May 28, 2010
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Three Quick Updates
1. Personal Search and Customizable Private Pages are almost here!
Marc and Justin have been hard at work, and the new customizable private pages with personal search are almost ready!
We’re hoping to make it available on a beta basis in the next week or two. Let us know if you’re interested in participating! We’ve been using it in house, and it’s getting raves, although admittedly from a biased crew.
Hopefully you guys love it as much as we do!
2. Xanga TV update
We’ve been focusing our efforts on our core blogging engine (see above!) – so Xanga TV hasn’t been getting the love it deserves. So we’ve been looking into lining up substitutes for both the live TV streaming and for the chat… for the core broadcasters who have been using the feature.
The reason I mention this is that we’re moving some servers on Monday, and as part of that we’ll be turning off Xanga TV. Sorry for the late notice – we didn’t realize that we’d have to turn it off as part of this move! But if we can line up substitutes, hopefully that shouldn’t impact the live streaming experience.
But before we can line up a true substitute for Xanga TV, we need to figure out another way to offer integrated chat on Xanga. Which brings us to…
3. Integrated Chat across Xanga?!
We’ve been talking to a chat provider about providing a chat feature that allows you to host chat on your site, where you can chat with your friends and visitors. There are a lot of moving parts here: signin integration, spam protection, etc. But we think we may have found a good partner here, and are working out the technical details now!
The upshot if we can work this out: we might be able to add a chat toolbar at the bottom of your page (of course, you wouldn’t be forced to sign into chat – that would be totally optional).
But it might be neat way to host a live broadcast with integrated chat, if you’ve been using Xanga TV. The broadcast could be on your page, and the chat in your toolbar. Or of course, you could just use it to chat. Or not. Personally, I probably wouldn’t sign into my chat every time… but maybe now and then, I’d host a great big chat if you guys were interested?
Let me know what you guys think!
John
Comments (67)
Nifty ideas.
Sounds intriguing. Would it be like Facebook chat?
don’t use the same chat provider Facebook uses.
Sweet ideas!
@Roadlesstaken - It would be a chat feature in the bottom toolbar… so in that sense, it would be similar. I’m not sure exactly how Facebook’s chat works though, so I can’t definitively say beyond that.
@TheBigShowAtUD - Facebook uses their own chat system, I think? This would be different… we’re still working out the details.
oh, ok good. theirs is awful.
Sounds good. But you guys need to stop focusing on bashing facebook and others and learning from them instead.
@Paul_Partisan - what’s facebook?
Very neat!
Noice. I like the idea of it. Props to you guys.
@Paul_Partisan - Yes, I saw your post.
I hope I am not bashing Facebook in my comments here?
lol, all you need for number 3 is chatango.
I need help. My public site is not working
I like the new custom private pages. I am still a little concerned about the blogs being pushed down the pages even with the example you showed in the link.
I like the messages on top and all the other updates on top too. I hope the featured question is not going to be apart of some default. It pushes the blogs down the page.
I like the idea of just using some sort of substitute for xanga TV especially if we get something that works well with the chat and that can be put in a post that we can have people recommend because that is crucial to building the audience.
By the way, you are doing a great job with all these updates.
Integrated chat = total win.
any chance the Preview HTML button can be fixed soon? it’s kind of annoying to press it and have a blank window come up every time =(
will group chats be available or is it pm chat only?
any chance the Preview HTML button can be fixed soon? it’s kind of
annoying to press it and have a blank window come up every time =(
Oh, that search thing will be AWESOME! I am so excited. This is why Xanga is my favorite! It’s ever-evolving and getting cooler, but it’s personal and the team shares what’s up. Props!
@marc - It’s a site that a few people use. I think I remember seeing something about it once on tv or something, but I can’t quite remember.
I think it royally sucks that XTV is getting shut down because I was planning to host a special XTV next Friday….Will it be out indefinitely till this new chat thing comes around?
I also think the current XTV is cool because you can put it in a post and then people can rec the post. Gets the word out really well.
And I would be happy to try out the customized inbox, I think that sounds exciting.
~V
I’d be interested in trying out the beta private page. As for the xtv upgrade, I’m all for it! Even more for the intergrated chat. Having a way for people to communicate instantly withing the community is really going to boost activity around here. I’d be more inclined to read other’s sites if I got to know them a bit more through chat.
I would love to try out the beta version of the new private page.
integrated chat sounds like an interesting idea…
#2 is…well…out of bounds but that is just me! Chat is ok…but would it not be better to place the $ and manpower into something UNIQUE?
@john – @marc - Ustream.tv works very well as an XTV replacement. Might be worth a look for those who are interested.
Interesting about the chat functionality, looking forward to it.
I would LOVE a search beta please!!
This all sounds good. Wish you would concentrate on getting rid of the spammers.THEY DRIVE ME NUTS!
would love to be on BETA for the private pages…
I’m a Beta Lover!
I love how you guys make everything optional. Thanks for all of your hard work.
Facebook and Xanga are different and I for one am glad they are. FB is too big for me. It does not work most of the time. The games are down. FB is down. People bitch but they still go there they are addicted. I think FB is too big. I love Xanga. But I had to go experience FB and MySpace to see if I liked Xanga as well as I do. Yea for the new stuff you are doing just stay small enough you make what you have work. Judi
Count me in for the search beta.
Not a big fan of chat. Thanks.
Whats the time frame on getting xtv back? Ive been really into the idea of doing it now that I have a hand full of subscribers. Please tell me its not just going to go Jimmy Hoffa on us.
I’d love to participate in the personal search beta! It’s what I’ve been wanting for a while now after all.
*raises hand** meee
When are non-Premium members going to have adsense capabilities like you all promised us a year ago?!
i like the integrated chat idea!
I like the chat idea!
I think it sounds cool.
I’d like chat inside xanga
Buy more servers you broke bastards.
I’m definitely interested in participating in the beta private pages and personal search; count me in!
@TheMarriedFreshman - I agree, being able to rec XTV is really nice.
Integrated chat across Xanga? I don’t think its necessary. And I have a feeling some people would “camp” a person and ‘comment’ on a particular post without ever commenting on the post itself. Then even good posts may find it hard to get eprops and comments. If you ‘comment’ in a chat no one else can see, it makes for less connection and less of a community feel. IMHO, of course.
Public discussion groups are cool, but I think the XTV feature takes care of that.
Did you know the DNS is down for the personalized URL users?
@The44thHour - Agreed, that it would for the most part probably not be used. I wouldn’t mind seeing it kind of like XTV though. But, there is also XangaZombies that has a chat on it, and embedding a chatango isn’t hard either.
@marc - Haha,you are funny.
I love the improvements. Chat will be wonderful!
what are you guys doing about all the spam accounts??
niiice. catching up to the market is always a great thing. although this XangaTV stuff might put you guys over the top…
Would love to look at your customisation of private pages and a private search capability!! GO GO GO!!
I have no interest in it at all. It seems yet another move towards Facebook which is where most of my friends have gone from Xanga anyway but then I’m older, been blogging here for 8 years and not part of your present demographic so my thoughts won’t be in the mainstream either
I’d be glad to help test the beta version!
I wish you had told me about this earlier. I tried XTV today. Ah well, maybe next week. In the meantime, go for it.
In part 3 you mentioned spam protection… I was wondering how that was going in general. We already have spam problems without the chat. We find spam in any post that gets popular enough to be featured, and maybe more. I posted an ‘I hate spammers’ post and it became my most popular post of all.
The spammers seem to open new accounts as fast as you close their old ones… any progress on that front?
Oooohhhh, I like the chat feature!!! That would be awesome!!! But I agree with some of the other people, don’t do it like Facebook. I don’t like their chat box. And the private page thingy sounds pretty cool. Maybe hard to get used to? Not sure, we’d have to try it! But definitely work on the chat thingy!!!
…define “quick” T_T
would like to test the beta, should you need volunteers, too.
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You guys [and gals!] at Xanga are AWESOME!
wats up!?!?
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