7 posts tagged “news”
Earlier this year we made several changes to Vox, including simplifying the navigation, adding "Explore" areas to help you discover new people and content, as well as some modifications to the logged-in homepage.
After that release, we heard from some of you through Vox feedback and comments on blogs that you weren't too happy with the changes we made to the homepage. There were a few recurring themes in the feedback you gave: You missed having a quick and easy at-a-glance view of all the latest activity in your neighborhood, and you really felt like the Question of the Day and Vox Hunt should live together. And you know what? We agree.
So today, we've updated the logged-in homepage so that it's much easier for you to scan recent comment activity, posts and other updates from your neighbors without having to click. We've also joined the Question of the Day and Vox Hunt at the hip so you only have to look in one place to find inspiration.
We hope you'll find the homepage redesign faster and easier to use. But please: Let us know what you think so we can continue to make sure you're getting the most out of your Vox experience.
And again: Thanks for all the feedback. Keep it coming!
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.
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!
If we’ve seemed a bit quiet lately, it’s because we’ve been hard at work on some major improvements and changes to Vox. It doesn’t matter what we think though unless you’re also happy with the enhancements, which is why we want to get your feedback on all the changes outlined below. Some of the changes are currently viewable by everyone, while we decided to give a few of the more dramatic changes some time in beta while we get your comments and work out all the kinks.
First, the changes that are live for everyone today:
Find & Invite
Your Friends
There’s a chance that some of your friends are already on
Vox and you don’t even know it.
Now you can find your friends already on Vox by searching with your web-based email or uploading a contact file. After you’ve added your friends who are already on Vox, you’ll also have the option to invite your other contacts to join. You can access the new features on the “Invite a Friend” page or directly from the beta dashboard on the “Find Your Friends” module.
We’re still working on making it easy for you to find all of your contacts from other social networks (like Facebook or Twitter) who are already on Vox. You can help expedite this process by adding all of your other accounts on the Contact Information page under “Your Accounts Elsewhere.” We’ll let you know as soon as you can search those accounts for your friends.
Rotate Your Pictures
Several of you have been asking for the ability to rotate
your photos, and we’re excited to finally give you the option.
Photos don’t always upload in the direction you want so we’ve made it easy to rotate any photo after you upload it to Vox. Just click on “Rotate Left” or “Rotate Right” in the “Options” drop-down.
Embed Vox Assets
Anywhere
See
something you love on Vox that you want to post
elsewhere? Now all you have to do is click on the “Embed” link on the
right.
When you click that link, the embed code will appear. Then just copy
the code to insert it into another web page. Easy! You can also use
this to post your own content from Vox on another webpage, blog or
profile.
New Features to Try
Out
We’ve added some new features for you to try out, but only
if you’re brave enough to click on the “Go for it!” button at the top of the page. (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.”) We’re so excited about these changes, we
wanted everyone to be able to try them out, so even if you’ve already opted in as a beta tester, you will still have to click the “Go for it!” button.
New Navigation &
Explore Areas
We’ve spent months designing a navigation that is clear and simple. We know it’s not perfect yet, but with your feedback and more testing, we hope to introduce the final navigation in the next couple of weeks.
One change we’re incredibly excited about is that now, when
you click “Explore Vox,” you will see links to some new explore areas centered around different subjects. For
starters we’ve added Culture, 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 in the future.)
Each page features a feed of the latest posts added to Vox that fall
into that specific category. So, if you
want to see all the latest posts that are related to Music, just click on the
Music link.
These new explore sections also feature a spotlight area where a Vox Editor will feature different content and blogs. 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.
We’ve worked incredibly hard to make these areas as relevant as possible, and we hope you’ll be inspired to click around and discover new posts and neighbors who share your passions.
Re-Designed Homepage
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 a new area that features new information from your neighborhood. Click through the links to browse posts, comments, media and updates. Below that 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.
Improved Performance
Our engineers have been working tirelessly on all of these
changes, but somehow they’ve also managed to find time to make some awesome
performance enhancements which will improve page loading times and your overall
experience on Vox.
We Want Your
Feedback!
After you’ve had a chance to play around with the new
features, we’d love you to Take
Our Survey and let us know what you think.
If you’ve clicked on the “Go for it!” button, you’ll see the link to the
survey just below it. We also encourage you to submit overall thoughts and
suggestions on our feedback
page. You can always check out our known issues list as well to get
a sense of the items we’re aware of and working to fix.
It’s really important to us that we find out what you think about these changes. If you love it, hate it, or have ideas for other things we should add, we want to know. So please don’t be shy! Share your feedback and help improve Vox.
In some aspects, there have been 10 years of thinking going into the ideas behind Vox. This week over in Six Apart News, Anil is talking to a few of the pioneers of blogging and giving some insight into blogging history. He says:
"We’re going to talk about some of the people who’ve been tinkering with blogging and personal social media for a decade. We invite you to think back to 1997, as many of these seminal sites were just getting started, and try to imagine the breadth of changes they brought to the web in the years that followed. The blogosphere was so small back then that it was often possible to talk to nearly everyone involved. It’s a period in our own medium’s history which is well worth revisiting."
These early bloggers didn't have snazzy features like neighborhoods or privacy or fancypants comment moderation. They had to blog uphill, in the snow, for miles. All alone. With no one to give them a [this is good].
OK I'm kidding, but it is interesting and cool to know your history. So if you'd like a little background about where Vox comes from, or even just how this whole concept of blogging started, check Six Apart News for a post every day this week. Start with this profile of Dave Winer and move on to reading about Leslie Harpold, and stay tuned for more.
Thanks for the history lesson, Anil!
-- Krissy
Vox has gotten some love from the press lately, and we wanted to share a few links.
- Read a review of Vox in the Wall Street Journal. The screenshot they use is of Bliss, one of the pups in the Six Apart family.
- There's also a writeup of Vox in the MIT Tech Review, which gives shout outs to posts by Voxers Georgie-boy and artgeek.
Have you seen any other Voxers in the news? Share your links in the comments!
-- Krissy
A sparkly new release has been pushed!
We've already received some feedback, and are working on fixing a couple small formatting issues. Those changes will be pushed out tomorrow early afternoon.
A full news post will also be published tomorrow, outlining all of the new features in this release.
We're always looking forward to receiving your feedback! Don't forget to use the Feedback link.
Enjoy the new features, look and feel of the product. A lot of hard work has been put into this release and we're listening to what you want.
Enjoy it!
