 8 ads to display on sites that disagree with Prop 8.
“Denying a fundamental right to a person - such as marriage - is hateful and
backwards,” wrote Michael Arrington on TechCrunch. “Google doesn’t have any
obligation to run ads like these, and I believe they would be correct in
banning.”
I like TechCrunch, but this is just a tizzy-fit. What about freedom of speech? Who says marriage is a “fundamental right”? A few judges? Let the legal process take its path and let people hold their opinions. Influence will not come by banning those who are in favor of it. You are asking for the same thing you claim to be against, discrimination.
Even scarier is this ad showing “Mormon missionaries” invading a home to tear up a marriage certificate:
I take serious offense to this as I served a two year mission in Ireland, paying my own way just to answer a call from the Lord to serve His children. Everyone who knows Mormons knows this is plain false. This ad is just plain WRONG and segregating us because we put our money behind our opinions and beliefs.
What is the result of the unfair labeling and name calling? Homes have been vandalized, tens of thousands of Yes on 8 signs have been stolen and destroyed. People have been attacked in the streets (there have been a little both ways, but very little on the Yes on 8 side). And the Mormon church, whose members should be admired for coming out and standing for their standards even with their wallets in a time of recession and economic collapse, have been attacked with nothing less than hatred.
Actions speak louder than words and the only people I see inspiring words and actions of hate, discrimination, and bigotry is the No on 8 campaign.
I don't know when. Why I am even more clueless, but AncestryPress changed their name to MyCanvas.com. From a branding standpoint it just seems strange. Why confuse all your customers with a new name after over a year of being up? They also have this strange loading bar that generically says: "Powered by MyCanvas". In the top left it has Ancestry.com still written. I am wondering if they are going to try and use MyCanvas to move cross platforms to MyFamily.com as well?
The new MyCanvas barrows a lot of UI ideas from MemoryPress, particularly the sliding panes on the right side (they are on the left in MyCanvas). Although MemoryPress is still a typesetting system for real books while MyCanvas is a glorified photobook.
Another thing I noticed that I really like about their languages is that they don’t try and write all of their langauges in English. You can see that English is in English, Français is in French. It would make sense that if you are looking for Chinese it will be easier for you to find your language in Chinese.
One more thing, I think it is brilliant that facebook has an application that lets their users translate the site for them. Each phrase on the site is translated and then voted on by the users. Makes for much better translations. I think we will use this idea on Pixlin one day.
