October 17, 2011
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An update on Xanga's mobile plans
For the first post in our series of conversations, we wanted to give an update on Xanga's mobile efforts.
We're working on three separate projects to better support iPhones, Androids and other smartphones.
1. Mobile browsing
Earlier this year, we launched a mobile browsing interface at m.xanga.com. It's streamlined to allow for quick and seamless browsing, all from your universal inbox.
It's been great to use to browse the site, but not so great for posting: mobile browsers don't usually let you access the smartphone camera, for example. To get photos off your smartphone, you need a full-fledged app. Which brings us to project #2:
2. Mobile App posting
I was recently hanging out with my son Charlie at the playground, and took this snapshot with my iPhone:
Obviously it'd be great if I could post directly to the frontpage of my Xanga site from my iPhone! We've been working on enabling that, and are really close... but we quickly realized that if I posted a photo directly to my Xanga site, nobody would even see it because it's not on my site frontpage. Which brings us to mobile project #3.
3. Photos, Pulses, Videos and more - all in one blog
If I post a pic from my iPhone directly onto my Xanga... I'm going to want people to see it! But right now it gets sent to a separate "photo blog" on my Xanga site, where it gets almost no traffic (we've looked at the stats - more on this in a later post).
We've addressed this issue in the mobile app by blending all updates - weblogs, photos, video and pulse - into a single, unified blog. For starters, it helps makes the app much more streamlined. But it also helps you find updates from your subs that you easily could've missed on the live site!
This is part of a major effort to focus Xanga on blogging. And it's been so awesome to see in action during mobile testing that we're going to be offering this new unified blog soon across the whole site, starting with interested users. Soon you'll see my weblogs, photos, pulses and videos all blended together on my Xanga site frontpage, at john.xanga.com.
We're currently wrapping up testing on all this, and will start testing it with our new Xanga Product Council members soon (if you haven't already, apply here!). We'll keep you posted with regular updates, but wanted to preview our mobile plans here first.
What do you think?
Comments (58)
First I have to say, your son is so adorable!!!!
Ok - now that I have that out of my system. Looking forward to the changes! Thanks!
Streamlining it does sound like a good idea to make things easier to see all at one spot. I think it will be something that people would have to get used to first, but once they do they will feel like it should have happened a while ago. I'm eager to test it out.
Thanks for the updates. Awesome!
I would use Xanga A LOT more if it were Droid friendly.
Great news, can't wait to be able to do this, blogging is still key but this will be a HUGE enhancement! Cute little guy you have, the Mayor!
Love it and all the work, thank you!
I have Xanga bookmarked on my phone the App did not work well, but now the whole site besides posts and comments is in Chinese, I've removed the bookmark and signed out and signed in and shut off the phone and everything I could think of but it still boots up in Chinese.I know my way around Xanga well so it hasn't effected my phone use of
Xanga but it is weird, I look at it as a free Chinese reading lesson.
Yes - droid friendly would be nice!
@AlluringAddiction
i usually always have my phone on me..but i hate going onto xanga on my phone right now.
I would log and post more often if there is a iPhone. iPad app. Thanks for working on this, and look forward to the launch announcement.
Thank you for all the updates.
Thank you! 99% of the time I'm using Xanga from my phone but I don't use the mobile site, just regular xanga.com. I would love to be able to post pictures directly from my phone.
I think it sounds great! I don't have a smartphone, but I'm sure I will eventually since that's what seems to be happening... but I like the idea of having all three in one - kinda reminds me of tumblr, another site I tried because I liked the layout so much but came back to xanga because I liked the team/community.
I'm hoping with all this integration it will make the overall appearance of our blogs more simplified... ahh I'm excited for all these new changes!!
ps. I would not protest to charlie's face being the picture for the future xanga mobile app hahaha
@seedsower - Haha! You're stuck on hk.xanga.com. I like sending people there for fun because for some reason, when you visit the page once, it automatically brings you redirects you to hk from Xanga.com everytime. People get really confused.
All you gotta do is go to the front page and click the visit Xanga USA link at the very top left of the page, right next to the Xanga logo.
@HeLLo_Bianca - I do all my browsing from my phone. Posting photos included. What kind of phone do you have?
@Lithium98 - Samsung Intercept. I can browse fine but I can't reply to pulse comments and that get annoying :/ When I try to upload pictures I get an error message saying this: "The file you're trying to upload is not a
supported image type - please choose
a different picture and try again"
I'm really liking the unification idea. I think pulses are the only thing that could stand on their own, but it does make more sense to unify everything into one stream. This especially effects any kind of media that's being posted. I post a photo with a description, it will just sit there until it's either mentioned or placed in a post. People assume you're going to use it in a post, so they don't check it out and just wait for you to do so.
I'm really looking forward to replacing the site with an app on my phone. I've figured out how to do everything on Xanga from my phone (that includes theme adjustments too), but it's just so difficult to do. Especially trying to work with the comment boxes and textfields in general. This new technology doesn't like that old code holding the comment boxes together. Get the mobile site and apps up and running with all of the site features and you'll probably double the site traffic with just the current user base.
@HeLLo_Bianca - Go into the market and download dolphin browser hd. Its a good replacement for the default web browser on android. It lets you change your user agent, basically tricking the site into thinking you're not on your phone but on a computer. That'll help with uploading photos. Also, with the photos, when you upload them, you have to upload them one by one. Right above the area where you the photo upload button is, you'll see the "click here to upload photos one by one" link. That batch uploader runs off of flash and your phone can't handle that much excitement (sorry!). If those things don't work, you might wanna try downloading astro file manager from the market and when you click the upload button, you'll see the pop up, just select astro instead of gallery to find your photos.
As far as the comment box, right above the comment box is an "edit HTML" radio button. Make sure to check that box everytime you comment. It lets you reply to. Looks a little messy when you do, but it works.
@Lithium98 - I can reply to comments in blogs using that way but when I click reply in pulses my phone does nothing
So I can only reply in blogs. I've downloaded Dolphin before but it runs so slow on my phone and my phone actually freezes when I use it so I have to end up taking out the battery and restarting everything -__- I know my phone sucks :p. I think I've gotten an update since so I think I'll download it again and see if my phone can handle it now 
. Right now I use Opera Mini and it's alright for browsing Xanga but another issue is that photos don't always show. They sometimes show up in mu default browser, I can also reply to pulse comments there but the default browser is so slow. Thanks for all your tips 
I'm gonna try downloading Dolphin again and astro file manager 
@HeLLo_Bianca - Sorry, I meant dolphin mini, not hd. Its the same browser, just optimized for older, lower end phones. I think opera mini will let you change your user agent too. Check in the settings for that.
Why are you still rocking the intercept? You need to upgrade!
@Lithium98 - Okay at first I thought you were talking about Dolphin Mini. And ughhh I know I hate this phone. Next July I can get an upgrade. By that time Sprint should have the iPhone
@HeLLo_Bianca - Why would you do that to your self?! Android's where its at. If you're on a family plan, you can always borrow someone else's upgrade if they're not using it. Or check to see if you're eligible for an early upgrade. If you pay your bill on time every time, you can qualify for an upgrade a year early.
why doesn't the mobile site work in blackberry browsers?
@HeLLo_Bianca - Sprint has the iPhone now.
It sounds interesting, even though I'll probably never use it. You see, my phone is what you would call a landline.
@musterion99 - ohh I didn't know that
@HeLLo_Bianca - Yes, they just got it. I saw the commercial for it.
My photos get no traffic because I make them all private. The spammers were driving me nuts! Once I made all photos private, it cut spam comments on my site by about 90%.
I'm excited about the changes to the mobile app, and Charlie is adorable.
I mostly use the mobile site, so I'll be glad to be able to post photos.
Awesome - I was just about to write a post about how I took all these pics with my new iPhone 4s and now can't figure out an easy way to share them. Timing is everything!
Your kid is cute.
And cool on the other stuff.
Very nice
Yes yes! Please make an iPhone app for Xanga! That would be awesome!
I probably won't use the mobile app, as I don't have a smart phone! HOWEVER, this morning, there were several footprints on my feedback page that read UNKNOWN / Xanga Mobile. My site is on sign-in lock because I had a rash of bots viewing my photos at one point -- this appears to negate the purpose of the sign-in, and makes it look as if anybody with a mobile app could view my site as they could when sign-in was not required. Is there any way the viewer can be identified as they are when viewing from a non-mobile approach? Or is this just a quirk of the testing mode?
This sounds great to me. I'm currently using the facebook app, the google+ app, the tumblr app, and tweeter from my iPhone. It would be great to have one for my xanga account as well. Especially since I would prefer to continue to do most my social blogging on xanga.
I am very happy to hear this. I miss out a lot on xanga during the week because I don't have time to actually get on my computer to read and post. I do however use my phone more. So this is great.
yes to all and more. i love the blended idea.
I couldn't wait to start posting pics, so I created a blogger site for my pics (Blogger has an app already). Still, I will check out the Xanga app when it's ready!
when you first launched the mobile app I was able to use it from my iPad. Now it doesn't work anymore. I don't have an iPhone and would like to post and comment from my iPad. It's hit or miss if I can comment Xanga from Safari on it. Why did the mobile app stop working on my iPad? I just get a blank screen. Any plans to do an iPad app?
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I like this concept. I visited your blog for the first time and became your fan. Keep posting as I am going to read it everyday. a fashion clothing
Please update the app! Remove the "streamlining" and let us choose if we want to post a pic, pulse, blog entry or whatever. Another good option is to let us choose the interface. For those that want to quickly post something, use basic. For those that want the full set of options, give us advanced mode. It may not be quite as streamlined, but it gives power users the options. You could make it an option when one logs into the app for the first time, or make it an easy to find interface setting by hitting menu then options.
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lovely.. but the mobile app was even better than the mobile version of xanga.
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