November 9, 2008
HackYourDay

writes about using Memiary as a personal productivity and motivational tool.

November 8, 2008
Lifehacker

which is undoubtedly one of my top five favorite blogs on the web, covers Memiary. And that too on my birthday. What an awesome birthday gift — thanks, Lifehacker!

November 7, 2008

Demo Girl screencasts Memiary. It’s weird to see your creation being demo’d by someone else, but nonetheless flattering. Thanks, Demo Girl! (also read the additional writeup-review here.)

November 6, 2008

Update

Now that the crazy, crazy attention has calmed a little, a quick update on things I’m working on.

  • iPhone app — I’ve teamed with Matt Brooke-Smith, creator of iFinance and many other iPhone apps, and we’re going to collaborate on making the most kickass memory-recording experience ever for the iPhone.
  • Public diaries — this is a feature that is going to take some work to get right, but it’ll definitely be worth the pay off and finally allow you to ‘open up the lockers’, so to speak.
  • Proper calendar-compatible export — as I’ve mention before, I want you to be able to export your memories and keep them safely wherever your like. One great place to keep them is a calendar tool like Office or Google Calendar or iCal, and I hope you’ll be able to do so soon.

While those are near-future probabilities, here are some distant future possibilities:

  • Adobe Air/Facebook/iGoogle/Netvibes apps — these platforms might take some time to be touched by Memiary, but the possibility of a Memiary app for any of these makes me want to jump out of my chair. Memiary for my iGoogle homepage? Sure. Start up the computer and have the Air app come up? Why not?
  • #Hashtags — many of you have asked about categorizing your memories in someway, perhaps with #hashtags, or with colors. This will be definitely worth a look-into, and I hope I can deliver the most seamless integration to enhance your memories.
  • PDF Export/”Buy Bound Copy” — This suggestion was given on the Memiary GetSatisfaction site, and boy does it have legs. PDF export is very possible and likely, but something I’m more excited about is offering users the ability to ‘buy a physical bound copy’ which resembles the format of a simple diary and contains their memories. Now THAT would be cool.

Have any more suggestions, possibilities, feedback? Let me know.

November 3, 2008
“ You could go the paper and pen route, but then you would have to find a safe place to keep them, carry something around with you constantly, and, it would likely take you longer to sift through the ‘archives.’
Rotorblog answers the ‘pen and paper’ criticism some mean people have been giving us. Srsly people, why don’t we just move to a typewriter? What about a hut; why do you need that house? And that car? Bullock carts work just fine for some.
November 2, 2008

RSS, baby!

You are no longer trapped in an asylum. A part of a drastic initiative to let your memories be just that — yours — I thought I’d start by fulfilling the most simplest but asked for demand: RSS feeds.

You can now get one for the past week, month, year, or all time (click on the  icon in the top right).

While it may seem a simple fulfillment, there are a lot of uses for this.

For example, until the ‘public diaries’ feature makes its way (it may be sometime), you can share your RSS feed with your loved ones and have them be a part of your memories with their news reader (be careful though, if it gets out, you’re toast!)

Also, for those who wanted “backups”, a simple Right Click + Save Link As of the All Time feed will do it for you. A great thing about backing up with RSS is that you’ll be able to “import” it in many places, including any newsreader. A lot of people wanted XML export, but rather than do a proprietary format, I think something so widely used is much better.

That said, XML exporting is still coming, however. But it won’t be proprietary. I’ve decided to do some homework on calendar formats (.iCal, .CSV, etc.) and find the best way to give you your data. Essentially, the idea is that you’ll be able to then import your memories into a tool like Google Calendar or Outlook. Now, wouldn’t that be cool? Stay tuned. :)

October 31, 2008
“ It could even drive a few people to rethink their lives - I can’t help but envision users suffering mid- or quarter-life crises as they realize their days almost invariably consist of the same five activities.
TechCrunch (having authored a B-grade competing blog for the last few years, it gives me uncanny pleasure to finally feel what it’s like to be TechCrunch’d.)

For those interesting characters

This one’s for my international friends: UTF-8 support has been added. You can now enter characters from almost any language! This means Polish, Japanese, Hindi, Mandarin, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, and the gazillions of non-English scriptures out there. Additionally, some of you are fond of Twittering these: ☂ or  or ☜. You think it’s cool. Well, we’re now drinking your milkshake, because you can use those too. Have fun.

It’s ‘memory’, thanks

Since the decision of changing the name to Memiary, I have been debating endlessly with myself over its pronunciation. In their natural state, I have seen friends and family members refer to it in various different ways. A lot of people pronounce it ‘mem-yer-ee’. A whole bunch — on my initial insistence — ‘mem-aiy-ree’ (like a diary). Some are left speechless, just referring to it as ‘that diary thing.’

But after some clear thought and some silent surveying, I have made the decision to pick a pronunciation which fits best, is extremely memorable (no-pun-intended), and comes naturally to a lot of people when showed the word ‘Memiary’ for the first time.

The new pronunciation: ‘memory’, just like memory.

Explaining it to a friend? Say this: “You have to check out memory, it’s a journal/diary sort of thing where you record just five memorable things everyday. They can be what you did, what happened to you, what you feel like, or anything you want to preserve in the history of time for that day. It’s sooo simple, quick, and guiltless — you actually feel like using it everyday, and not like a daily essay you have to complete. Check it out at m-e-m-i-a-r-y.com, it’s spelt like ‘memory’ and ‘diary’ together, get it?”

Why the decision? The pronunciation ‘mem-aiy-ree’ has been bothering me for sometime. I think it’s the least natural thing which comes to mind when shown the name, although it is fairly easy to spell out once you see it in that light. But when even the creator starts correcting the pronunciation of his tool’s name in everyday conversations, you know it’s a bad sign.

For those who’ve been pronouncing it differently, please continue to do so — this is just for future users and a suggestion to those of us who didn’t think the name stuck. Okay, before I start sounding like Microsoft, I must go and work on today’s feature: RSS. Toodles!

October 30, 2008

Memories to the Past

A lot of you wanted to be able to edit and add events to past days. Including my mom. What if you miss a day? What about suddenly remembering you forgot to enter your favoritest part of yesterday? And of course, if you’re a late-shifting-12-am-home-comer, you’ve been wanting this from day one.

Your wishes have been answered, my friends. 

Dating back to eternity, you can now edit any date in the history of time, and more importantly, the ones you forgot to memiarize on. Also, something I am really proud of is the neat new “day of week” view which lets you navigate your life this past week and fill in the gaps. Missed Tuesday? Click on ‘Tue’, and enter away.

Additionally, you can manually go back to any date and add memories by modifying the last string of this URL: http://www.memiary.com/past/date/2008-10-30

Deploying this feature gives me such happiness, you’ll think I’m on crack. Oh wait.