Using Yearbook Machine to create our college yearbook made the painful process of forcefully extracting fond memories from your peers actually enjoyable. With relatively little effort on either the students' or the editors' parts we created a truly unique book that people found difficult to stop complimenting us on.
The website's intuitive and interactive system made contributing as easy and satisfying as an hour's worth of facebook stalking with the bonus of actual physical results. I grew up with a yearly yearbook, and the one created for us by the young and enthusiastic staff of Yearbook Machine is by far the best of them all.
Ingeborg Kuijlaars Yearbook Editor, Downing College, Cambridge
My Oxford college had not been successful in producing a yearbook since 2004/5, and as Head of the Yearbook Committee I needed to not only try something new but also motivate an entire year group of finalists who had seen nothing but failure in previous years. Last year, over 80% of the third year participated in the creation of the 2010 yearbook, and they did this while studying for final exams.
There is no way that this would have been achieved had it not been for the design of the Yearbook Machine website: the finalists loved exercising their banter in a silent library, stalking yearbook profiles during short breaks, and reminiscing with nostalgia during particularly long and depressing nights of revision.
As Head of the Yearbook Committee, I also loved how easy it made my life - had I attempted to produce such a high quality yearbook without Yearbook Machine, I would have had to quit, return the following year, and fully devote those weeks to a project that still would not have looked so good.
Elizabeth Hennah Yearbook Editor, Lincoln College Oxford
When I heard that we were having a college yearbook, I was a bit apathetic, as my previous school's yearbook had been generally regarded as being not very good and a bit of a waste of money. But, as soon as everyone was online and contributing, we realised that this yearbook would be different, mainly because the online system meant that people were actually writing stuff for it. Receiving the physical book was also a pleasant surprise: it looks really professional (like something that you actually want to keep!), rather than something that could have come off the school photocopier. Top marks.
Georgia Ward-Dyer Student, Trinity Hall, Cambridge
You guys are awesome!
Jigar Patel JCR President, Pembroke College, Oxford
I'll be honest: I wasn't expecting much from our yearbook because I'd been so slack about organising it. But Yearbook Machine pulled it all together, and the results were better than anything I've seen. My little brother is jealous!
Steve Squirrell Head Boy, Norwich School