4 posts tagged “vox this”
Here's what's brand new in Vox:
Blog this -> Vox This
The
"Vox This" link inside Vox replaces the old links to "Blog This" and
"Add to Library". When you click the "Vox This" link, you'll be able
to create a post or just add a link to your blog. If it's a YouTube
video or a CD, DVD or book that's available in Amazon, the asset will
also be added to your library. The next time one of your neighbors
writes a really great post, you can just click on Vox This and share it
with your own neighbors!
Introducing Snap Shots
When
you enable Snap Shots, readers of your blog can mouse over your links
and see a preview of the page you linked to. They can hear mp3s, read
Wikipedia entries, preview news stories and much more without leaving
your blog. The previews will only work for links outside of Vox and
links with available previews will have a small icon next to them.
You can opt in to displaying these previews on your blog by going to Account -> Privacy & Defaults. Under "External Previews" click the box next to "Enable graphic previews on external links" and hit Save. Read more in our help article about Snap Shots.
New Themes
Heads
up, we have a bunch of brand new themes for those of you interested in
baseball, football, cycling and, well, skulls. Here's a preview of
just a few of the colors that are available:
See all the new themes in the Design page in the "New" category.
We hope you enjoy the new release! As always, if you have questions or feedback, click the feedback link to let us know.
- Krissy
There's a lot of stuff in this week's release, so we're going to get right to it.
Who Else Voxed This?
Updates to Your Blog Sidebar Modules
There have been several changes to the modules in your blog sidebars.
As a reminder, you can turn sidebar modules on or off, head to the Design tab and click on "Customize your sidebars". Check out the changes:
- New Recent Additions Module
The new Recent Additions module shows the last five audio, videos and
books that have been added. If you choose to display the Recent
Additions module, you might want to turn off any of the separate
modules for books, audio or video so you're not showing redundant
additions.
- Recent Photos Module
We've redesigned this module so that it now displays a 3x3 grid of photos.
- Displaying Your Profile Photo On Your Blog
We've added your profile photo above your About Me module in your blog
view. If you'd like to upload or change this photo, choose one that's
no wider than 150 pixels and then click on Account > Profile to update it.
- Archive Module
We've made the blog archive module more compact so that it displays the
five most recent months with content, then links to content by year.
On the yearly archive page you can click through to view your posts by
month.
And There's More...
In response to feedback and in the ongoing effort to streamline, we've
made a few tweaks here and there. Here's a quick overview:
- Quick Link To Add Photos
Look, up there in your top navigation link -- we've added a link to Add
Photos! It will open up a Compose page and put you right into the
Insert Photos module.
- Excerpts in Email Notifications
We're changing the way we do email notifications for comments and
private messages. So far, our content in emails have been kind of
uneven -- some have just a link, others have excerpts and others have
all the text. Keeping in mind the feedback that most of you'd like
your notifications to give you an idea what somebody actually said,
we're moving to the same kind of excerpt in our notifications. For new
comments, replies to comments, and new private messages, you'll get a
single, streamlined email with the first 100 characters of the message,
along with handy links for replying or reading the message in its
entirety on Vox. Simple!
- Streamlining the Recent Updates module
We've made the Recent Updates module on the Home page smarter so that
you won't see repeated entries of the same action (such as noticing
that one of your friends changed their theme five times over a ten
minute span).
- Sharing Improvements
When you're viewing a post or asset, we've folded the "Email" link
under the "Share" menu. So if you'd like to email a post, click on the
Share link to be taken to that option. Just hovering over the Share
link will reveal the list of options to bookmark it on other sites.
Similarly, we've added that list of bookmarking options to the share
pages you see after you save a post or when you click through to the
Send to a friend screen.
- Vox This!
We've updated the way that the Vox This
tool functions. We heard feedback that there was confusion over
whether "Vox This" will add an item or create a post. To fix this
problem and make Vox This more flexible, you'll be able to choose
whether you want to add what you entered as a Post or only as a link
asset. Now when you make a post with Vox This, the item will be added
as an asset into your library and a new post will instantly be created
using the same title, description, tags and privacy you entered. If you'd like to add more to your post, you can instantly click through from the confirmation page to edit it.
New Themes!
As always, there are beautiful new themes to choose from:
Whew, that was a lot of stuff. If you have questions or suggestions, please let us know via our Feedback link. We hope you enjoy these additions and changes!
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
Last week, we pushed out Release 32 of Vox, the release notes for which can be found here. We turned out some cool features, but there's one new bit of functionality in there that we didn't tell you about yet. We're calling it Vox This and it's an API that allows you to easily bring content from other sites in to your Vox. For you Web 2.0 geeks out there, it's similar to the "Digg This" API, and we hope it's not long before we see other sites out there adding Vox This buttons to their pages.
In the meantime, though, we've come up with a way for you to be able to use Vox This as you roam the non-Vox web (it's still out there, right?). Simply drag the bookmarklet (at the right) to your 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.
So what happens when you use Vox This? I'm glad you asked that. Or... I'm glad I asked that for you.
When you Vox This, you'll be taken to a landing page where you'll confirm that you want to add the item to your library. If you Vox'd This on a supported Vox conduit partner's item, like a Flickr photo or YouTube video, then you'll be prompted to add it to your library and optionally compose a post. If you Vox This on a non-partner's site, like a CNN story perhaps, then you'll be prompted to add that to your links library (more about link libraries later) and write a post about it. The landing page will do its best to figure out the title of whatever you Vox'd, and it will let you pick an image from those found on the page to use as a thumbnail. If you had any text highlighted, then that will be brought in as the description. The link will be added in to your post with the thumbnail and description. As with any other enclosure, you can hover over it to get to the format tool which will let you left/right/center align it or resize it within your post.
Give it a try and let us know what you think. We hope this makes it easy for you to write about news or events, or other interesting stuff you find out on the web.
-- Steve
