New Release! Huzzah!
It's new release time (hello 10, aka Littleford). The theme of today's release is "Control." That's control over your content and information. As our community grows and more and more members sign up for Vox, we've realized that you don't have to be a power user to appreciate finer grain privacy permissions. In fact, it's the people who are newer to blogging that truly understand the value of limiting what the casual blog reader can see.
So that said, let's go over the highlights of this release.
Account Settings Overhaul
Because we're giving Vox members more settings for their account and blog, we made the account section of Vox able to be more scalable with growth. That means we've moved a lot of the functionality into their own sections. Short and sweet, you have a ton of new stuff in account.
Profile Privacy Settings
You have an email address, a birthday, a location, an AIM account, a Skype name -- this list goes on and on. You want to allow readers of your blog to be able to contact you or know information about you, but you don't want just anyone to have these details. On Vox, it's now possible for you to choose what groups can see what information. Want your family to have your Skype name and your friends to have your AIM? You can do that. Want the public to see your birthday, but not your gender? You can do that to. It's now easy to limit access on almost everything displayed on the profile page.
Mobile Posting Settings
Now you can set up multiple email addresses to send your mobile and email posts to. For instance, you can have a mobile address called "Vox Family" that publishes to family only and is tagged a certain way and another one that is for the general public consumption. Additionally, you can choose whether or not a post is created when you moblog a photo. This feature is going to come in very handy with Vox Hunt (see below).
Notifications Preferences
By popular demand you can now choose whether you want to receive email notifications when you're added as a neighbor or when you receive a new comment.
Profile Photo vs. Member Photo
Vox now allows you to pick a different photo/picture to display on your profile page and as your member photo.
Explore People
It's now possible to explore Vox members by interests. Just go to the explore page and you'll see a new option called "people." Do a search for a interest tag like "dogs" and you'll find all the people who've tagged that as their interest. And, you'll find a list of a few other tags that they've indicated. Don't know how to add interest tags to your Vox profile? Just go to account settings and edit it in your public user profile
Block User
New Themes
What's a new release without some great new themes? Our designers have been hard at work making a slew of new themes and we're happy to release four new ones (each with four variations) today.
Ocean (Turtle, Whale, Fish, Squid)
Running (Red, Green, Brown, Blue)
Cityscapes (London, Chicago, Washington D.Cc, Vintage Vegas)
Trees (Blue, Brown, Noir, Purple)
Vox Hunt
And last, but certainly not least, we introduce QotD's buddy, the Vox Hunt (get it, like Fox Hunt, but much more humane). The Vox Hunt is a daily photo scavenger hunt that's meant to not only prompt you to take a photo, but also to explore and share the physical world around you. We've seen great responses to the photo questions we've asked on QotD, so it only made sense to give photos their own place on the dashboard. Bear with us while it finds its voice -- unlike QotD, this launches to tens of thousands of people, not ten. We're really excited and would love to hear suggestions for the hunts you'd like to see.
Remember above when I said the new mobile posting functionality would be great for Vox Hunt? Well, here's how: you can set up a mobile posting email address that will publish to the public and have it tagged "Vox Hunt." That way all your Vox Hunt posts can be tagged from the road. Don't fret if you don't use a mobile phone to post -- you can still use the application interface on the dashboard (just like QotD). The Vox Hunt can be found right behind QotD on the dashboard, by the way.
While those are the highlights of this release, there are a few other features sprinkled around the service. Be sure to explore the rest of Vox to find what else we've added. As a reminder, the best way to give us feedback is by using the feedback link on the top of the page.
And once again, thanks for all your feedback and excitement about Vox!
-Mena
Comments
Awesome! Thank you for keeping us updated. I love how you are able to change your icon now! Thank you!
I really like the new features. I hope I will never have to block someone... or get blocked myself.
Sweeeeet... this just gets better and better. Perhaps now I won't keep getting random people trying to Skype me, since I can restrict it to Friends and Family only! Fantastic work! :)
Browseable interests! Be still my heart! Thank you! :-)
The title "people" seems a bit misleading for an interest search, no? Wouldn't "interests" make more sense, especially for new people?
It's new release time (hello 10, aka Littleford).
Are the releases are named after (former) Daily Show correspondents?
fantastic! love the new themes and the 'vox hunt'
Thanks for permissions on contact information. Yeah for Vox Hunt.
Definately some nice stuff! I appreciate the account setting and specifically privacy options that you have added. Grade A work guys! The site is fantastic.
Woo! I'm so all over this Vox Hunt thing. It's just like my Daily Photos, but easier.
you guys never cease to amaze! thank you! :D
Fantastic! All the things that we need. Thanks.
I liked qotd, I love the photo scavenger hunt! and the new themes are great :D thank you!
I LOVE the photo scavenger hunt! Great idea! Thanks! :)
I love the turtle theme!
Oh excellent!
Vox hunt is such an awesome idea!
Now you need a Canadian Cityscape :)
Very nice improvements. I have a sugestion on a theme though, How about a pond or lake at day, dusk and midnight? With cattails and lilly pads and such? That would be the theme for me!
Thanks for the block user, that is always good to have on hand.Love VOx.
Maybe a Toronto Cityscape at some point!??~?` Pretty please :D:D:D:
YAY! Now if you just add the threaded comments to go along with the e-mail notification options, I'll be 100% pro-Vox!
Vox definitely needs a Boston cityscape. This city is full of college students with internet access. All potential Voxers.
The improvements are excellent. I am more and more impressed with Vox every single day. Loving it!!!!
yay! good update =)
a Portland [Oregon] cityscape would make me very happy, though.
Yay for rich text comments!
Yes! Thank you.
These new changes are awesome! :) One question I've been wondering is, will Vox ever have the ability to make HTML posts instead of using rich text, or has this question been answered already and I've missed it somewhere? Main reason why I would like this feature is because several online meme quizes are posted as HTML, and its hard to do this with Vox without the use of HTML :(
Love the Vox Hunt idea. Thanks for extra options!
This is awesome, guys! You are really getting better and better! The only thing that's holding me back from migrating totally to Vox is the fact that people outside Vox still can't comment on my posts! Give me that and I'll be all yours!
html posting please!
also, the option to post books that aren't listed on Amazon.
The new features are great, especially the granular aspect of permissions on personal info. good stuff!! Thank you!
Woah, very cool stuff. AND! Now comments are editable with stuff that makes them pretty! Thanks for keeping it down to just text formatting and links, too.
OoOoo, Vox rules. That's all there is to say. :-)
great new updates. vox is getting better and better. can't wait to post a picture from my cell with Vox Hunt.
A+++
I love Vox more and more every day. :)
I am so pumped for the Vox Hunt!
Vox Hunt sounds like a neat idea. Now, if only there were a way to get the Vox Hunt topic sent to my phone as a txt message, that would be even better. It'd be much easier to snap the pic if I knew what I was supposed to be looking for while I was already out & about.
Such a big feature-packed release. Rock!
I somewhat dislike the advertisements on a post if you aren't signed in, but, then again, it's good for vox.
Otherwine, nice job.
The Vox Hunt is an awesome idea, and thank you SO MUCH for adding the DC cityscape. I do agree about threaded comments though - would definitely be a great addition.
I really like Vox. I am new here. I would like to see a plain black theme with maybe red and white lettering. Or black with orange and white. I don't know maybe I'm in dark things. Keep up the great work.
Yay for improvements! These are all great. I also want to say that I hate hate hate HATE threaded comments. Hate. So there!
Definitely love the updates. I especially love the Vox Hunt... now what would make me happy is an L.A. Cityscape... that would be awesome :)
thanks for the Vegas cityscape, as a Vegas native, I love it!
I just wanted to say that I've been blogging for years and Vox absoloutely gives me all the functionality I need. I really love it. It's also nice to rapid incremental features (oooh you're so agile :-) )
Well done and keep it up.
I'm really liking the Question of the Day and Vox Hunt activities. They encourage people to post and interact with other users, which are important for a blogging site to stay on top.
I think you guys are doing a great job. Keep it up!
Also, I put my vote in for threaded comments.
(Personally I think a Manchester or Brighton (UK) cityscape would be cool, but I won't hold my breath on that one, huh...)
What happened to the airplane in the travel template?
Any chance of a Miami city scape?
Please tell me it's a glitch - it's only by chance that I noticed this, and I'm really not happy right now.
1.) Love the new ocean themes, those are fabu!
2.) All of my profile info was switched to "friends and family", even though I'd previously selected for it to be unseen. I don't know what made it do that, but if it's the themes, then there should be some annotation somewhere that tells users to go redo their security settings.