Since you are enjoying the images on Footnote, you are probably like me.  You have a box or boxes full of photos and old documents somewhere in your home.  You keep them because you either love them or can’t bear to throw them away.   Again, you are probably like me and LOVE them.

Recently, while looking through a box of old photos that I inherited from my mother, I realized that I had treasure in my hands.  Of course, the old photos are ‘treasure’ when they are of my family and ancestors, but many of them are yet-to-be-discovered ‘treasures’ by the living families of the folks in the old photos.  I only needed a way to share the images with those families too.

Footnote!  Of course!   Many of the photos have writing on the backs giving the names of the people in the images.  Some have no names, only a print date and location.  All have a common thread though.  They belonged to my mother, her parents and grandparents and none of them lived farther than six miles from the location they were born, so I know approximately where the photos were taken.  When the date they were taken is unknown, I can compare the style of clothes with other photos on the box that have dates and determine an approximate date it was taken.

After scanning the photos and saving them to my hard drive with meaningful names rather a string of numbers and characters, I upload them to my member account on Footnote.  In most cases I Annotate the images with the names of the people on the photos and / or with the location and date or approximate date information and Spotlight the ones that seem to beg to be spotlighted.

Spotlighting allows them to immediately be seen by the Footnote community.  Additionally, Google indexes Footnote and hence, the odds of someone finding ‘treasure’ in the old photos is even greater.

Post your old ‘treasure’ photos to your member account on Footnote.   Share their wealth with the Footnote community and by extension, with the world.

Last night we added a new feature to the site that will help you get more from Footnote without doing more work.

When you find something on the site that you are interested in, look for a  button and click it.  The item will be added to your “Watch List” in Your Account and we’ll send  you an email whenever that item is updated.

Watching Searches and Titles
Each month we add millions of new images to the site and Footnote Members upload images and annotate thousands of names, dates and places on images they find on the site.

Now you can use Watches to know when something you’ve been looking for has arrived at Footnote.

To set up a Search Watch:
Search for something, for example, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Click the Watch button on the Search results page, we’ll add a Watch with your search terms and let you know when a new match is appears on the site.

If there’s a Title that you are interested in, you can add a Watch and we’ll notify you when new images are added.

Watching Images, Story Pages and Spotlights
You can add a Watch for any image, Story Page or Spotlight and we’ll let you know when they are updated, annotated, commented on, etc.  It might give you the opportunity to learn something surprising or meet someone who shares your research interests.

Watching Members
If you find a Footnote Member who is doing interesting things, you can add a Watch from their Profile page and be notified when they add something new.

Watching Your Own Contributions
By default, we’ll add a Watch to images, Story Pages or Spotlights you add to Footnote.

If you’ve added things in the past and would like to watch them, visit this page and click the button.

Managing Watches
You’ll find your Watch List in Your Account.  There you can see everything you are watching and remove a Watch if you are no longer interested in it.  You can choose how often you’d like to receive your email notifications on the right side of the Watch List page.

We recently switched to our new search experience. 

The new search is useful because it provides an effortless way to narrow your results.

It does this by using an approach commonly referred to as “guided” or “faceted” navigation specifically tailored to your search results.

What does that mean for you? It means that clicking on any facet, like a Title or Collection, will always give you results. Many might think this is an easy feature to implement, but it is not. It requires a lot of smart software, better metadata and lots of computing power.  But instead of reading more about it, why not check out this 4-minute introduction:

Earlier today, CEO, Russ Wilding, sat down with Glenn Beck and talked about Footnote.com. Glenn Beck perfectly described what Footnote is enabling people to do with their personal histories:

“… all that history is, is just a collection of people and their stories, and this seems to be that connection.”

Listen to the segment here:

Or, you can also catch the interview on TV later tonight - don’t miss it.

Update: Read the transcript of the TV Program that was aired 23 May 2008.

It’s that time of year again where we pack up the Footnote booth and head out to the annual National Genealogical Society conference. This year the conference is being held in Kansas City, MO.

This is always a great opportunity for the Footnote team to rub shoulders with prominent figures in the genealogy world, friends from other genealogy companies, and best of all, the people that use Footnote. Every time we go to these events, we meet with great people that give us straight talk about Footnote.com; the good, the bad and the ugly.

In order to make sure we have time to listen to our members and potential members, we have reserved a room to hold a Footnote User Meeting. This meeting gives us a chance to talk about what is happening on Footnote and our future plans. We also welcome feedback, suggestions, needs, desires, whatever you want to say. Here is the information about these meetings:

When: Saturday, May 17 - 9:30am

Where: Pershing Room at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center

We invite anyone who would like to come and hope that we get a great turnout. Again, this is an opportunity to tell us what you like and what you don’t like about Footnote.com, what you would like to see on the site and anything else. If you are interested in attending, please email Elizabeth at elittle@footnote.com. If you can’t make it to this meeting, please stop by the booth and visit with us. We are in booth numbers #219 & 221.

Last week we made some updates to the site. In addition to fixing bugs and cleaning things up, we added a few new features that we hope will make the site easier to use. Here are some of our favorites:

Image Adjustment
We do all we can to get the best quality images on the site, but sometimes the condition of the source images we have (microfilm, microfiche, paper) leaves us with digital images that are hard to read. In some cases, there isn’t much that can be done, but with most of these images, inverting the image or adjusting the brightness or contrast can bring out details that make all the difference.

Here’s an extreme example of an image that is difficult to read:

Here’s the same image with some adjustment to the brightness and contrast:

Here it is again with the colors inverted and the brightness and contrast adjusted:

These image adjustments aren’t magic and can’t make every image readable, but they can make a big difference if you are having trouble making out a word or some other detail from a document. Invert is particularly handy when the original image is a negative, like this example from the Marine Corps Vietnam photos.

In addition to the image adjustment tools, we’ve improved the “Find” tools for searching text within an image and updated the filmstrip to make it clearer where one document ends and the next begins.

Improved Navigation
One other change worth noting is the update we made to the headers across the site. The new design should make it easier to get around the site, use search and browse, access your account and profile items and remember the last 4 images you viewed (”Your Recent Activity”).

As always, we hope you’ll try these new features and let us know what you think.

Over the past few weeks, response to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial project has been amazing. So many people have come to add their remembrances and pay tribute to family members and friends.Here are just a few examples of what has been added:

• George Henry Jourdenais
• William Thomas Perkins Jr
• Roger Edward Jozwiak
• Norman Walter Heck Jr
• Darwin Lee Judge
• David Clark Williams
• Leroy James Westra
• Fredrick Ellis Larsen
• Thomas Joseph Blanchard
• Gerald Alan Cahela
• Steven Dean Gundolf
• Santos Sanchez

 Thank you for bringing life to this project.

We got things stabilized after the wave of traffic that followed last week’s press release about the Vietnam Wall project and things went well over the weekend. We even ordered some additional hardware to help us handle the amazing response, but before we could get it and set it up, a feature story on the homepage of CNN and a few other high profile mentions swamped us again.

It’s so great to see that other people are as excited about this project as we are. We are working hard to catch up with the interest. If you have trouble while on the site, please check back soon. We’ll be here.

In the meantime you can:

• Learn more about The Wall project
• Learn more about Footnote

Yesterday we announced the release of a new project that we’ve been working on, an interactive version of The Wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The news spread fast and we’ve seen a tremendous response to the announcement. That’s the good news.

The not so good news is that we’re having trouble keeping up with the number of people who are coming to visit the site.

We’re working to improve things, and hope you’ll be patient with us.

In the meantime, you can learn more about The Wall project here.

On Friday March 7, Footnote will conduct a usability research day to “test drive” the website. We are looking for eight volunteers to come into our office in Lindon, UT. The research only takes about an hour. In exchange for your time and valuable feedback all participants will receive a $25 gift certificate.

If you are interested please contact Elizabeth.