MyDailyPhoto is a unique online community where people can create and maintain personalized photo diaries. Members post a picture each day to highlight and document their individual life experiences with photos ranging from interesting culinary adventures to exciting vacations.
Just ate calamari for the first time? Take a photo of a tentacle sticking out of your mouth. Took a trip to Boston? Post a picture of yourself at the top of the Prudential Building. And then, if you can't remember how you celebrated your birthday two years ago, you can easily go back in time and remember entire days by simply looking at a photo.
As a member you'll be inspired to keep your camera with you at all times to capture life's unexpected memories — those usually forgotten — and save them forever. With MyDailyPhoto, today isn't lost.
In April of 2007 two friends, Matthew and Genevieve, thought it might be interesting to see how the lives of people so far apart match up on a daily basis. Overnight a project titled Two Clicks a Day was born and the two were posting a picture every day, lugging their cameras around everywhere they went. It was a mix of a photography website and a blog, providing a visual contrast between the lives of friends. Slowly the project morphed into something more; it provided a unique way to keep track of their lives and it soon caught the attention of others.
The pressure of taking a photo and updating a website every day soon wore on Genevieve, though, and she removed herself from the project, being replaced by Lauren, who soon dropped off as well, being replaced by Erin. The idea of a daily photo blog was interesting, but it needed to be re-worked for ease of use.
It took some convincing, but eventually there was enough pressure from friends and family members that Matthew decided to open up the project to anyone who wanted to participate. Programmer, database guru, and long-time friend Sean was signed on to help with the transition from minimalist photo blog to full-fledged community, and the name of the project was changed to MyDailyPhoto.
The first iteration of the website was released to the public in an open beta on September 24th, 2007.
After a few months passed the membership had steadily grown, but features were lacking and there was no real sense of community. Matthew decided to take some time off from work to devote himself full-time to developing MyDailyPhoto. Dozens of features were added, the code that powered the website was completely gutted and rebuilt, and the design changed slightly to reflect the most current trends. Dubbed MyDailyPhoto 2, the new site launched on June 30th, 2008.
After nearly two years of operation the look-and-feel of the site was painfully behind the rest of the pack. Over thirty different logos and seven different website designs were created during the course of a three month period and, on January 31st, 2009, the freshly designed MyDailyPhoto 2.5 went live.
On December 31st, 2009 the website was solidified as a legal entity when MyDailyPhoto, LLC was formed.
In order to take advantage of suggestions from community members and to keep pace with other social websites, work began in November of 2009 to rewrite the code base of MyDailyPhoto once again. The freshly built and feature-packed MyDailyPhoto 3 was released on April 27th, 2010 after six months of programming.
Matthew Congrove created the website, did the majority of the programming, and did all of the design. Timothy Buckingham created the predecessor to MyDailyPhoto, called Two Clicks a Day, and some of his methods are still employed on this website. Sean Reed assisted with programming and does most of the database work, especially the complex queries. Numerous features were concocted by Michael Young, as well as the branding initiative. Tara Augenstein provided numerous bits of marketing copy. Creative direction assistance and API testing was provided by Rick Blalock. API and OOP-architecture assistance, server set-up, as well as general mentorship, was provided by Richard McCluskey. Further technical assistance was provided by Brian Franklin. Erin Sunday and Ruth Soto helped guide the community feature-set.
MyDailyPhoto resides on Linux Ubuntu servers that are provided by Linode. The website is built using PHP. The database utilized is MySQL. We really love using Memcached and Mod_XSendFile. The color picker is by Jan Odvárko. The image cropper is by Deep Liquid. We use Springloops as our SVN repository and off-site back-up. Almost all of these technologies are open-source, which we're a proud supporter of.
Matthew is a software engineer originally from Florida, now living and working in Boston, MA.
His experience dates back to 1999 when he helped launched the very successful CollegeFootballPoll.com, the top independent college football website in the world. From there he co-founded numerous small websites, including the popular website AllThingsRock. Matthew continued his work in the web industry even while pursuing a career in aviation at FlightSafety International, eventually opting to make technology his full-time pursuit. In 2006 he joined Expression in Design, a development firm in West Palm Beach, FL.
In late-2007 Matthew moved to Boston, MA &mdash the start-up capital of the world &mdash and secured a job with go2 Media. He bounced around a few times, including a stint as the Lead Software Architect and founding member at Unbound Commerce, before settling down at Brightcove, the world's leading online video platform.
In his spare time Matthew enjoys watching college football, devoting vasts amounts of time to keeping up with politics, and of course being a photographer. Though he considers himself an amateur, his client list includes the likes of Atlantic Records and LiveNation, to name a few.
Matthew started MyDailyPhoto in early-2007 and has been the developer, designer, and Chief Executive ever since.
Sean is an information technology expert and photographer based in Palm Beach, FL. He is a graduate of the University of South Florida with a degree in Management Information Systems.
Prior to graduating, he held positions as Senior Photographer and Online Editor for the University's campus newspaper, The Oracle.
With over a decade of experience in the information technology field, Sean has a long list of clientele for his IT consulting agency and holds a position of prominence in numerous organizations, including ArtiGras and the Northern Palm Beach County Chamber of Commerce.
Sean joined MyDailyPhoto early on, helping transform the site from a small art project to a full-fledged community. He serves as the Database Administrator and Director of Quality Assurance on top of his duties as President.
Nathan graduated with honors from the University of South Florida, receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration with a major in Marketing. While at USF he was the President of the Student Senate and the Director of Marketing and Public Affairs for Student Government.
He is currently working at a start-up in New York City and spends his free time juggling, swing dancing, and using his Android phone.
Nathan's role at MyDailyPhoto is deeply tied to the pursuit of financial funding, including the management of all business documents, relationships, and endeavors.
Ruth joined the MyDailyPhoto team in September of 2007 as the Community Manager, and was appointed as the Director of Customer Support in early-2010. She quickly helped grow the community to areas outside of Florida, making a major impact on the West Coast of the United States, and has aided in the development of numerous features for the site. User activity on the site has more than tripled since her appointment.
Richard has a long and storied career in the software industry, holding over thirty years of experience. He started his career in the United Kingdom with firms such as SAS Software and Kingfisher PLC before emigrating to America where he became the CTO of End70 Corporation in Irvine, CA. After the "dot com" burst in the late-90s Richard founded BlueSage Visions, a software consulting firm, where he developed numerous technologies, mostly dealing with content management and payment systems.
Richard is currently the Senior Engineer at go2 Media, based in Boston, MA, and has worked on the entire breadth of their system. He also runs MySongStore, a fair-trade music service that employs highly-technical solutions he developed over the past few years. He is an avid musician, having won three LA Music Awards.
At MyDailyPhoto Richard provides technical assistance and maintains the server system.
Tim is a senior web developer with more than ten years experience in the field. He has worked for a range of high-profile clients as a contract developer and has also worked as the Senior Web Developer at Starlab, a consignment software company. He currently serves as the Senior Programmer at Fastspot, a highly respected web development firm in Baltimore, MD, where he has been the tech lead on their client-based ventures as well as numerous in-house applications that have garnered wide-spread attention.
On top of programming Tim is also an accomplished musician, having been the lead vocalist and keyboardist for the Maryland-based band Valvalis, and an all-around champion of technology.
Tim created the framework code base that was to eventually power MyDailyPhoto in early-2007. He stills serves as a technology advisor to the MyDailyPhoto staff, providing invaluable insight and hands-on assistance whenever needed.
Rick is a managing partner of Expression in Design, a South Florida CMS consulting and solutions firm, which has been a leading innovator within the content management systems community. With a quickly growing resume, Rick is also becoming a highly desired speaker within the technology community, having given lectures at global conferences such as CMS Expo.
Rick earned a bachelors degree in education from The Crown College in Tennessee.
He has for years provided behind-the-scenes advice and assistance to MyDailyPhoto and was formally appointed to the Board of Advisors in January 2010.
David has over three decades of experience in traditional media marketing, having started in radio before he even finished his high school education. In 1991 he started his own consulting agency based out of Central Florida handling radio, print, and television advertising.
He is also the owner and creator of the top independent college football website in the world, which is home to the ranking algorithm he developed for the sport in the early-90s. In this capacity David is a member of the Football Writers Association of America, and has voting privileges on many of the sports top awards.
David was brought on to the MyDailyPhoto Board of Advisors to help guide future branding and marketing initiatives, as well as to provide his expert advice on creating one of the most highly-trafficked websites in the world.
Erin was one of the first people to join in on what would eventually become MyDailyPhoto back in mid-2007. She was a key part of the team that helped transition the site from a small photography blog to a full-fledged community, and served as the site's first Community Manager.