listography news

Listography.com News!

2008-09-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

Effective 9:00am, September 22, 2008
We are really excited to report that we finished a great new customization feature! When you are logged in, head to your settings. You can choose from some beautiful preset images Adam has created or you can upload your own photograph. The image you choose will be your background image for your Listography page. The image is tiled which means it repeats to the size of your Listography pages. You can have a little fun with it by choosing an image with smaller dimensions which will cause it to repeat more frequently.

We have been thinking of ways to make your Listography feel more like your own individual home, so we hope you like the update! As a side note, you can now choose "white" as your list color which may be more complimentary to your background image.

We've also found a way to customize our home page with a background image of our own. You'll see the photo image change often. We needed a way to make the home page more dynamic so we wouldn't tire of it. So if you dislike the image, don't worry, it'll change soon.

The Listography for Kids and Love themed Listography are now for sale at all the usual spots...

Hope everyone is having a great start to their Fall! Please let us know if you find any bugs!
Best wishes, L & A

Kid's & Love Listography

2008-07-09T06:57:00.000-07:00

8/6/08 The Listography Book is currently sold out, but more will be arriving within the next 2 weeks!

The Listography Books Page

I discovered that the Listography for Kids Book and the Love Listography are available for pre-order already on various sites! I think they will be available for purchase in September at retailers and in August through online retailers.

The Kid's Listography is a listing guidebook perfect for kids ages 7 and up. There are everyday topics (like favorite movies, songs and books), fun topics (like what you would do if you were in charge and super powers you wish you had), and also more meaningful lists (like things you are thankful for and what you love most about your family). This is probably my favorite Listography. I wish I had one from when I was a kid [insert the "darn it face" and a foot kicking the grass]. Hopefully this makes a nice gift for kids that they'll keep as a time capsule.

The Love Listography is basically all about Love, from the general to the intimate details (like honeymoon destination ideas to break up mix tape songs), and the funny things (like relationship pet peeves or why you wouldn't date yourself), along with just remembering all your kisses and first dates or how you learned about sex [a girl named Julie showed me a playgirl mag in 4th grade and I thought his penis was a big belly button]. You definitely need a sense of humor when it comes to the ins and outs of love. Many of us have had these universal experiences with human relationships so it might even be fun to share with friends, maybe on a Valentine's Day get together?

Well, again, these books were mostly created to get us thinking about this crazy and wonderful thing we've been given: life. The lists are not about dwelling on the past, future or present, but mostly about taking a minute to honor them in all their glory and defeats --a form of personal entertainment. Thank you for your feedback and support and I hope you like the new books!

PS: Remember to register to VOTE for the November Elections!

Listography, The Book, Back on Shelves

2008-06-21T09:15:00.001-07:00

The Listography Book is reprinted and now back on shelves! You can find them online at many small retailers, and also at Urban Outfitters, Barnes and Noble and many small gift & book shops! Another printing will be ready to go in August!

I received my first copy of Listography, For Kids. It is the sweetest thing! I am really excited about this book. I hope it will be something kids like and something they'll treasure when they grow into adults like us... Listography, For Kids will be out this Fall.

New Home Page

2008-06-14T19:51:00.001-07:00

We've been trying to get this right: a home page that's simple, clean, and friendly. We also wanted something that caters to our desire to always want to change something. We solved this by adding the background photograph element which will change here and there (this sort of hints at what we're working on next with user customization).

We've also added a mascot down in the right corner. That's our cat Biko. On her page you can find occasional list ideas, past featured users, and site updates in nice concise lists (addressing requests listographers have written in).

Generally you only pop on the home page to log in, or peek at recent user lists, or do a search, so even though momentary, we hope you like it!

New Features & Book Update

2008-05-18T16:33:00.000-07:00

Book News: Listography, The Book, has sold out of its second printing. Chronicle is reprinting round 3 and they should soon be back in small spaces and big spaces (Chronicle Books, Amazon, Fred Flare, Barnes & Noble, Urban Outfitters) in JUNE! The Kid's Listography and Love Listography are complete and will arrive in the Fall of 2008. Thank you for sharing the book with family and friends, and for your emails and support of the book!

Website News: We've added some new features listed below. Listography is just lisa + adam, so please help us by letting us know if you find any bugs via email (include your browser and operating system info). Visit the contact page for info.

Newness:
1. New formatting features (see guide for help): bold, italic, checkmarks, link single words or whole lines, urls now linked automatically, create sublists, create paragraphs within lists

(Note: There is one bug we are working out with single word linking. If you link a word at the end of a line, it links the whole line. We hope to resolve this soon.)

2. Both the list creation date and the updated date are viewable on your lists now

3. Streamlined "tools" menu and "show links" tool

4. Google maps and Flickr added to the link generator

5. Keep yourself logged-in by clicking the box on the home page

Coming Soon: We're working on customization options, list feeds so you can follow list updates easily, and more list tools.

Happy Spring!

Newness Alert

2008-03-14T06:46:00.000-07:00

Search Lists: On each users page you will see a mini search box below their folders. You can now search within a user's PUBLIC lists. For example, if you're going to the bookstore and you know your friend has a great list on "books to read", you can easily find it amongst their lists. Also, list searching for yourself will be more convenient when you remember something you want to add to a list. When you are logged in, your "search within" results will include your private lists, but when you are logged out, private lists will remain excluded from the search results. Note: you can still search all of Listography from the front page.

Show Longer Lists in Place: Lists appear in an abbreviated form when they are longer than ten entries. You can now easily expand those lists in place for full viewing by clicking on "show all items" at the bottom of the list.

Favorites Updates: It use to be that you'd click on one of your favorite's updated lists and it would take you to their entire page. Now you can click on either the specific list to just see that list or you can click on their name and see their home page.

Listography, The Book: Thank you for continuing to write to me about the book. Chronicle Books should have it back on shelves by April 1, 2008. Listography, For Kids and The Love Listography will be out this Fall :-)

As usual, it's just me and adam here so we need your help with bug reporting. There's PCs, Macs, Firefox, IE and Safari we have to contend with so please let us know if you find any issues and please tell us the sequence of events and what operating system and browser you are using. Thank you and hope everyone is well!

New Home Page

2008-03-02T20:39:00.000-08:00

We created a new home page to make your logging in experience a little smoother --hope you like it :-)

Listography Book Giveaway

2008-02-07T16:16:00.000-08:00

Since the book is presently sold out, I thought I'd mention this little giveaway. Remember the funny video I linked to earlier about Americans loving lists...well the same guy is giving away a copy of Listography if you add Goodie Bag to your Facebook, so give Goodie Bag a visit...

Craftzine.com also hosted a Listography Giveaway Contest! Congrats to Kendra Skeene who won...

New Feature Alert: Link Generator!

2008-02-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

Adam just rolled out a new feature called "link generators".

If you click "links" at the bottom of a list box, you can choose from some common search engines to explore list items. When you do this, generated links will appear next to each list item.

I usually keep a list of movies I want to see, BUT I often want to check the reviews beforehand. Now when I am looking at my "movies to see" list, I can open the links for imdb, rotten tomatoes or netflix and check on their reviews without cutting and pasting or retyping.

You can also use Amazon, Wikipedia and Google as other search and explore tools for your lists and other people's lists as well. If someone has an interesting music list, you can open Amazon MP3 and listen to their music choices in a click or two.

Hope you like the feature, and as always, thanks for letting us know when you find bugs! We're getting started on the next new feature to the site!

Listography, The Book coming back soon in March :-)

Listography Book Return Update

2008-01-08T17:20:00.001-08:00

Listography is completely sold out...not anticipated at all. Chronicle is rushing for the 2nd printing which will be available in March. Apologies to those folks who have written to me about finding the book! More are on the way so check back with us. The Kid's version of Listography will follow in August 2008. Best wishes, Lisa

New Feature Alert: In Place List Editing!

2008-01-01T21:11:00.001-08:00

Adam has finally completed some changes to the site and how we edit lists! We hope you like it. Instead of being taken to another page when you create and edit lists, you stay right where you are. All the same list editing choices are there, and we'll be adding to these choices over time! We also touched up some cosmetic aspects to the site.

I say often that it's just me and Adam who run listography, and I barely know how to use computers SO if you find glitches or bugs, PLEASE write to us and let us know. We tested on Safari, Firefox, and IE but these things can be tricky! Contact us at bugs (at) listography.com

Time for those pesky new year's resolutions! We wish you a great 2008!
~ Lisa & Adam

Here's a funny take on list making in America --sick of lists? brother please.

Listen to Sasha Cagen's interview on Talk Of The Nation on list making and her new book To Do List here.

The Listography Project

2008-01-01T21:10:00.001-08:00

thank you to friends Marc (Her Space Holiday/Matmos remix) and Nyles (n.lannon) for pretty music!

I have been making lists for years --and it escalated when I became a teacher. My favorite lists are often morbid: songs for my funeral, things I'd like to be remembered for, what I'd want placed in my coffin or what I'd want at my last supper. (We have a resting place for our bodies, why not our lives?) I am grateful for this life even when it's painful, and somehow these list meditations sharpen my focus or help me to hone in on and be saturated by an emotion that comes with a memory. I can't make a list on my favorite games from childhood without remembering what it was like to hit the little cubes out of the "Don't Break The Ice" game and being in pjs on high anxiety because the little dude is about to fall through the ice. So listing can also point to areas of the brain we forgot about and oddly create a conversation between you and you.

I have been a contemplative gal since I was five, and at the same time, organized and a daydreamer. I make lists to reflect and I make lists because I want to get out there and do a few things. I cherish life (past, present, future) and so I like the details. I sometimes catch myself stumbling across a random memory, like the time when my friends and I were stuck in traffic on the way to Yosemite and we finally discovered that the reason for the hold up was a pig escaping a farmer's truck and running down the freeway, with the overalled farmer chasing him close behind. We watched and laughed. I love the randomness of life and those experiences are often filed away somewhere and it's hard to find the drawer. I believe all of these pieces make up a map of who we are. Faced with the fact that as we get older memory fades, I thought it would be nice to have some simple places to keep these various remembrances, both the good and the bad. Every moment of light and dark is a miracle, as Walt Whitman would say.

For the first time in human history, the internet is offering an opportunity for every individual to not only share their lives with millions, but to also leave behind a record of who they were, and what life was like, for future generations. For me, the website is a place to keep these archives collectively, a beautiful database of our goals, our memories, our favorites, etc. I wish I had a listography written by my grandparents and great grandparents. It would have been fascinating!

The Book came to me first. Books are intimate and I love to hold a book in my hands. Leaving your listography on the table to share or hiding it away like a diary, reflecting on a list on the subway, or sharing it at a dinner party is a lot easier with a book. The illustrations are fun and that blue ribbon bookmark is my favorite.

I recently made a list of things I don't want to forget about my Grandma Nola. As I sat there thinking of things to list about my grandma, I realized much about her that might have slipped away from me. In a way, I felt as though I was honoring her and her existence in this small amount of time I took to reflect on knowing her.

Some folks use the website for practical purposes: grocery lists, movies to see, to do's, etc. When you have a list of things to do staring at you and begging for a strike through, it's encouraging! In the same way I don't want to forget the idiosyncrasies of my grandma, I also don't want to forget to pick up more cereal, learn a new language or see a particular film.

List formats are everywhere and helpful, but Listography, for me, is a meditative personal tool and a way to honor what we choose to honor (that's my intention anyway).

Listo Spottings

2007-12-17T07:51:00.000-08:00

it's a dream come true that this little book came to be. it's still exciting to spot it in shops or read someone's post about it. a friend sent me a clip of listography in Shape Magazine, another friend sent a photo of it on sale at the San Francisco MoMa giftshop and at the museum giftshop in Barcelona! i'm glad there are folks who like the book and that it's doing well. a friend told me that he thought the project captured a sadness and happiness toward life that i've expressed. creating lists about your life isn't for everyone but i think, for some of us, it's a tool and also gratifying spiritually.

"the irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death; but it is life itself which awakens it." --ernest becker (cultural anthropologist)

"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." --isaac asimov

website news: adam is close to completing the major overhaul in how we edit and shape lists! coming soon!!

Listography, The Book News

2007-12-05T08:39:00.001-08:00

(update: Listography is sold out everywhere. new listographies are being made now.)

It looks like the book is well received which is great news. The downside is that Chronicle Books has sold out of the book sooner than they thought so a second pressing is on the way; however, new Listographies will not be available until mid January. Apologies to those folks who own little shops and have placed a reorder.

In the meantime, Amazon has a couple left and the book can still be found in stores at Urban Outfitters and some other spots on the internet. For those of you who took home the book, we hope you like it. I've realized lately that listing is a sort of meditation. In the same way we might take time to clear our minds, listing is a way to focus on our life. I sometimes make the same faces when I am listing that I make when I am playing Scrabble, Sudoku, or a crossword puzzle --the contemplation face. Anyway, off on a little tangent there...

Hope everyone has a nice holiday!

Our Assortment of Images

2007-11-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to define our fragile existence; many ways to give it meaning. But it is our memories that shape its purpose and give it context. The private assortment of images: fears, loves, regrets… for it’s the cruel irony of life that we are destined to hold the dark with the light, the good with the evil, success with disappointment… this is what separates us, what makes us human. And in the end, we must fight to hold on to.

--from Heroes

I love this quote and I think it applies to those of us who like to make lists. We fight for our memories and fight for a context.

Listography News

2007-11-14T09:43:00.000-08:00

1. Pop Candy for USA Today wrote a piece on "Books That are More Than Books", and mentioned Listography.

2. Adam is working his butt off outside of his 50 hour a week job to complete a whole new easier way to create and edit lists. I've seen the preview and it is amazing! We have many ideas on what we're going to add to the site, but alas it will take some time... I think me learning to write code is still an impossibility.

3. Chronicle Books is sending me the new kid's version and love life version *rough copies* of Listography. I am looking forward to seeing them...especially the kid's version. Nat created some really sweet drawings for it. These books will be out in August of 2008.

4. Listography is finally available at Urban Outfitters! What a great gift for the holidays, wink.

5. Hello to the new users who have found us. We hope you like the site. Please feel free to write to us with suggestions for the future or bugs that you find.

To Do Lists!

2007-11-14T07:38:00.000-08:00

I came across Sasha Cagen's new book and blog called To Do List! She has wrangled together To Do Lists from across the globe and you can read them all in her book. Some come from well knowns like Alice Waters, Nick Hornby, and Michael Musto, as well as us everyday folks. You can find her book on Amazon.

Best wishes to Sasha!

In other book news, Gretchen Ruben is working on a memoir covering the year she spent test-driving happiness principles. The Happiness Project will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t. On her daily blog, you can read about her adventures. The book will arrive in late 2009.
Best wishes to Gretchen!

Listography & Current TV

2007-11-13T15:53:00.001-08:00

A nice little piece on Listography from Current TV

Memory

2007-10-20T02:20:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting article on memory and the internet. The internet has become a storage space for so much easily retrievable information that one hardly needs memory anymore. What will this extra space in our brains be used for --hopefully something useful? While the web may store vast amounts of information about the world, maybe Listography is a spot to store information about yourself before your brain locks it away in inaccessible files.

"In fact, the line between where my memory leaves off and Google picks up is getting blurrier by the second."

Chronicle Blog

2007-10-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Today, Chronicle Books has Listography featured on their blog. Chronicle left a copy out so staff could come by and make their own entries under individual list topics. You can view some responses below...

Last night, I went with a few friends to celebrate Listography's release. I passed a Listography Book around during dinner and friends made their individual entries as well. I discovered my friend Jim use to wear kilts in 1995...nice.

Thanks to everyone who made the book come to be and to you listographers who have written nice words about the book!

Boing Boing and Listography

2007-10-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

The folks at boingboing.net have launched a new piece to their popular website, a directory of wonderful things. They call it Boing Boing TV. In their video premiere, Boing Boing gives us Listographers a nod.

See their first video HERE. Listography's spot is about halfway through.

Listography, The Book, Arrives!!

2007-09-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that Listography, The Book, is finally out as of 12 hours ago from the Bay Area's happy Chronicle Books. Click here for a peek.

Nat Russell did the great illustrations. The book captures your autobiography in lists - just follow the prompts. I told adam the other day, we have a resting place for our bodies, why not for our lives? Morbid, I know, but that's kind of the idea behind Listography for me, a time capsule (not a great ad campaign. ha.).

This will make a nice gift for the holidays & birthdays --something enjoyable for your friends, family, kids, and grandkids to read. Those who have snooped through mine wasted no time in making fun of my entries under Places I've Had Sex. Leave your copy next to your toilet to entertain guests. Try bringing a Listography to a party and have friends make individual entries.

::: find it here & support Chronicle
::: find it here at Amazon
::: find one in Urban Outfitters for the holidays around November.
::: find one in Barnes & Noble in December.

Please share with your friends or share on your blog to help with a little grassroots book promoting.

I hope you enjoy creating your Listography and that it remains a meaningful book in your life....There will be three other Listography Books available in 2008 --for kids, etc...

Hello!

2007-07-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

Well, this is our Listography Blog. We added this to the site so we can keep you up to date on things Listography related. Right now, our most exciting news is the following:

1. Adam has just finished Moveable Boxes. Now you can move your lists around like magic! It's a little touchy sometimes but I think it addresses what we've all been wanting, and that is to be able to move certain lists to the top. Just use the little handle on the right side of your list when logged in.
2. Listography, The Book will be on shelves October 1, 2007 AND you can order it from Chronicle Books or Amazon in advance. The book looks beautiful and we're very happy with it. The book is a nice little way to keep your autobiography for yourself, family or friends to read, and may we humbly state that it makes a wonderful gift for others. I have already been kindly teased for a few things I have written in mine.
3. The Listography, For Kids book will be released August, 2008 --this book is really cute and we're excited about it even though we have to wait a year! Great lists and artwork from Nat that will appeal to kids and help to capture their hopes, dreams, likes and dislikes.

As you may or may not know, I don't know a lick of code. Adam is the software engineer and I am the list geek. Adam also works full time --arg. But when there is time, he is working on our list of 50 new features to add to Listography. If you have a suggestion, it might be on our To Do list already, but it also might not be, so please let us know. Listography is home to your lists, so we want to make the site as best as it can be.

Thank you for joining the family and please check back for any news here! We will continue to keep the short list of new features on the home page as well.

LIST IDEAS: my favorite list ideas this year

1. Snapshot --choose "Other" for the custom category and start creating Snapshots. Enter the date as a title and list all the things you did or witnessed that day. It's a nice way to chronicle random days of your life.
2. Mixtapes --create song Mixtapes with a nice image of the friend you want to send it to and email the list to them through our email list feature. Sweet way to send someone some love.
3. Events --keep an Events list with the year as the title. Record the date and things you do throughout the year. Will be a nice list to quickly revisit at different points in your life.

Best wishes, Lisa & Adam

listography news

Listography.com News!

Kid's & Love Listography

Listography, The Book, Back on Shelves

New Home Page

New Features & Book Update

** Newness Alert **

New Home Page

Listography Book Giveaway

New Feature Alert: Link Generator!

Listography Book Return Update

New Feature Alert: In Place List Editing!

The Listography Project

Listo Spottings

Listography, The Book News

Our Assortment of Images

Listography News

To Do Lists!

Listography & Current TV

Memory

Chronicle Blog

Boing Boing and Listography

Listography, The Book, Arrives!!

Hello!

Newness Alert