Wee Weblog

Faster Photo Uploads

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:16:00 +0000

You may notice the new "Processing Photo" icons when you first create an album.

Today, we changed how we process photos, allowing your uploads to complete much faster. The photo processing is now handled separately from the uploading, which means that the "processing" delay will be much, much shorter.

We hope you find the faster uploading to be more convenient than before.

Helping Daddy

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:04:00 +0000

He isn't crawling yet, or talking, but my boy is already helping me code our iPhone app! (He wasn't fooled by the dummy keyboard I gave him - he wanted mine.) This photo set generated the most comments recently. I wonder what makes some photos more comment-worthy than others.

What I Learned from My Imperfect Father's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:39:00 +0000

My first Father's Day was not perfect. Milo has been sick and everyone was too exhausted to celebrate. We spent the last 5 days and nights working hard to distract Milo from his discomfort, wipe up his snot and wipe away his tears. Instead of Sunday brunch, we had a last-minute doctor's visit. Instead of a homemade meal, we had to order in. No cards, no fancy meal, no celebrating dad. I was a little disappointed.

As I was getting ready for bed, with a tremor of annoyance I thought about how little Milo apprehends our parenting efforts, let alone appreciates them. He probably won't fully understand even as he grows up. In fact, I figure he won't appreciate my efforts until he had a child of his own. Then he'll appreciate how hard his dear old dad worked for him.

And at that moment I understood, and it was too late to call home.

From now on, when Father's Day rolls around (and Mother's Day, too), I will be able to call my parents and really thank them for everything. Because now I realize: Being a parent is very challenging and the rewards aren't always offered on schedule. But there is no reward like being a father, and I can wait 40 years for a proper "thank you" if I have to.

The Importance of Building Your Kids' "Team"

noreply@blogger.com (Cory Bronson) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:50:00 +0000

I was recently asked to speak to a class of fifth graders at a Brooklyn Charter school for their Career Day. I represented the amorphous start-up/internet/social media/entrepreneur type and sitting next to me was a fire fighter. It seemed pretty clear to me who's job was the cool one (and I wasn't betting that it was mine). I was quite mistaken.

The kids asked tons of questions but not, as I would have imagined, about the online/social media world, instead they wanted to understand what i did. They knew what a fire fighter was and they knew what a firefighter did, but they had never heard of a job like mine before and wanted to know what I did, what a typical day was like and how I got started doing what I do. What struck me most was a question from a tiny, shy girl who asked, “Did you know what you wanted to be when you were our age?” I smiled at her and said no. (And just for the record, the internet wasn’t “the internet” when I was her age, so no. VERY much no.) My answer to them was that I didn’t know then but that I had always jumped at opportunities and experiences and over time, my career evolved to where it is now. Then I told them that it was more than just what I did, it was the people who helped me along the way – it was my 'team’ who helped me. When asked what advice I could give I told them to think about the people in their lives who inspire, encourage and advise them, and to begin building a team of their own. I’d never articulated this before, but I realized then just how important one’s team is to them as they grow up.

I have a team; and I have my parents to thank for the team they started for me and for the encouragement they gave me to grow it. When I was little, “adults” weren’t all just a group of boring older people, some of them were part of my team. My parents made sure that the people who mattered (their close friends & my aunts, uncles & grandparents) were part of my life. From a young age, they got to know me, cared about me, followed what I did and over time have become my advocates and mentors.

One of the reasons that Wee Web is so important to me is that it helps parents build that team of people who matter to their kids and it’s how and where that team gets to be a part of the kids’ lives no matter where they are geographically. This is the team of people who love the kids they follow and who will be the ones to introduce the them to new experiences and ideas, strengthen and console them and add a dimension that will help them their entire lives.

To this day, I not only have that team that my parents started for me, but I’ve recognized the value of it, and have continued to build on it. My team isn’t comprised only of people from my parents’ generation, some are my age, some older, and some younger, but what they have in common is that they are, as Jason puts it, my “champions, advisers, confidants, cohorts in mischief and lifelong friends.” And that team is how I got where I am now.

-Cory

Follow Cory on Twitter @corybronson

Children's Safety Online

noreply@blogger.com (Cory Bronson) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:40:00 +0000

We’re in the business of helping parents bring the lives, adventures and stories of their kids into their online lives. Sharing the moments that makeup parenthood is so important and special both to parents as well as those they share the moments with. Unfortunately, protecting the sacredness of those moments and the innocence of children online are quickly escalating issues parents face today.

June is Internet Safety month. I’ve read a lot of the information on the hazards and concerns about children’s safety and how to protect and teach kids about becoming a digital citizen; to me, the one that stood out the most was from the FBI. What struck me wasn’t the tips for safety, but the way they emphasized the importance of protecting our children:

"Our children are our Nation's most valuable asset. They represent the bright future of our country and hold our hopes for a better Nation. Our children are also the most vulnerable members of society. Protecting our children against the fear of crime and from becoming victims of crime must be a national priority."

At Wee Web, we’ve made it our mission to help parents feel safe bringing their most precious moments into their online world. We want parents to know there’s a way to share the stories and lives of their kids with the people who comprise their kids’ team of advisers – the grandparents, aunts/uncles, godparents and lifelong friends who will help those children grow up, learn, navigate the world, fall and try again and strive for what’s possible – the people who will guide, as put by the FBI, the ‘future of our country’. While we work to make that a reality and provide a haven for safety, we know that protecting our children online is a task far beyond just protecting what’s shared about them, it’s also about teaching them how to become a citizen of the digital world.

Here are some sites that offer guidance on raising kids in the online world:

Family Online Safety Institute
Safetyweb
Ann Collier’s Youth Safety on the Social Web
YouTube’s safety center

Feel free to contribute to the conversation and post resources/thoughts on this important topic.

-Cory

Follow Cory on Twitter @corybronson

Something looks different. Did you lose weight?

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:51:00 +0000

If you've showed up to Wee Web and wondered what's different, it's not that we've lost weight or gotten a new haircut for summer (though both are true of me).

We are in the middle of a major site upgrade that includes smarter ways to think about our kids, our families and our extended families, as well as design and performance improvements.

As the father of a rapidly growing baby boy, I'm discovering how Wee Web fits into my life and where it could fit in better. I want Wee Web to work better with Facebook, so I can share individual albums and videos with my friends while I retain control over who sees Milo's information. I want to expand Milo's circle of admirers without making my Wee Web family bigger. So hold on to your hats - it's going to be fun (and remarkably easy) to share more of your kids' lives with more people while keeping control of it all.

As always, I encourage you to email me as jason@wee-web.com and tell me if there is anything I can do for you to make your experience with Wee Web better.

Where Did I Come From?

noreply@blogger.com (Cory Bronson) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:46:00 +0000

I am, of course, referring to the book, "Where Did I Come From?" by Peter Mayle. This book was of great help to me as a child trying to understand the sequence of events that led up to, well...me. And now, in a different vein entirely, this is another sequence of events that represents where I come from.

I'm Cory Bronson and alongside Jason, I am Wee Web's co-founder. I started my career working in the wedding industry at Conde Nast. I was part of the team that built the "Bridal Group," the then-trilogy of magazines (Brides, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride) that represented not only the wedding world but the lifestyle transition of marriage. Marriage is a crazy benchmark - it's a huge step in the lives of two people who decide to create a life together. With marriage, one's world changes: new things become important and others cease to be, their plans for the future have new shape and the separate lives they knew before converge and a third life starts - the life they lead together.

It was while I worked for the "Bridal Group" that I came to understand the full ramifications of the concept I refer to as Lifestyle Transitions. These are the times in life, initiated by some catalyst, that create a definitive before and after in a person's life timeline. These transitions are marked by different orientations, new priorities and fresh perceptions one has of one's self. Marriage is one of these Lifestyle Transitions. Becoming a Parent is another.

After the "Bridal Group," I joined giggle. For five years I was part of the team building a company that served the needs for the demographic of what, after Marriage, is the next (and arguably most profound) Lifestyle Transition: Becoming a Parent. I think that the simplest way to articulate how a person's world changes when they become a parent is that after they become a parent, "parent" is the single most important qualifier of their life, for the rest of their life. Their role as a parent is simultaneously the most rewarding and the most humbling, the title "mother" or "father" becomes their highest achievement and the profoundness of the bond they feel with their children was wholly unimaginable before they became a parent. In short, becoming a parent was the best thing that they had ever or will have ever done.

I'm not a parent yet, but I have gotten to spend a lot of time with parents and as I see it, that purposefulness and wonder that parents feel towards their children is probably the best example of "awesome" that I could imagine.

For me, building Wee Web is about providing something for parents. It's about doing something that gives parents a place to celebrate what makes them a parent - their children. I'm building Wee Web because I want parents to have a place that gets them and a place where they can share what (and who) it is that makes them a parent.

-Cory

Follow Cory on Twitter @corybronson

Too Many Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:14:00 +0000

Last week was the big family gathering for my wife's clan - little Milo got to meet his closest relatives on Teresa's side of the family, some for the first time. Everyone has been watching Milo turn from a wrinkly little newborn into a chubby ball of smiles through Wee Web, but there's nothing like the real thing.

We left the week-long vacation with hundreds of photos. That's when Teresa discovered the limit on album size. What was it for? Well, partially for performance reasons, and partly aesthetic. But that is hard to explain to a loved one who wants to upload huge numbers of photos into a single album.

So, you'll find that the album limit has been raised to 48 and it may grow higher as we continue to evaluate performance issues.

You'll also find that photo printing is now much, much easier. We now have a photo cart (click on the "Prints" tab on any album page) into which you can drag multiple photos, and then send them off to Kodak Gallery in a single click. The cart stays with you until you clear it out, so you can take your time building your perfect collection of photos.

I hope that you find these features to be valuable. Please feel free to email me at jason@wee-web.com any time to let me know what you would like to see on the site.

The Biggest Fan

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:23:00 +0000

I realized last week that my father and my wife Teresa's mother have entered into a captioning contest for our son Milo. Every time that Teresa uploads a new set of photos or a new video, I can expect some pithy, funny comment to come from both sides of the family within hours.

I decided to enhance the competitive spirit a bit by actually awarding points to each member of the family based on their activity on the site. After some discussion with the team, we're giving 1 point for viewing an entry the first time (no additional points for checking again); 1 point for sharing an entry with someone; 5 points for leaving a comment and 15 points for posting your own entry. The family member with the most points gets the coveted "biggest fan" award.

Now you can see you your kids' biggest fan is. Let the games begin!

The Difficulties of Capturing A Smile

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:44:00 +0000

Milo is six weeks old now, and he's just started to smile. His smile shows up in the mornings, mainly, particularly after he gets a fresh change and has a chance to look at his mobile. Nobody will believe it, however, because it is quick and camera shy. As soon as he smiles, one of us runs for the camera. By the time we are ready for his closeup, he is done.

Tomorrow morning we will have the camera ready while we are changing him. Wish us luck!

Interview with Take The Leap

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:41:00 +0000

The folks at Take The Leap decided to interview me. Here's a link to it:
http://taketheleap.creativehub.com/jason-olim-take-2-with-sleep-this-time-maybe/

A Retraction & an Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:59:00 +0000

Milo is four weeks old today; I have been a father now for four weeks. I love it. My heart bursts every time I see my little boy. I officially retract every time I've ever analogized or used a metaphor relating starting a company with birthing a child. There is no comparison. Perhaps someday I'll reduce that difference to words. For now, I can only relate my experience: Milo fulfills me in a way that nothing ever has before.

I am excited because Wee Web has become an integral part of my life as a father, a family member and a friend. Teresa and I have joined our power users now because we can see the value we get from using it. Our family members have been commenting up a storm, watching Milo grow every day, in words, pictures and videos. Everybody is in on the fun in a way that we couldn't have experienced without the site.

Yesterday, at the request of my mother, we launched a new feature that allows users to share albums with non-Wee Web members (as long as the parents have turned on "Family members can show pics and videos to their friends" on their "Settings->My Family Info" page. And this morning I got a call from an old friend with whom I'd shared a video of Milo offering advice on dealing with "cradle cap," an affliction that our boys seem to have in common. That's useful knowledge! It also reminds me that Wee Web can create the kinds of intimate connections that we (or at least I) crave.

Try out the sharing feature with your non-member friends. Let me know if you get the same value out of it that I have.

Publicity and Privacy (Welcome Milo!)

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:57:00 +0000

Last Friday in the wee hours of the morning, Teresa and I welcomed little Milo into the world. He's a dream - he's perfect, sweet, lovely, amazing. I now know that there is no cuter baby in the world than your own.

The first thing a proud daddy does is to share the news with family. We called our parents and our siblings. Of course, they wanted photos, so we took a few with the iPhone and uploaded them to Wee Web. We uploaded a favorite to each of our Facebook profiles as well.

We remembered to bring our fancy camera and our new Flip camcorder with us, and we had a gazillion photos and videos from the hospital of the three of us bonding and becoming a family after the birth. And then we realized just how useful Wee Web is.

We are avid Facebook users (especially Teresa), but most of our photos were not appropriate for public consumption. Many were a bit too candid for our taste: our bedraggled, exhausted faces and our messy little naked alien weren't properly composed for acquaintances.

Just last week I came across this article where Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, opines that privacy is a thing of the past:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php

I disagree. There are many things that are too special, too candid and too true for the public. Things that are only appropriate for family. Including our most special photos of Milo, Teresa and me.

Waiting

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:58:00 +0000

Teresa just uploaded a batch of photos of the nursery. It's ready, our bags are packed - there's nothing else to do but wait. So we wait and try not to dwell on it, but we are very excited.

To pass the time, we've been updating some of our album-handling features. Many of you asked for the ability to reorder your photos in your albums - it's now available. Just click and drag on the images in the album and they reorder themselves. You'll notice some other fun album-handling features over the next weeks as well, including the ability to keep track of your favorite albums in a "bookshelf" and the ability to copy pictures from one album to another.

Please let us know how you like the new features and if there is anything else we can do to make Wee Web a better way for you and your family to share.

The Ordinary Extraordinary

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:53:00 +0000

Working at Wee Web has been an affecting experience for me.

Although we have a few weeks to go until the little one arrives, I have already fallen in love with its kicks and hiccups. It's the most amazing feeling, something special, wondrous and very personal.

Yet over the last few weeks, from conversations with you, I've come to realize that this extraordinary feeling is actually pretty common. And I've been enjoying my family and friends' kids much more since I've developed this surprising appreciation of my own.

Your feedback hasn't just triggered emotional growth for me - it is helping us to improve the site. You might notice that we've resolved our most common complaint: the 140 character limit on updates. Now, you can make your updates as long as you like! We are working on some navigation changes to make the site more intuitive for people who are following only one or two families and we will roll it out to our user panel shortly. (If you would like to join our user panel and get access to new features early, please email chris@wee-web.com and let him know.) We are also working on an iPhone application.

As always, I invite you to share your experience with using Wee Web. I'd love to hear how our service has affected you and your family.

Surprise! Sharing The Baby Shower.

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:05:00 +0000

We celebrated Teresa's baby shower last Sunday. It was a surprise for her. (We were also surprised that we were able to keep it a secret from her!) Because much of Teresa's family and friends live far away, we had to share the event with them via photos and a story on Wee Web. Here's one of my favorite pictures: a Billy's custom cake that was as delicious as it was beautiful. I'm wondering how we could share pieces of cake with family through the site - I'll have to get some books on new technologies to see if it's possible. Maybe Google has an applet for online cake sharing?

NB: You may notice our "working title" for the baby written on the cake. With all of the advice and opinions we've received from our parents on names, we decided to give them a good fright. After months of hearing us call it "Professor Beyoncé," they'll love whatever name we pick!

This Is Your Wee Web

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:25:00 +0000

How do you use Wee Web?

I’ve been using Wee Web for about five months now, since Teresa and I got our first ultrasound scan. The main thing we do has been to pose Teresa's bump in various interesting places, and using our iPhone, we email the photos in. We generally get feedback from family within minutes, and everyone has been looking at every photo, with the bulk of the conversation coming from the grandparents-to-be.

I imagine that you have your own way of using Wee Web. Certainly those of you who aren’t parents and those of you who already have kids are using it differently from Teresa and me. Which leads me to wonder, how are you using Wee Web? What do you do with it? What do you like about it? What else would you like to do with it? Where are we strong, and where would you like to see us improve?

Please feel free to email me directly at jason@wee-web.com, or post comments here in the blog. The rest of the team and I are looking forward to learning from you and making this site into the best place for you and your family to connect.

Wee Web and My Baby: A Work/Life Story

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Olim) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:34:00 +0000

Teresa and I are having an actual baby. A human baby, not the business kind that I've fathered or mid-wived over the years. This baby won't be incorporated; it will have only two shareholders and we have absolutely no intention of selling it or taking it public. But even as we invest in its nursery (s/he is supposed to arrive in less than two months, and we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl), we are already reaping amazing profits in terms of kicks and hiccups and heartbeats on the monitor when we go for checkups.

So I have a special connection to Wee Web: I'm not just a team member, I'm also a user. I am hoping to channel our experience using Wee Web to share with our family and friends into making Wee Web the best site it can be. I'm not the only team member with kids (Peter and Sai beat me to that), but I'm the first one to go from start to finish. I'm the first one on the team to start tracking a bump for our family on the site, and I'll be the first to announce a new arrival.

I've already started making improvements in the site based on my experience (as well as from our conversations with those of you who were gracious enough to share your time to talk to us on the telephone and answer our surveys over the last few months). See the new "photos" page for an example (and the beginning of something much richer and more useful - stay tuned). I hope to keep improving the site so that Wee Web can help parents and families share the joys that children bring.

I'd love to hear how you are using Wee Web and any ideas you have for making it serve you better. Please feel free to comment here or email me (jason@wee-web.com) any time.