ADVERTISING based business models are always called “FREE”. We debated extensively on whether or not to follow the route of Google, facebook, Youtube, and many others to offer a free Pyxlin. In the end the choice was obvious:

3 reasons for not doing a “free” ad-based journal system:

• Profitable ad based models (”Free” models) required intrusive data mining that is not appropriate for personal journals (and Youtube is STILL NOT profitable).
• With a “free” model we would not be able to afford to provide you with person-to-person phone support (it is nice to know you can call rather than search through time consuming Help Systems)
• When was the last time you wanted to see banner ads plastered all over your journal? This allows you to control what is in your journal, or your kids journals for that matter. You don’t have to worry about inappropriate ads being displayed to you or your children.

Pyxlin is absolutely affordable, just $2.50 per month (less than a gallon of gas) to offset the costs of unlimited service (including unlimited phone support) and archiving. This allows us to focus completely on your experience, making sure that Pyxlin is the best journaling system in the world.

One of my friends mentioned that at church she learned about “journaling jars”. I found this great example and description of a journaling jar at the jelly journals:

A Journal Jar is a jar that is filled to the brim with strips of cardstock that have questions printed or written on them, that are then rolled into little scrolls. These are the journal prompts. The idea is that each day you pull out one of the little scrolls and stick it at the top of a page in your journal and write your daily journal entry based on that question.

The Pyxlin Journaling System is by far the best system for typing, organizing, archiving, and publishing your personal journal. But we are far overdue for something like a digital “journal jar”. I started on the project last week. It didn’t take long for my creative juice reservoir to be completely depleted. Brainstorming for journaling prompts that are meant to help me brainstorm for journal entries was squeezing my brain. I needed to innovate. I had a brilliant idea!

I decided to use Amazon Mechanical Turk to create my prompts. I have used MTurk before for surveys and I know others who have used Mturk in clever ways as well. I am just asking each MTurker to write 5 journal prompts and then I pay them $0.05 for their work (take a look at the HIT here). So far they have come up with some fantastic prompts. In the end 1000 prompts will only cost me $11. Here are a few of the Prompts so far:

• Given the chance to give your child only one quality as a person, which would you choose? How about if that choice were unavailable, what would be your second and maybe third choices? Why are these so important to you?
• Which superpower would you choose to have if you had the option and why? Conversely, which superhero do you find to be the most overrated and why?
• Which amendment to the constitution is the most important to you and why?
• Is speech always free? When and where might it not be free?
• Put yourself in Anne Frank’s place how would you have survived?
• If you witnessed a fight at school would you report it? What could the repercussions be if you told the truth?
• What will be the first thing that you do when you get your driver’s license?
• You have one week to do whatever you want, all-expenses-paid, what things would you want to do? Where would you go?
• If your best friend came to you depressed and upset like you’ve never seen before, how would you react?
• In what ways do you sometimes wish to act to be a better friend, but don’t? Why do you find yourself unable to do these things?
• You have one hour to come up with the most interesting television show you can and describe/pitch it.
• “If someone gains, someone else loses.” How much does this reflect life, and how much does it come up short. Reflecting upon this, how could your attitudes have been different during events in your past?
• Would you be a different person today if you had a different childhood?
• Consider some of the parents others had growing up. What type of person would you be if you had those situations?
• What if you life had been harder or easier? How do you think you’d be different?
• Did I recently have an interesting conversation?
• What is a scary dream that I remember from my past?
• Who is the person that I feel has altered the course of my morals and values, and how did they effect me?
• Where do I see myself, so far as my goals, personal development, residence, or job, in five years, and do I have a plan to arrive at this destination?
• What is my earliest or happiest memory?

Liz and I were talking this morning, we are thinking to get over 1000 prompts for the Pyxlin journaling jar. Perhaps we could even ad a rating feature. Each time you use a Pyxlin prompt it would be nice if you could rate it with a thumbs/down or a 1-5 star rating. Over time has each of the journal prompts are rated thousands of times we will eventually have the best journal jar in the world.

What do you think? How would you like the Pyxlin Journal Jar to work? Let us know.

 Here are some other blogs I found interesting with journal prompts:

• Miriam at Ancestories2 does some family history prompts each week.
• Angela Booth keeps a blog on writing. Here are some of her prompts.
• Here is a Blog called Journal Writing in Math.
• Here’s one about journal prompts for kids.

Cheryl recently commented about pyxlin on Blooking Central. She posed this question:

Since pyxlin makes a very big deal about keeping private journals private AND they want you to start and end with pyxlin, they charge you for it. It’s only $30 a year [It is actually $20], but still … why would you?

I also responded to this comment about an ad based system in an earlier journal entry:

“…Rather than a monthly fee, some ad content may be acceptable as a way to generate revenue. If I live for 80 years, an annual fee over that timeframe is a big commitment, so less likely to commit to it.”

I suppose that if pyxlin were a blog this would make a great deal of sence. But pyxlin is nothing like a blog.

Personal journals or diaries contain the MOST personal information that any of us have. BBC just reported that proper ad based systems, like Google’s, are not so private at all.

There is the possibility that pyxlin could be more profitable if it would let spiders comb through your journal and then sell it for advertising purposes. But we care most about your security. Security is part of why pyxlin is has OpenID.

We are going to be offering you a very secure, encrypted, option that will not include ads. We want you to know that your journal is yours.

After a lot of privacy and security concerns we added this question to our survey:

What kind of security would you need to feel comfortable keeping your private journal online?

Here is the response (note: of the 1200+ people surveyed over 65% of them are bloggers!):

So our answer is easy. We must make pyxlin secure.

Considering that the ONLY concern of over 2000 people that we have surveyed was security for their personal journal online, this following statistic seems unbelievable! How could anyone feel comfortable with so much personal information on a blog?

A recent study showed that 37 percent of blogs are personal journals. Technorati’s most recent estimate of blogs world-wide is over 70 millions blogs! This means that approximately 25.9 millions blogs are used as personal journals.

For the same reason that pyxlin is going to include a MS Word Import, we hope to create a blog import for the purpose of easily sucking in digital personal journals and converting them into readable books for your posterity. This is the only reason we have created an import for bloggers, or “blooks” (blog + book). Pyxlin will turn your personal online diary in to a “personal journal blook”.

Related post: pyxlin vs blurb

MattD commented on Catherine’s blog entry about pyxlin’. Here is what he wrote:

…Blurb just released (a month or two ago) a “blog slurper” which is meant to do almost exactly what pyxlin seems to want to do: automatically create a hardbound book of your blog. I wonder what pyxlin will offer to make it different.

Great question Matt. I can see why you think these two applications might be the same, both Blurb and pyxlin print hardbound books and both have the ability to publish a blog or a blook (blog + book). Beyond the blook, pyxlin is different from blurb in pretty much every way.

Similarity - Blooks (i.e., blog import)

A recent study showed that 37 percent of blogs are personal journals. Technorati’s most recent estimate of blogs world-wide is over 70 millions blogs! This means that approximately 25.9 millions blogs are used as personal journals.

For the same reason that pyxlin is going to include a MS Word Import, we are creating a blog import for the purpose of easily sucking in digital personal journals and converting them into readable books for your posterity. This is the only reason we have created an import for bloggers. Pyxlin will turn your personal online diary in to a “personal journal blook”.

Blurb’s primary purpose in creating a blog import is to give the opportunity for bloggers to sell their countless hours of blogging in book form. For example, I would love to buy excerpts of Seth Godin’s blog in the form of a book. I hate reading on a computer all day. My eyes just begin to wig out on me.

blooks vs blooks

Beyond the fact that pyxlin’s personal journals are for personal use while Blurb’s books are made primarily for resell, there are significant differences between pyxlin and blurbs typesetting abilities. Typesetting is the part that makes the text and photos in your book look nice.

To help illustrate the differences I created a book on blurb and then copied what it looked like with pyxlin. As you can see below the differences in margins, leading, kerning, ligatures, small-caps, paragraphs, justification, headers & footers, captions, widows, orphans, and so on are extreme.

Here is a screen shot of Blurb’s system

(click to see a full image and break down of the differences):

pyxlin’s professional typesetting system powered by TeX:

*I used Latin Filler Text to create these example books.

Pyxlin is all online

Because pyxlin is all online, there is nothing to download to your computer. Sharing is easy. So is publishing because you don’t have to wait for a 2 hour upload when you are ready to publish, it is already there. Most surprising is that because it is online, it is actually even faster than blurb’s application when you are working with more than 100 pages of text.

Even though it would be difficult to consider pyxlin’s journals a direct competitor to blurb’s books, I hope that this post helps you understand the differences between the two companies.

Overall blurb is a sweet company—located in San Fransisco— with a great name, great prices, and loads of funding. I am excited to see how they turn out against our friends at LuLu, their main competitor. Blurb is an On-Demand self-publisher that is really built primarily for authors to create and resell their books.

Pyxlin is simply a journaling application that allows you to keep your personal journal online, drag in your favorite photos, and then publish a beautiful hardbound journal.

Pyxlin is owned by FamilyLearn Inc. FamilyLearn is a small family history company founded by Neal Harmon. Neal grew up on the potato farms of Idaho. What little funding we have comes from family and close friends. Half of us are still students at Brigham Young University. We are probably just too stupid to know better but we hope to make pyxlin work without venture capital funding.

In the 2000 surveys we have conducted between Turk users and BYU students, the only concern has been whether or not pyxlin will be secure enough to keep a personal journal online. Here are the comments (My responses are below):

…HOWEVER I find it very interesting that your survey did not address one of the most likely concerns of its users - namely, that of online security. Journals are private, intimate things and it will be paramount to completely convince users that their private writings, photos and data are not going to be plastered all over the internet by an ex-employee with a grudge.

I would not want an online journal, because if someone found out my password, they could break in and read my journal. I would literally rather die!

The way I feel about it, it sound like a good idea but won’t other people who would remain nameless (government) want to have access to this; and if so how personal is this personal journal?

I would like my personal journal to be personal, hence would not want to archive it online. I guess a lot of people would share my view.

A journal for me is very private. I would not be comfortable if it were on the net.

Anything I would put in a journal would be too personal and computers are too public - that’s why I’m not interested.

Slightly worried about hackers being able to obtain personal details with this system

Keeping a paper journal private may be difficult, but I rarely worry that some technical error will make it public to millions of people! This would terrify me unless I was writing for the purpose of having other people read it.

Journals are private. I’m sorry, but in this day and age of cross-site-scripting, SQL injections, identity thievery, and other malfeasance on the Internet, I wouldn’t trust my deepest, darkest, personal secrets, to a third party. …Then there’s the topic of security. How can you guarantee that your geeks and DBAs won’t read my journal?

Interesting for people who want to share their journals. I prefer to keep mine to myself.

Good luck in your venture. It sounds like a neat idea. The only thing I’d be worried about is how people would feel about privacy concerns. Either way, good luck.

Main reason for not digitizing - privacy. Nothing stays private once on internet. Old Deep Blog is more likely your audience. Those entries are generally unconcerned with privacy.

Service sounds great. But for me to use it, it would need to be secure. I don’t keep an online journal currently due to privacy. Still, sounds interesting.

Please get in touch by email on intro of this service. Sounds good. But you must offer guarantee of sorts on confidentiality of information from these journals.

Neat idea saving a journal online. How private would it be though? Would be worried that the hosts of the service are reading my journal and laughing

One thing to keep in mind is the personal nature of a journal. Some things are too private to be put on the internet, or printed out where one’s child might read them 10 years in the future. If the journal only includes happy, non-private things, what is the point?

You say that one of the advantages of the site is that it allows you to keep things completely private. Isn’t that lost when it is printed out?

I would never put such private information where others could potentially read it.

It sounds like a nice service, but I would be very concerned about privacy. Being able to access my journal from anywhere in the world with an internet connection is great, but I wouldn’t want anyone else to be able to access my journal… the idea that my journal is out there on some server somewhere is a bit scary.

I would be interested in a free trial of this product with security measures in place so others couldn’t read my journal.

How would it be completely private? Would there ever be any way that someone else could read it? How would it be organized if there weren’t specific topics like ‘Trips’? It sounds like a really cool idea though!

As I previously mentioned I would be concerned about the public access and safety of my journal online. Otherwise it sounds like a great service.

What are the chance of someone hacking into the system? It may happen!

I would be concerned about the privacy. My journal isn’t something I want the whole world to have internet access to.

pyxlin - the security YOU want

These are all excellent concerns. Security for your journal has been the topic of many water cooler conversations at FamilyLearn (parent company of pyxlin).

Due to these concerns, a couple of days ago we added a new question to our survey. Interestingly enough, we have not had a single comment about security sense we added this question. Here it is:

What kind of security would you need to feel comfortable keeping your privatel journal online?

• I don’t keep a personal journal.

• O encryption - As public as your blog, the whole world can read it.

• 128 MB encryption on login - as secure as your email.

• 128 MB encryption all-the-time - as secure as your online banking.

• 256 MB encryption all-the-time - more secure than most banks (highest possible level of security)

• I will never keep my journal online.

It is important that YOU decide what kind of security pyxlin will offer. So YOU vote here and we will listen.

funny security stuff

Your comments reminded me of a classic story about my grandpa in Burley, Idaho. I was visiting his house for a family gathering and I asked him if I could use the Internet. He passionately declared that he had no Internet and no plans to ever get it.

Grandpa, who had never used the Internet in his life, proceeded educate me on his superior Internet conspiracy knowledge. One: anyone with Internet can be spied on in their house by government agents. Two: if you have the Internet, technology pirates will come and take the money out of your bank accounts.

Moving On.

Here is comment on the survey that made me think:

“Keeping a paper journal private may be difficult, but I rarely worry that some technical error will make it public to millions of people! This would terrify me unless I was writing for the purpose of having other people read it.”

Last Fall I was inspired to start a blog by Paul Allen’s Internet marketing class at BYU. Two weeks into class Phil Windley, an early blogger, visited the class as a guest speaker. Phil was asked, “I can’t get anyone to come and read my blog. How do I get people to come to my blog?”

Phil first pointed out that it takes time to build “Google Juice” for your blog. He suggested that for the present we send our blog URL to our moms. Your mom will always read your blog.

In my enthusiasm I went home and emailed every family member I knew a link to my blog, including my mom. I posted regularly as I imagined that moment when the traffic would just flow like magic from Google. That moment never came. When you are competing with over 76 million other blogs it can be difficult to stand out. I can’t even get my mom to read my blog!

This reminds of the above t-shirt:

If I can’t get anyone to care about my blog, I can’t imagine that anyone would really care about my personal journal. Even if I did post my personal journal to the public I would never get “millions” of readers.

pyxlin - more secure than your traditional journal

Considering that 37% of journalers have had a journal lost or destroyed. Your private journal is probably more secure with pyxlin than your standard handwritten journal buried at the bottom of your dresser. Let me give you a comparison:

The Standard Journal		Your Private Online Journal
Only as private as the place you put it. Drawer, backpack, under your pillow. Your only security is your bad handwriting.		128 MB Encrypted Password Protected.
Easy to lose, forget, or misplace.		Impossible to lose, forget, or misplace anywhere in the world.
Erodes, fades, and can be damaged over time.		We upload and preserve your journal perpetually. Your kids, grandkids, and great grandkids will enjoy this forever.
Your journal can be destroyed by: Housefires, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Floods, Tornadoes, Landslides, Terrorist Attacks, Avalanches, Volcanos, your kids, siblings, or friends.		Multiple servers in multiple countries back up your every file. If your home town ges destroyed by an earthquake you can feel safe that your journal is secure.

26 percent of journal (or diary) keepers use a Mac or PC. We are safe to assume that the vast majority of computer diaries and journals are kept on Microsoft Word, considering that Macs have only 5 percent of the market share.

Aside from computer crashes and other dangers we have previously discussed, typesetting is the greatest difference between MS Word and pyxlin which is powered by TeX.

Example 1 - Common Ligatures

Example 2 - Real Small Caps

Example 3 - Real World Example

TeX (professionally typeset) Microsoft Word (many errors)

When typesetting just one small example of words in Alice in Wonderland, note three major differences between professional typesetting, powered by TeX, and Microsoft Word. First, look carefully how TeX uses contextual intelligence to determine that a ligature is needed to combine the “f” and “i” in the word “finishing.” Second, TeX avoids placing “So” on its own line, making the sentence easier to read. Finally, TeX also produces a more balanced text block by extending the last sentence out on the final line, instead of leaving “been” hanging. Professional books are built upon this attention to balance and detail. If MS Word makes this many mistakes in a simple 86 word excerpt of Alice and Wonderland, how many mistakes are their going to be in your whole journal?

Pyxlin not only looks more professional but it will also be much easier to use as a journal tool than MS Word.

Related Post: History of TeX

Related Post: pyxlin - powered by TeX

Here are some other interesting stats that we learned from a survey of over 3000 people:

• 21 percent of journalers have lost a journal by misplacing it (these are probably mostly handwritten).
• 13 percent have lost their journal to a computer crash.
• 2 percent have been destroyed in an accident (e.g. House fire, water)
• 0.5 percent have been lost in a natural disaster (e.g. tornado, flood, hurricane, earthquake)

This is a total of 36.5 percent! Wow, who would have thought this many people have experienced losing their journal?

Could your personal journal/diary survive this? pyxlin can.

We have now surveyed 1000 plus Amazon Mechanical Turk users about personal journals. Here are some interesting about those who keep a personal journal:

• 48 percent of personal journals are still written by hand.
• 26 percent are kept on a Mac or PC.
• 24 percent are now kept online (mostly blogs).
• 1.6 percent are kept in other ways (calendar, on PDAs…)

The Amazon Turk crowd is a fairly tech savvy group of people. Anyone who spends their day going through and answering turk questions understands the Internet very well.

I would assume that the number of handwritten and PC/Mac journals would go up if we had a more broad survey demographic, but I was still surprised that almost half of personal journals are still kept by hand.

Of the 900+ Mechanical Turk users that we have surveyed, 1 out of 4 personal diaries/journals (26%) are kept on a Mac or PC.

pyxlin vs Mac or PC

Last week I spoke with Debbi, a lady while promoting pyxlin at BYU Womens Conference. Womens Conference is about 18,000 women (mostly moms) from all over the world gathered on BYU campus.

When Debbi saw pyxlin, she could hardly contain her excitement. Debbi explained that she kept a regular journal on her home computer for 4 years; diligently recording family memories, photos, lessons she had learned, and everyday life events. Unfortunately she never backed anything up. Debbi was devastated when her computer crashed just a few months ago. She lost everything!

Apparently Debbi’s situation is not unusual. According to our survey, 13 percent of those who keep a personal journal said that they have lost a journal due to a computer crash. Another 3 percent said they have lost their journal to an accident (i.e. house fire, flood…) or natural disaster.

Personally, having lost one of my own journals, I believe that their are very few things more important to keep safe in this life than our personal journals.

Pyxlin will solve this problem faced by 16 of 100 journalers. Pyxlin will be secure & private with a permanent archive online to keep it safe from house-fires, floods, natural disasters, computer crashes, terrorists, tsunamis, kids, spouses, and even siblings.