The Launch of Vox
We’re fast approaching the day when we officially launch Vox to the world. It’s coming at the end of the month (official date to be announced soon [EDIT: The launch date is Thursday, October 26th]). The invitation-only beta has been a period of rapid iteration and your feedback has helped shaped Vox into its current form. We’ve been so amazingly pleased with our Vox members and how they’ve embraced the service. Not only that, we have learned so much about what Voxers want moving forward.
The invitation-only beta began with
Six Apart employees and grew when their friends and family started posting back
in early June. We soon gave those people invites who gave those people invites
and so on. Along the way, Vox has become a vibrant community that can only get
better. We want to thank all of you who have participated in the preview period (with a special shout out to our LiveJournal and TypePad members who have been with us for so long!)
What does "launch" mean? We will be
taking off the invite-only system that requires an invitation from a current Vox
user or an invitation from Six Apart (in the case of the Vox request invite
page). Other than that, it will be business as usual for current Voxers and we’ll be still
rapidly improving the product in the cycles that you’re all currently familiar
with.
Of course you’ll still be able to invite people to Vox – this is the best way to get someone onto Vox and connected to you all in one step. So that won’t change at all. And all the privacy options are still intact, so the new people who come to Vox won’t suddenly see new or private content, unless you add them in your friend and/or family group.
As we spend these last days of the preview together, here's what you can do to help prepare for the launch:
- Help spread the word about Vox - now you can generate a Vox badge that can be posted on any blog or website.
- Invite your friends and family to join, and let them reserve their username before the doors open.
- Celebrate Vox by having a meetup in your city (send Krissy a private message for more details).
- Share
your launch day ideas. Want to suggest a QotD or [this is good] link
for launch day? Have an idea of how to welcome the world to Vox? Tell
us in the comments.
Thanks again for everyone’s feedback! More to come real soon.
-Mena
Comments
Pretty please?
Oh, a preview would be good before posting, just in case I get off track. . .
T
I'm with Florence; do us "early adopters" get something for being loyal testers and such? I hope so. But it is exciting to see the site will finally be widely available, too. Let's just hope the MySpace trolls don't follow suit here.
Here's to a successful launch!
BUT FEAR NOT! true voxers will prevail. Vox is amazing. and you can quote me on that, cuz if i say something is amazing, then it is DAMN wonderful. i try my hardest to not throw around the "amazing" label cuz nowadays it has lost it's magical effect when applied to something, but trust me: Vox is magical!
i love the ever-changing/constant-trial-updates more than anything else on vox. and you guys handle everything flawlessly. you try something out, get feed back, and bounce right back with a new release that blows away everything!
so, here's:
Cheers to Vox! may it long stay rampant in my bloodstream.
and Congrats to Vox! :D
Yes, the flood gates will be opening and there is nothing we can do about it but grab the closest tree on hold tight. Finding new neighbors maybe harder with a larger population, but the [this is good] area of the Vox homepage is an excellent mechanism to find some of the candidates.
Congrats on having an exit strategy out of Beta Hell.
Also, any chance of getting a [this is good] in Swedish? ...Latin?
As you must have read throughout the months, there have been people who have joined Vox to escape the MySpace evolution and start over in a better environment, one which is more conducive to a mature audience, such as Vox has proven to be. I suppose Vox is what you make it and of it, and I hope that the good and decent commraderie in this blogging neighborhood theme will continue to outweigh any possible violation of respect and decency as the gates are opened.
Thank you for the invitation and congratulations! Salute`
hmmm... vox now free for all. pretty soon vox'll be swamped with people. gone is the prestige i felt at being one of the few... oh well. i guess it means more people get to enjoy it. can't help being selfish about having a vox.
@Tim Magnuson: Currently only way to comment is to have an account. Invite your friends and have them sign up for an account. To preview your post, set the permissions of the post to "only you (draft)". This is will allow only you to see the post and preview it before final publishing.
@Jenna: Send feedback regarding the favorites missing from the Vox home page. In case you haven't discovered they are on the Reader page (click Read) or on the Explore page (click Explore)
awesome.
Also a way to create group blogs (flickr pools) would be a cool thing as well.
I love Vox, but I do wish I could customise my sidebars a bit more, add links and such like, and heck even add html to posts myself! We aren't all complete html dunces ya know! ;)
Would also be very cool to be able to tweak my own templates, (like LJ) and disable comments from going to my email.... unless I am missing something?
Still, I have moved from Blogger, much to the annoyance of fellow Bloggers who don't want to sign up just to post a comment.. still there loss eh?! ;)
To echo what others have said, I would like to have non-members be able to comment (you could set up Word Verifications to avoid spam - I wouldn't even mind approving all non-member comments) and would like to be able to customize templates. While the available templates are beautiful and I like the the consistency, it would be nice to be able to customize small things like adding links, changing colours, etc. Also, does Vox work with Technorati?
Aside from all of that, I really like Vox. I like how easily it integrates with other services and I like the social networking aspect of the site.
Thanks, Vox Team, for listening to our suggestions! I would like to second someone else's comment regarding more categories in which to add our fellow neighbors in addition to Friends and Family.
Also, I don't know how feasible this is, but I was thinking of an inactivity deletion period? There's so many sites out there where people sign up and simply just never come back. Then, someone tries to sign up, only to find out that the name they so so would like belongs to a completely inactive user. By inactive, I mean, no posts, no comments at all. It's so discouraging sometimes. I think putting those names back on availability after a good amount of inactivity would encourage some users to sign up and take the name they wanted that they couldn't have elsewhere.
Finding Vox
Damn. My advice - don't do it. Keep it invite only. Unlimited invites - but invite only. The best aspect of Vox is the quality of blogs - something that is semi-assured by people only inviting people they actually want to read.
Failing that (and I know I will) - DO NOT COUNT PEOPLE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. The worst aspect of myspace is the stupid virtual popularity contest.
Wouldnt it work if the inactivity was based on log in? If you dont log in within a certain period your marked for deletetion? That way if your friends signed in to view your stuff then no problem, but if someone made a account then never used it again then they would be marked for account deletion.
Besides that i agree with everything Japayuki said about the html and viewing permissions.