If you have not yet heard, last week it was announced that Adobe would be abandoning its flash plug-in for mobile devices.  This was a major announcement from the company that likely provides the software that 95% of the people reading this newsletter use to develop their yearbooks.  You will still continue to use Photoshop and inDesign to develop your yearbooks the same way you always have, but your online and mobile yearbooks will have the opportunity to be more robust than ever.  What are some of the features that will come to yearbooks as the online version shifts from flash to HTML 5:

1. Custom Development:  With flash, your pages are static, mirroring the book. Once your pages have been created in inDesign, they will not change on the web.  What you see is what you get.  With HTML 5, the data in your inDesign files will be transformed into a more interactive, web and mobile friendly experience.  The yearbook will keep its roots while being more intuitive for today’s web and mobile user interfaces.
2. Interactive Pages:  The yearbook will be much more interactive.  Live polls in the pages of the yearbook that can update daily, weekly or yearly, even years after they are originally released.  Custom video integration and dynamic content will be possible.  Your picture TODAY, side by side with your portrait from 10 years ago.
3. Data Manipulation:  User profiles will be able to link directly to sections about them in the yearbook.  Users will also be able to create their own pages of the yearbook that relate to their friends and their experiences. These pages would only be viewable by the users who created the pages and the people with whom they choose to share those pages.

All of this will be accomplished seemlessly for yearbook staffs.  You will not need a technical or web genius on the staff.  It will be simple and intuitive for the staffs with little to no learning curve, just as Lifepages is today.  Staffs will be able to sell digital editions of the yearbook on e-readers and smart phones, opening up new revenue streams and significantly enhanced versions of the yearbook.

Let’s take a minute to say “Thank You” to Steve Jobs.  He was right, and because of that, we are ALL winners.

Our vision has always been defined by creating an online experience that meets the needs of our yearbook teams, protects the printed book and brings an enhanced 21st century yearbook experience to the students and school community.  However, during those first two years, for every school that recognized the vast potential of an online edition of the yearbook, there were twenty schools that remained skeptical.

Towards the end of the 2009 – 2010 school year, it became evident that change was starting to set in.  Schools and publishers began to soften.  Though still skeptical, many recognized that an online book offered a new way to engage the student body with the yearbook by offering a variety of options to improve and enhance the publication.

The more companies that are innovating in this industry, the better.  Lifepages continues to lead the charge by doing one thing and doing it exceptionally well – creating the online yearbook experience.  We are constantly testing and iterating and over the next 12 months will be rolling out a host of new features for both yearbook teams and school students.  Online yearbooks are beginning to make their mark on the industry and that mark will continue to grow. The ability to have yearbooks in print and on the web, as well as on tablets and smartphones, and the features that come along with these new technologies, makes yearbook an exciting place to be in the coming years!

This week, Lifepages added its first “Classic Yearbooks” to the service.  The 1966 and 1971 editions of the Bishop McDevitt High School Pridwen Yearbook are now available for purchase and viewing at Lifepages!  I was especially proud to get these two books up not only because Bishop McDevitt is my Alma Mater, but 1971 was also the year both my parents graduated from the school – and both of them have enjoyed flipping through the pages and reliving their high school days during the past week.  Anyone wishing to access these old versions can create their account at Lifepages and join the Public Network.  These books are available for all to see!

In the coming weeks, we will be adding more archival books from Bishop McDevitt High School.  While Lifepages is a service that is redefining the future of yearbook, that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the past.  More and more requests are coming in daily for the availability of “Classic Yearbooks” and we are working to accomodate these requests.  If anyone would like information about adding their high schools past editions to our service, please send a note to info@lifepages.com.

As always – happy browsing at Lifepages!

To date, MindShare has had 3 meetings, and I’ve had the opportunity to meet and network with some of the best business leaders in the Washington D.C. area.  By growing our network, expanding our reach and learning how to effectively run a company, we will be able to better serve our partner schools and end users.  I look forward to the next 6 sessions and continuing to learn about the day in and day out challenges that I will face as the CEO of a technology company, and to effectively navigate those challenges to best serve our clients.  A special thanks to Katherine Furgeson of Cooley Law Firm LLP for recommending me for this program.

In March of 2010 we had the privilege to meet Arvli Ward, head of Student Media for UCLA, at the NYC Spring Convention.  Arvli and I had a few discussions on the future of yearbook and the Lifepages model over the summer and into the fall of 2010.  He is very forward thinking when it comes to the future of yearbook and what yearbook can accomplish at the University level.

In February of this year, Arvli, acting in his capacity of President of WAUPM, invited me to represent Lifepages at the WAUPM Spring meeting at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego.  The Theme for this meeting, Next 10, was aimed at discussing the future of college media over the next decade.  Lifepages was picked as one of three companies to represent the model for yearbook at the college level over the next decade.

On Monday, May 9^th, we had the opportunity to present our model to 9 of the best college yearbooks around.  From UCLA to Northwestern to Virginia Tech, schools from West to East were represented.  It was an honor to be in the presence of the leaders of these great programs and to get their feedback on the Lifepages service; feedback that was overwhelmingly positive.  In addition, we were able to network with some of our peers in the yearbook industry and discuss ways to work together to continue to push the future model of the yearbook.  It was a fantastic trip, in a beautiful city, and I tip my hat to Arvli and thank him for bringing Lifepages out to present at this meeting.

Earlier this month, the Kansas State Royal Purple Yearbook became the latest addition to the Lifepages family.  With recommendations from Linda Puntney, a legend of college yearbook and former Adviser to the Royal Purple, we worked with Kelly Furnas, the new Adviser for the Royal Purple to get this relationship put into place.  Kelly’s embrace and enthusiasm for this model was evident from the start and he worked through his duties as acting head of the JEA (Journalism Education Association) to get this relationship started.

We are extremely excited to be offering the Royal Purple Online Yearbook for the 2010 – 2011 school year and beyond.  Welcome to the family, K-State!

As schools go on break for the summer, we will be hard at work adding new features to our platform, more schools to our roster and planning for the 2011 – 2012 school year.  Stay tuned for more Lifepages updates!

2010 started off with a bang.  Lifepages tied for 2nd place at a venture capital funding competition held by the MBA program at the Wharton Business School, one of the top business schools in the country.  We were receiving recognition around the Philadelphia region.  We inked 4 contracts in the first 4 months of the school year.  We had our first sponsorship of an industry trade show at the CMA Spring Convention held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square in New York City.  Over 30 Universities signed up to learn more about Lifepages during the convention, and we even hosted a learning session attended by a number of university yearbook programs.  The business we envisioned more than a year earlier was becoming a reality before our eyes.

We had our challenges and took our lumps.  Two weeks before our scheduled launch of our redesigned website our lead developer had to step down from his role.  Our relaunch was delayed more than 8 weeks.  Tension was high as the end of school year was approaching and we hoped to go live with our schools. Fortunately, we landed a capable development partner that was able to take over and complete the project, and our website was officially live by Mid-May. But, as luck would have it, we went live just in time for our partner schools and prospective schools to wrap up the school year and break for the summer. However, we were still able to ink one last contract in early June!

The summer months were spent on back-end business development and relationship building while we anxiously awaited the start of the 2010-2011 school year.  Now a recognized brand, and moving into our first full school year of operation, we were poised for a breakout fall semester.  And breakout we did! The Lifepages industry buzz was taking hold.  We signed Louisiana State University to a deal that will bring online yearbooks to all 28,000 undergraduate students next spring, and for years to come.  We put a strategic partnership in place with the College Media Advisers Organization and will now be a premier sponsor at their bi-annual conventions, providing innovative and new learning sessions and yearbook competitions.  We also partnered with CampusFees.com out of Dallas, TX to provide marketing of online yearbooks for our partner high schools.  Our presence at the Fall CMA convention in Louisville and the Fall JEA Convention in Kansas City put the industry on notice that online yearbooks are here to stay, and Lifepages is leading the charge in this innovative new industry.

Looking ahead to 2011, Lifepages has big plans for the Online Yearbook Industry.  We are working towards building partnerships that will allow for rapid expansion of online yearbooks to schools nationwide.  The innovative concepts that we are developing on the backend will change the yearbook industry at all levels.  Our partner schools will be able to provide their students, faculty, alumni and fans with a service that will provide lifetime value for all parties involved.  As we approach the 3 year anniversary since the inception of the concept for Lifepages, it is remarkable to see how much our vision, and ambition has grown.

The Lifepages Team is enjoying the downtime while schools are on break for the Holiday Season.  Over the next 10 days we will reflect on the past and strategize for the future.  In 2010 we arrived on the yearbook map, staking our claim as a serious player in the yearbook industry.  When Monday January 3rd arrives, and our first partner schools return to session for the Spring, we will officially launch our 2011 campaign, and what will surely be our most exciting and successful year yet!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Very Happy New Year from all of us at Lifepages!

Let me first give a shout-out to the wonderful people who put this convention together, the JEA Convention Committee.  The convention was well organzied with fantastic learning sessions and great key-note speeches from Joe Posnanski, senior writer at Sports Illustrated, and Jim Richardson, an environmental and landscape photographer for National Geographic.  The exhibit hall was an experience to behold, as always.  The “Big 4″ yearbook publishers pull out all the stops for the High School Journalism Convention with over the top displays that include games for the students and new technology in the yearbook field.  Coolest thing seen at this year’s convention:  A hardback yearbook cover with a built-in digital photo frame by Taylor / Balfour Publishing.  Simply an awesome idea.

Lifepages opted out of having a booth at this year’s exhibit in order to be able to keep our finger on the pulse of the convention.  I attended 8 different learning sessions in the yearbook field, taught by teachers and industry professionals.  We gained more insight into the yearbook world and even deeper appreciation of the yearbook publication as a whole.  We were able to contribute to the conversation and talk to the students and advisers about our service.  One thing was apparently obvious – Online Yearbooks are IN DEMAND.

Students, advisers and the industry titans of publishing all wanted to hear how Lifepages could work for them.  By the end of the convention, I had lost my voice from all the requests to talk about our service.  We made great contacts at both the high school and college levels and with the yearbook publishers as well.

Lifepages launched in 2009 with the goal to re-invigorate the yearbook market with 21st century technology.  The early results are starting to come in, and all signs point towards a mission that is 100% on track!

Lifepages is excited about this new partnership and was thrilled to meet the adviser and business editor from the Gumbo Yearbook at the CMA Convention in Louisville last month.  We look forward to a long and prosperous partnership with LSU and the Gumbo Yearbook.