10 Posts tagged “release notes” from Neighbors

In our last release, we launched several new features in beta and asked you to try them out and give us your feedback. We'd like to send out a huge thank you to all the people who responded to our survey. Your comments and suggestions let us know exactly what we needed to tweak before releasing the features to everyone.

Now that we've had a chance to implement the feedback of the beta testers, we're ready to release many of the new features to all Vox users. But first, we wanted to give you a quick guide of what to look for as you're exploring the site.

New Navigation
We spent months redesigning and testing our navigation to make it easier to use. Thanks again to shoe of you who tested the new navigation and shared your thoughts in the survey. We got great feedback that this new navigation is a nice improvement.

A few things to look for:

• We eliminated the drop-down menus.
• There are direct links to your Photos and Library (formerly called "Organize").
• Beta testers will notice we brought back the links to view media when you're looking at someone else's blog.

Re-Designed Homepage and Dashboard
We've redesigned the logged-in homepage to bring you the stuff you want to read, all in one place.

At the top of your screen, you'll find an area that features new information from your neighborhood. Click through the links to browse posts, comments, media and updates. You can also click on "Find Friends" to see who's already on Vox, as well as send out invites to your friends who you'd like to join. Below those links, you'll find editorial sections highlighting some of the great posts on Vox. The Question of the Day is now in the right-hand column above the "Recently favorited" module. We hope that the new homepage will allow you to not only get a quick glance of what your neighbors are up to, but will also help you discover new people and content.

Brand New Explore Areas
We've been hard at work on some new pages that will help make it easier for you to discover posts about topics in which you're really interested. Now, when you click "Explore Vox," you will see links to some subject-specific pages. You can explore Culture, News & Politics, Entertainment, Life, Music, and Technology. And you can also drill down into sub-categories, including Fashion, Food & Drink and more. (We'll be expanding these sub-categories in the future, so stay tuned.) Each page features a feed of the latest posts added to Vox that fall into that specific category. So, if you w ant to see all the latest posts that are related to Music, just click on the Music link.

At the top of these pages, you'll also find an area that features great posts and media related to that topic. Do you write a lot about fashion or technology? This is a great way to have your blog featured in a prominent way, attracting more visitors and perhaps some new friends and neighbors! In the coming weeks, we'll let you know how to nominate great content from you and your fellow Voxers.

Think of these editorial spaces as a type of [this is good] only related to specific topics. We had to make the tough decision to discontinue the [this is good] area, but we think you'll find the content in the Life and Culture pages to be very similar. Think of the Explore pages as offering six times what [this is good] used to offer!

We also added a Question of the Day to each explore area, which will hopefully inspire you to create even more amazing posts every day. If the QotD in Entertainment doesn't interest you, just see what we're asking in Life or Culture!

We've worked incredibly hard to make these areas as relevant as possible, and we hope you'll click around and discover new posts and neighbors who share your passions.

Oh - and because we know how much you love them, we also found time to add a few new themes.

Many of you who were brave enough to try out our new features mentioned that you'd like the new beta navigation to color coordinate with the Vox blog themes. You'll be happy to know that we fixed this today, and now your Vox blog (and all of your neighbor's Vox blogs) will no longer clash with the top navigation. After all, style should never suffer for function!

We also included a bunch of bug fixes in this release, and we just want to say thank you for being so patient with us while we work out all the kinks!

If you haven't yet tried out our new features, it's not too late. Just click the "Go for it!" button at the top of the page to see all new changes we've been working on the past few months. (Don't worry. If at any time you decide you want to revert to the old style, you can just click, “Switch me back, please.”)

After you've had a chance to try out the new stuff, please Take Our Survey and let us know what you think. You can also get into detail about the things you love, hate, and would like to see going forward, by submitting your overall thoughts on our Feedback Page.

Enjoy!

We are well into November, and though it's sunny and 70 in San Francisco, I imagine for some of you a brisk chill is in the air, the trees are almost bare and thoughts of snow-blanketed winter mornings and hot cups of cocoa are starting to creep into your head.

But before we hunker down for winter, we should celebrate the successful harvest (Thanksgiving) and the victory of good over evil within every human being (Diwali, or "Festival of Light). We thought the best way to do this would be to give you some great new seasonal themes. (And a green city. Just 'cause.)

Pick your new theme in the design area.

Trick or treat! We've added ghoulish new themes just in time for Halloween. Bewitch all your neighbors with Bats, Ghouls, Oddities or Talking Heads. 

And don't forget... Election Day is November 6th! Show off your party affiliation (if you dare) with our Democrat and Republican themes. We've also included a Star Burst theme for those of you who don't like to talk politics.

  Pick your new theme in the design area. 

Here's what's brand new in Vox:

Blog this -> Vox This

You've enjoyed using the "Vox This" feature to pull in content from other sites, and now we've added the functionality inside Vox.  When you're viewing a post or asset on another Vox blog, look for the "Vox This" link and use it as a quick way to pull in a link to your own blog and recommend something you really enjoyed.

The "Vox This" link inside Vox replaces the old links to "Blog This" and "Add to Library".   When you click the "Vox This" link, you'll be able to create a post or just add a link to your blog.  If it's a YouTube video or a CD, DVD or book that's available in Amazon, the asset will also be added to your library.  The next time one of your neighbors writes a really great post, you can just click on Vox This and share it with your own neighbors!

Introducing Snap Shots

Snap Shots is a tool that enhances links in your posts with visual previews of the site you linked to.  We've just integrated Snap Shots into Vox so that you can turn them on for your blog with a few clicks.

When you enable Snap Shots, readers of your blog can mouse over your links and see a preview of the page you linked to.  They can hear mp3s, read Wikipedia entries, preview news stories and much more without leaving your blog.  The previews will only work for links outside of Vox and links with available previews will have a small icon next to them.   

You can opt in to displaying these previews on your blog by going to Account -> Privacy & Defaults.  Under "External Previews" click the box next to "Enable graphic previews on external links" and hit Save.  Read more in our help article about Snap Shots.

New Themes
Heads up, we have a bunch of brand new themes for those of you interested in baseball, football, cycling and, well, skulls.  Here's a preview of just a few of the colors that are available:

See all the new themes in the Design page in the "New" category.

We hope you enjoy the new release!  As always, if you have questions or feedback, click the feedback link to let us know.

 - Krissy

There's a lot of stuff in this week's release, so we're going to get right to it.

Who Else Voxed This?

Now when you add a YouTube video or asset from Amazon, you'll be able to see who else has added or posted about that asset.  It's a great way to see what others are saying about the media you're interested in, or get some Voxy opinions on a book, record or DVD you were thinking of buying.  When you're viewing an asset you uploaded to your own Vox, or any time you see a YouTube video or Amazon asset on Vox, just click through to the asset page and look for the "Who else Voxed this?" link in the lower right corner.  On the Explore page for that asset, you'll see a list of "Who Voxed This" as well as some recent posts that include that asset.  

Updates to Your Blog Sidebar Modules
There have been several changes to the modules in your blog sidebars.  As a reminder, you can turn sidebar modules on or off, head to the Design tab and click on "Customize your sidebars".  Check out the changes:

- New Recent Additions Module
The new Recent Additions module shows the last five audio, videos and books that have been added.  If you choose to display the Recent Additions module, you might want to turn off any of the separate modules for books, audio or video so you're not showing redundant additions. 

- Recent Photos Module
We've redesigned this module so that it now displays a 3x3 grid of photos.

- Displaying Your Profile Photo On Your Blog
We've added your profile photo above your About Me module in your blog view.  If you'd like to upload or change this photo, choose one that's no wider than 150 pixels and then click on Account > Profile to update it.

- Archive Module
We've made the blog archive module more compact so that it displays the five most recent months with content, then links to content by year.  On the yearly archive page you can click through to view your posts by month.

    
And There's More...
In response to feedback and in the ongoing effort to streamline, we've made a few tweaks here and there.  Here's a quick overview:

- Quick Link To Add Photos
Look, up there in your top navigation link -- we've added a link to Add Photos!  It will open up a Compose page and put you right into the Insert Photos module.

- Excerpts in Email Notifications
We're changing the way we do email notifications for comments and private messages.  So far, our content in emails have been kind of uneven -- some have just a link, others have excerpts and others have all the text.   Keeping in mind the feedback that most of you'd like your notifications to give you an idea what somebody actually said, we're moving to the same kind of excerpt in our notifications. For new comments, replies to comments, and new private messages, you'll get a single, streamlined email with the first 100 characters of the message, along with handy links for replying or reading the message in its entirety on Vox. Simple!

- Streamlining the Recent Updates module
We've made the Recent Updates module on the Home page smarter so that you won't see repeated entries of the same action (such as noticing that one of your friends changed their theme five times over a ten minute span). 

- Sharing Improvements
When you're viewing a post or asset, we've folded the "Email" link under the "Share" menu.  So if you'd like to email a post, click on the Share link to be taken to that option.  Just hovering over the Share link will reveal the list of options to bookmark it on other sites.  Similarly, we've added that list of bookmarking options to the share pages you see after you save a post or when you click through to the Send to a friend screen. 

- Vox This!
We've updated the way that the Vox This tool functions.  We heard feedback that there was confusion over whether "Vox This" will add an item or create a post.  To fix this problem and make Vox This more flexible, you'll be able to choose whether you want to add what you entered as a Post or only as a link asset.  Now when you make a post with Vox This, the item will be added as an asset into your library and a new post will instantly be created using the same title, description, tags and privacy you entered.  If you'd like to add more to your post, you can instantly click through from the confirmation page to edit it.

New Themes!
As always, there are beautiful new themes to choose from:

(L to R): Beach, Bella, Dark  Blossoms,  Materialist Corrugated, Retro Boombox, Retro Cassette,  Retro Joystick,  Retro Turntable, Diet Pepsi MAX Couple

Whew, that was a lot of stuff.  If you have questions or suggestions, please let us know via our Feedback link.  We hope you enjoy these additions and changes!

Comment Reply Notifications Are Here!
All of us on Team Vox are really excited about this, so we know you will be too.  Now when someone replies directly to one of your comments, we'll send you an email notification.  No more worries that you'll miss what someone wrote to you (or your chance to respond directly).  We look forward to how this change will help keep your conversations flowing and help you connect with like-minded Voxers.

Changes in Blog Navigation
Inconsistencies in navigating around Vox can be confusing, and up until now viewing things like photos or audio worked differently in groups than it does on your blog. So we've just made them more consistent by consolidating all the blog navigation links into one strip.  As a plus, the new blog navigation takes up less space and is located underneath your blog header, making your own design more prominent on the page.

This additional space in your design might inspire you to create a new custom theme.  If you'd like to upload a new custom theme or need to tweak your existing one, read the Help article Personalizing your blog's design.  And if you want to tweak your blog title or tag line, just click over to the Design area.

As always, we're open to feedback and constructive criticism and love hearing how we can keep iterating and making improvements -- hit the Feedback link at the bottom of the page to share your thoughts.

Speaking of Your Feedback…

We've been listening to what you've told us recently and here are a few ways we've incorporated your feedback in this release:

• Set your privacy level on the Recent Updates!:  You can choose who to share your activity with (anyone, no one, neighborhood, friends & family, friends or family) by going to Account > Privacy & Defaults. 
  
• Updates to the neighbors module:  We've removed the tagline from the Neighbors module on your blog's sidebar.  You'll be able to see everyone's taglines when you click through to view the neighbors page.
• Tags are back!:  We've returned tags to be viewable on your blog posts.  They'll display below each post or asset near the link to comments.  

Improvements To Explore
Have you ever searched on a tag like "food" and wanted to see posts, photos and videos about it all at the same time?  We just improved the Explore experience so that it shows you relevant photos, posts, audio, video and books for anything you search on.  Of course, if you want to see search results on just one type of asset (videos tagged "food" for instance) just click on "video" above the search box to filter the results.

New Release, New Themes!
Big news for Groups:  we've just made all blog themes available as group themes as well!  Pick a new theme in the Design area.

We've also added some brand new themes.

(L to R): Hanafuda July, Hanafuda August, Hanafuda September, Hanafuda October, Draft Blue, Draft Brown, Ragged Torch, Subway Black, Subway White. 

And to get you excited about the upcoming VH1Eyecandy conduit, they've released some of their own themes including Heels, Pink, Trio, Hearts, and Shorts.  Look for them under the "New" tab in Design.

-- Krissy

Now that most of the office dogs have all come back to work, our productivity has skyrocketed.  Check out what's new:

Neighborhood Activity

Want to know what your neighbors are up to?  Now when you visit the home page you can see all the recent activity by your neighbors, including who has added new neighbors, changed their theme, joined a group, added a favorite, or updated their profile photo or tagline.  It’s kind of like spying out the front window when your real life neighbors go to get their mail, except this is more interesting.  If you want to keep your goings-on private, head to Account > Privacy & Defaults and uncheck the box next to “Share my recent updates”. 

Speaking of neighbors, we’ve just added your personal tagline to the display in the Neighbors sidebar.  To edit or add a personal tagline, go to Accounts > Profile and find it under the Biography heading.

Vox This & Links List

A few posts ago, Steve tipped you off to the new Vox This feature.  Did you get a chance to try it out?

Vox This lets you easily bring content from other sites into your Vox, and we hope it's not long before we see other sites out there adding Vox This buttons to their pages.

It’s easy to use it.  Just drag the button below to the bookmark toolbar in your browser (in Firefox) or right-click it and add it to your favorites (in Internet Explorer, you probably want to put it in the Links folder). Then, whenever you come across something on the web that you want to Vox about, you just hit your Vox This button.

Try it out, and be sure to (re)read Steve’s post for the full instructions on how to use it. 

As you add links via the Vox This button, they’re saved and archived for you in the new Links list.  What’s the new Links list, you ask?  You can display the five most recent links you’ve uploaded by adding the new Links list to your sidebar.  To add the Links sidebar to your blog, go to My Vox > Design and click on “Customize your sidebars”.  Check the box next to “Links” and click the Apply button. 

That Links sidebar will display a stream of the links you’ve added via Vox This.  You can also type a link into the blank to add it to the stream.  To see the archive of all the links you’ve added this way, click on “View more of my links”.    From there you can edit the links or change the privacy level.

Changes to Edit & Share Links on Assets

We’ve made a few changes to the menus you see on each post and asset.

As we mentioned last time, we have renamed and changed the Digg This link to be a broader Share option, with a dropdown menu that lets you select where you’d like to share:  choose del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Newsvine or reddit.  You can use the Share menu on any post, photo, video, book or audio you see, whether it’s yours or someone else’s.

On your own assets, you’ll notice that we’ve consolidated the edit menu, taking out that extra bar so it takes up less room on your blog.  Just click the link to edit, or click the arrow to see the options to “Add to group” or “Delete”.

New Themes

We're always adding new themes.  Check out Kinetic, Stripes and Maple Leaves in the Design area under "Featured".

There are also two new Branded themes from one of our partners.  We could all use a little more energy, right?  If you're looking for new ways to stay alert, Diet Pepsi Max has zero calories, ginseng and extra caffeine.  They've created two themes you can apply to your Vox, both of which change three times throughout the day.  If you need a drink to wake you up, head over to the Diet Pepsi Max site to check it out.

Mo’ Beta

If you’ve signed up to be a beta tester on Vox, you can get a sneak peek at the upcoming VH1Eyecandy conduit when you’re uploading photos and videos.  They’ve only just added a little bit of celebrity content so far, so try searching on Kelly Clarkson, Demi Moore, Hillary Duff or Bruce Willis to test it out.  They’ll be adding photos and video of a ton of artists and celebrities before the official launch, so stay tuned for more details.

-- Krissy

Spruce Up Your Sidebar
Beta testers have been adding widgets to their sidebar for a few weeks now, but starting today everyone can get in on the fun.  Another bit of good news:  we're now supporting javascript and iframes, which means we've lifted the restrictions we'd set earlier.

To add a widget to your sidebar, head to the Design tab and click on "Customize your sidebars".  Check the box next to "Embed" and click on the configure link to paste in the code and optional title for your widget.  You can add or edit sidebar widgets from your blog too.  When you're viewing your blog, click on the link that says "Dress up your sidebar".  Please note: if your widget is wider than 160 pixels, it might look all wonky or just not display at all.  

Digg This
We just added a link to every post and asset to let you Digg it.  This is the very first step in our upcoming Share feature that will help you share the best stuff on Vox with the other sites you're already using.  Don't get too used to seeing the "Digg This" link;  in a future release the link will change to "Share".  The Share menu will still let you Digg something, but we'll add in options to share with more of the sites you enjoy using as well.

Neighborhood Digest Email:  Delivery Time is Changing
You've been receiving your daily or weekly neighborhood digest emails at midnight in your local time zone, but we heard your feedback that you'd rather receive them earlier, before you'd had a chance to read your neighborhood page.  So we've just adjusted the send time to 11AM.  For those of you receiving the weekly digest emails, this change will kick in next week when we send it out Thursday at 11am.  To adjust your neighborhood digest email settings, click on Account, then on Notifications.  
    

New Themes
Introducing two new time-based themes!  These themes will change color and design three times every 24 hours, according to the time zone you've set for your blog.  (If you need to change your time zone for any reason, click on Account at the top of the page and then Your Account.) 

Just in time for the 4th of July here in the States, we've also just added some BBQ and Stars and Stripes themes, or you can use the Fireworks themes to celebrate.  Voxers around the world in any time zone can show their love of music with the new Turntables themes.  See all the new themes on the Design page.

1st row L to R: Havaianas Relax, BBQ Green, Mountainscape; 2nd row: Stars & Stripes, Summertime, and Turntables

- Krissy