Top of the Ladder

Hi everyone,

5 days to go until launch!

After the site goes public, we will of course use this blog to bring you updates on new features and fixes to Ladder To Heaven.

But in addition, we will select extraordinary deeds from the site and post them on this blog. We will highlight these deeds so readers can see exactly what our site is all about. If you sign up for our Facebook application, these deeds will be sent directly to your Facebook. Don’t worry: we will not edit or modify these select deeds anyway. We will simply hand choose them from the deeds posted on Ladder To Heaven.

We can’t wait to read all your incredible stories!

A few moments ago, the latest copy of LadderToHeaven iteration 1 has been installed on the official web server. Iteration 1? Yes, iteration 1. Our team of dedicated developers is devoted to the goal of perfecting user experience. In the next six months, expect updates & upgrades on a weekly basis. Although our current features list is quite impressive for the first beta release, we are planning to expand LadderToHeaven’s capabilities once there is a considerable pool of users. Rest assured! For those of you who plan to use this service as the sole place to keep a log of all the good things you have done, data posted & points earned in early editions of LadderToHeaven will definitely carry over to the next version, guaranteed.

Hey Harvard students! Hope exam period went well. If you’re bored over intersession and want to test out a special preview edition of LadderToHeaven, post a comment below with your name and contact information. We’ll email you more details about how you can access LadderToHeaven before its grand opening.

We are launching LadderToHeaven for the general public 2/2/08.

We are very excited to report Ladder to Heaven is on track to launch February 2nd, 2008. Final testing of the core code concluded last night. Right now, besides prepping the server and ironing out some final bugs involving the points system, things are pretty laid back. Our core development team in India and our dedicated beta testers have put in countless hours to ensure LadderToHeaven’s top-notch usage quality and reliability. Everything looks absolutely fabulous. To give you a sneak preview of the beta design, check out our final color palette:

The site is aimed to reach audience members of all ages. First time impressions from Harvard students who previewed the site were extremely positive. Older family friends from across the United States also agree.

7 days to go!

The moment you’ve all been waiting for!

Chen and I are proud to announce the official launch date for Ladder To Heaven: February 2nd, 2008.

Keep your calendars marked, your eyes open, and your deed list growing for the arrival of LadderToHeaven.com!

Thanks to support from Duncan Riley @ TechCrunch and Glen Stansberry @ BlogFuse, Ladder to Heaven now has its own Facebook app. From the very beginning, we debated whether or not to build Ladder to Heaven solely on Mark Zuckerberg’s popular platform. The decision to construct our own site was due to the fact that — there are huge parts of the world population Facebook is currently not reaching. Wait, what am I saying? What kind of a claim is that? No seriously. One of our main goals is to make Ladder to Heaven open to people of all demographics. I don’t know about you, but I doubt my grandparents are avid Facebook users. What if they want to post a good deed about their neighbors?

But, for those of us who do use Facebook, having a way in which we can see the good that’s come out of Ladder to Heaven is also important. In this very first venture into the Facebook development world, we are offering an application that will provide a very simple list of the latest, most praised deeds from Ladder to Heaven. Want to stay up to date with all the amazing things people are doing all across the world? This app will provide you and visitors of your profile with a stream of inspirational stories.

As most of you already know, Ladder to Heaven is currently in closed beta. We are almost there. Currently, the articles displayed will mainly cover our development process, (the entries you are reading right now). But you don’t have to wait until the launch date to install this application! If you believe in our cause, please add the Ladder to Heaven Facebook app and the deeds will automatically flow in once the site launches.

Happy New Year everyone. The team has made incredible progress in the last few days of debugging. Soon, we will be in final approach of opening Ladder to Heaven to the public. Sadly for us Harvard students — studying for final exams will take up a lot of time in the upcoming weeks. Brett & I along with the rest of our beta testers will try our best to get things in line as fast as we can. Please stay tuned for an announcement of the official launch date.

Still confused about Ladder to Heaven? Check out our FAQ.

Ladder to Heaven : spread the joys of life