5 posts tagged “invites”
In our last release notes, we announced the new and improved Bulk Invite feature. Now you can send a Vox account invitation to up to three people all at once!
When you're using the new invitation page, you can now also suggest a photo for each person to use, suggest other people to add to their Vox neighborhood and also add a personalized message.
Every new Vox account will start with five invitations to give out to friends, family and associates. Don't be afraid to use up your invitations; as soon as you run out, we'll replenish them quickly. If you're hoarding a few invitations, here are some ideas of how to use them:
- Invite your mom and dad to get an account, then prove that you can indeed take care of a pet by posting photos of your cat - alive.
- Get your poker group, Bridge club or Scrabble nemesis to answer today's QotD.
- Start a book club or running group and keep track of your comments and progress on Vox.
- Don't wait for reunions to exchange stories with old classmates.
- Think local: make your Vox neighborhood resemble your real one by inviting your next-door neighbors.
- Let some more lucky friends in on some of your brilliant friends-only posts.
So you see, the more the merrier. What are some other reasons you've invited or are going to invite people to Vox? Share them with us in the comments.
- Krissy
As Mena mentioned last week, we added a lot of goodness to Vox recently. If there's been one common theme to the feedback so far, I'd have to say [this is good] about sums it up. I was a pretty heavy user of the mobile features myself during a week of vacation, but now that I'm back home I can't wait to dig in to iStockphoto (try to insert a photo into your post and you'll see what I'm talking about). Every post looks better when it has a picture. Or video. Or mp3.
With this release, we are also responding to your feedback that the whole starter account thing wasn't working and have decided to shelve that feature for now. Last week, we upgraded all starter accounts to standard accounts (yay!) and have turned that account level off. You'll lose the unlimited invites thing, but most starters weren't happy about the limits on the accounts they were getting. To make up for it, we're going to start being more generous with giving out standard invites and in fact are adding a few more invites to everyone's accounts this week.
Want to know how many invites you have left? The easiest way is to check out the Vox home page on the right side of the page (by the picture of the ticket).
Oh and we do tend to give more invites to people with none left, we spot them first. So don't feel the need to save that last invite for someone special. We'll give you more, we want you to invite all your someones special.
-- Andrew
We have been getting a number of questions (and comments ) about invitations and I wanted to take some time to discuss what we're up to. Believe us, we want to let you invite as many of your friends and family as soon as possible. But we also want to make sure that everyone's first impressions and overall experience with Vox are just right.
Vox is still in its early stages of development and very much what we in the industry call a beta service. Our wonderfully talented engineers have worked hard to make sure that every part of Vox will scale as traffic and usage grows and we've tested as much as we can to make sure it will scale. But certain things can only be tested when real customers (you!) start to use Vox. And that's what we're doing right now (starting to feel like a guinea pig?).
The good news is, so far so good! Our servers have managed to handle the load admirably and we've been extremely pleased with the performance. As a result, I'm happy to announce that we're going to give all standard account customers as of noon pacific time today two more standard invitations. Use them well!
Over the next few weeks, we will continue to give out invites as we feel comfortable with the site's peformance. We won't always give all Vox customers invites like we're doing today -- we want to encourage people to post, comment and bring new friends and family in and we will be rewarding those who do with more invites than those who don't (really starting to feel like a guinea pig yet?).
On a related note, we are reading all of your feedback about the problems with starter accounts and know that there are some issues (can I mention again that we're in beta?). We are working to make the upgrade path from starter to standard account easier, and hope you will continue to use starter accounts as a way to introduce your friends and family to Vox. As you probably know, you have an unlimited number of starter invitations.
As added incentive to invite your friends and family into the starter level, I'd like to let you know that from time to time during our beta period we will upgrade selected starter accounts to standard accounts. In fact, to thank our starter account customers for putting up with the confusion while we sort things out, we are also going to upgrade all starter account holders as of noon pacific time today to standard accounts. Because of some additional work we need to do to make that happen, the upgrade won't happen until Monday. But we hope you starter account folks will all enjoy your new blogs and the full feature set of the standard account level.
Most importantly, thank you all for using Vox! We're all having so much fun here at Six Apart HQ reading your feedback and your posts. We can't wait to show you more of the goodness we're working on.
- Andrew
...To Invite Other People
Today we're turning on Vox's invitation feature. We figured that the Vox community knows how to expand better that we do, so every current Vox member will see a new "Invite friends to Vox" button on the Vox home page. Clicking on that link will lead to a page that offers a simple form with two options. You can invite an unlimited number of friends, family, and beloved contacts to become "Starter" level members of Vox. You can also invite a fixed number of people to become "Standard" level members of Vox.
What's the Difference?
The Starter level is a streamlined Vox experience that includes member profile, all "neighborhood" features including contacts, friends, and family, as well as the ability to comment on any Vox blog.
The Standard level is a Vox experience that includes blog posting, blog design, and collecting and organizing audio, video, photos, and books. It's the level that most current Vox members are familiar with.
For more on invitations and the different levels, check out our knowledge base article .
Why the Distinction?
Right now, we're limiting the number of Standard accounts in order to manage server load and make sure we keep the user experience up to our standards as we add features and functionality. That said, we believe that the Starter level may be the right permanent choice for many members. Hopefully, we'll move quickly to the point where new members can choose the level that's right for them. Until then, we'll be handing out additional invitations to current members, as well as offering the choice to upgrade to selected Starter members, as space becomes available.
Thank You
-- Team Vox
It looks like Comet will stay invitation only until late May or thereabouts. However, in order to build a bigger community between now and then, we'll definitely need to invite more bloggers to join us. We know there are many of you who have friends and relatives who would also be great participants in the Comet universe. Of course, the criteria for Comet bloggers hasn't changed -- we need people who are active, engaged, discrete, and don't work for Six Apart competitors. If you think someone you know fills the bill, send us their name, email address, and their relation to you. We can't guarantee an invite, but after sending them to our screening survey, we promise to let in as many people as we can. Send those names to robin@sixapart.com and tell her the Team Comet blog sent you.
