If you are experiencing problems getting to Picnik right now, it is because we are in the process of upgrading our firewall. The plan was do be down for a very short time, but there has been a hiccup in the process which we expect to have ironed out any minute now.

Update: It’s all good again. Enjoy!

The guys over at freewebs rolled out their fancy new Picnik support today. Go check it out!

While summer in Seattle officially starts the day after the 4^th of July holiday, summer for the Picnik team started early. The blog has been a little slow because some of us have been traveling, on jury duty and/or attending family reunions. Now that some of us have gotten that out of our systems (more or less) we’re back on and working on getting rid of that pesky “beta” tag. We’re a little old skool here, we think “beta” is a temporary state of being, not a postfix to a product name. Stay tuned; it’ll be an interesting summer. I promise.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we have over 200k users on Facebook, and we’d love to see more. When we were not attending to family and civic duties, we were quietly polishing our Facebook experience. We really like how it has turned out. If you haven’t tried Facebook yet, go sign up! Facebook is open to all users now, not just the elitist college folk. And if you’re already a Facebook user, be sure to check out the Facebook-enabled version of Picnik. Facebook users can try it out here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2258014869&b.

And last, but most certainty not least, I’d like to welcome the newest member of the Picnik team, Monica Harrington, marketing guru. The attentive readers of our blog probably noticed that Monica and I share a last name and quickly jumped to some kind of relationship conclusion.  You are probably right, but it’s only through a quirk of fate. Monica and I are married, but Harrington is her maiden name. Mine too.  It was a nice convenience when we got married, but family reunions can be a little confusing. It’s great to be working with Monica again. We haven’t worked together since the Valve days. As much as I’m looking forward to working with Monica, I’m especially happy to be working with her assistants, Frank and Emma.

Monica and her assistants. 

Rumor of the day: Text. Stay tuned.