Release Notes
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
Comments
see, this is what i'm talking about. am i getting more options.. or are my options being taken away. (((confused))) i don't need a share link because i AM sharing... it's called - my blog... or is it
It's kind of stalker-y and very creepy. I turned mine off too.
Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
It's TMI.
And we've gotten themes for every other Showtime series, So where are the Weeds themes? I'll gladly pimp my Vox out for that series.
and for the record, i love vox
i'm not opposed to any of the new additions around here, i’m opposed to the subtractions.
No one cares if you changed your page theme, tag line, or photo, favorited something, or joined a group (that one especially bothers me privacy wise). It is not anyone else's business what groups you join or what have you.
And did you read this from the Team Vox blog? "It’s kind of like spying out the front window when your real life neighbors go to get their mail". Stalking is illegal isn't it? This whole thing is just CREEPY!
When Vox started they were all about protecting your privacy, now they are out to take all of your privacy away. I am livid that there is now a way to link other people's posts to Digg and like that.
So now what? I have to post everything as NEIGHBORHOOD only? Not that I'd ever post anything interesting enough to be "Dugg", but I am pissed off that other people can share my posts. They are not for anyone else to share with the world but me. They are my posts not yours to post to the internet at large.
And why do I need to see my neighbor's tag line on the side bar update area? I see it when I go to their page. A total waste of space.
And the new edit button... Why does delete come up when you hover over the edit button. Super-duper! I can't wait for the mouse to slip and I lose my first post. That's a half-ass drop down menu if I ever saw one. Make it a drop down menu and put the options INSIDE it. Geez. First day on the computer Vox?
Oh, and... embed a widget? Can we add more things to slow Vox down and clutter it up?
While the team is always happy to get your feedback, the comments section of Team Vox isn't really the best place for it. Your comments are heard loud and clear when you submit them via the Feedback link, always available through the footer of the page.
Thanks!
Steve
Team Vox
I have not tested it out yet, so I can not say for certain, but I doubt that a person could see private groups. I can not see the private groups that I belong to when I am not logged in, and I know I can't see private groups my friends are in unless I am in them as well. You can see a person's public groups on their profile page.
So, voyeuristic, yes. Illegal-ish, or stalker-ish, no. This is the blogosphere (and really, who can even say that word without giggling).
You comment about sharing links is peculiar to me, but then again I am an advocate for free culture. That aside, there is an inherent flaw in your thinking, I believe. It may just be a frustrated outburst, but do you really think that publicly available information should not be shared? If that were the case, what would be the point of having a blog? The medium has its own sharing mechanisms. Your proposal is like saying that one should not discuss a story they read in a newspaper.
And finally, to put the contentious cherry on top, which is it: Do you want to control your blog (with no one sharing your posts), or everyone else's (with controlling their widgets)?
How about this, why don't you think about what you want, then form that into a request? Of course, you may have to let go of your namesake if you got your way, ne? ^_^
Please, can you make some of the changes you made in the last few days available as choices in the Organization/Design section of the blog? That way, we can make our own pages as busy or plain as WE want.
Thank you for all of your hard work.
BTW: I found how to turn my own updates off, but how do we turn off our neighbours'??
Oh the torture! Oh the humanity!
Seriously though: Vox This is probably the best thing that's happened since you launched the site. Fantastic work.
Umm... I am completely unsatisifed with these changes! I really hate that the "share" link is there and there is no way of customizing... whatever changes you guys make, we Vox members are forced to deal with. Please put the tags back on the posts because the empty space kills me.
Like others have said.. these are just a waste of space and time. The old format was less excessive and better.
The updates today were not necessary ones and only detract from vox, not improve it. One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet here is that the tags on the posts have disappeared. I can only assume that that is a glitch with this latest release.
And yes, I will be leaving this via the Feedback link as well.
Just say no to clutter and crap.
I'm really surprised to see how many people have been using the Home page (the only place the Neighborhood Activity is viewed). I go there, maybe once a week - pretty much sticking to the MyNeighborhood, MyVox, and Explore links.
Too each their own. I'm "all good" with the changes. Needed time to adapt to the Edit link, will need time to adapt to losing the Comments link at bottom of posts, and not affected by anything else.
KUDOS TO YOU FOR A SMOOTH ROLL OUT!!
I think the taglines are too busy, unnecessary and distracting. I'd also like not only the option to turn off My recent activity, but also the option to turn off viewing Neighbors activity as well.
I'll submit this to 'feedback' as well.
Thanks, Vox Team.
Why isn't the comments section the best place to actually comment on the release, Steve? This seems like exactly the place to comment, especially since this is where the details of the release are. Are the comments supposed to just be cheers or something?
I think the neighborhood activity module is silly. I will see a friend's new theme when I go to their blog. I don't need to know who their brand new bitchin' friends are, and if I do, I can go look for them.
can we subscribe to 'recent updates' in feed form? it'd also be cool to have more specific preferences for types of activity that is broadcast to various privacy groups.
<3 Vox!
Just curious as to why the tags were taken from the posts? Is that a glitch or on purpose?
Lots of people use them as an extension of the post for humorous or creative reasons and now they can't do that.
The taglines are really annoying me even more today, off to the side of every post.
Thanks.
I don't like seeing everything my neighbors do. I love vox but I don't care about all those details. I can figure those things out when I visit the pages. Please remove this feature or at least make it able to be hidden under the sidebar options.
I also miss the tags being in the posts, don't really like where they are and once they are up they tend to get stuck.
Thanks.
If you have alot of posts on your site...no one wants to click on each tag to find that specific one! Ugh. The updates are a total inconvenience. If there was an option to get rid of that this would be better.
Grumblebunny really said it.
Vox is a blogging tool... no one goes to the pages to listen to music, for crying out loud! Especially when its human nature that no one likes the same songs all of the time. I do not want anyone to be able to posts my blog on Digg or any "share" links like that! I am very dissappointed by the new additions.. they are just excessive and not advantageous to A PERSONAL BLOG.
It's interesting to see what different people love/hate....which is another reason why I like reading the release comments. I think it also goes to show how hard it must be to program VOX...Its kinda targeted for those less tech savvy folks but at the same time because its so cool you have those that "digg" all the bells/whistles..and then there's us that follow somewhere in between....
Not sure how hard it would be to implement but giving the user the option to display these different things would solve a lot of the 'problems'...and maybe not just either/or but like for example...the recent updates could have check boxes for things you'd like to include vs. participating or not...that way the user decides just how they want to build their own community...
Please, instead, can't you devote some time & resources to developing a "preview" feature (which people seem to WANT and NEED more than this)?!
I HAVE submitted this request through "feedback" on more than one occasion, but it's been ignored (with the vague "but we have no timeline for when that might be implemented"), so I thought maybe if I made it more "public" others might decide it was a good idea to ask for it too. (HINT, HINT, Y'ALL!)
Yeah, I love this friend, but who wants to sign online to this:
Recent Neighborhood Activity<friend name> picked the theme Green.
1 hour ago
<friend name> picked the theme Green.
1 hour ago
< friend name> picked the theme Green.
1 hour ago
<friend name> picked the theme Green.
1 hour ago
<friend name> picked the theme Green.
1 hour ago
I assure you that I did not alter that at all, only removed the friend's name. Oh, and Dave, I asked for preview and EDIT!!!!! in the very beginning. Then, when it seemed like only "fun!" things were being considered, I gave up. I want to be able to edit my comments and my entries, which is what I can do with my other blog, which is why I use my other blog much much more. I also want to see my stats, and because there's no way to do that here, I mostly use this account to read my friends here who don't have other blogs. I rarely post anymore because the basics that I want are missing.
Sincerely,
Me.
I don't like the Neighbors Changing Themes or Adding Neighbors thing.
And WHERE ARE MY TAGS??? I tag posts on purpose... so people can reference the tags!!!
Love ya Vox, but had to speak up...
Tags are still present on the asset detail page. Also, make sure you have tags enabled on the Design page (customize your sidebars).
Please use the feedback link to submit feedback. That way we can track when feedback is responded to as well as gather/categorize features.
Vox on!
It's an extra unnecessary step.