I remember the first time I saw the letters "RYC".  Someone explained that RYC = Regarding Your Comment... and that RYC was needed because Xanga didn't have a built-in reply feature for comments.  If you wanted to reply to someone's comment, you had to go searching for a random post on that person's account and then start your comment with "RYC". 

Sometimes that works nicely.  But other times it doesn't work as well - like when you're having a topical discussion on your blog and RYC's are flying all over the place from random people's Xangas!

So Joe built a reply feature for comments! To reply to someone's comment, just click the "reply" link next to that comment.  A special link will appear in the comment box that looks something like this: @joe.  Then when you post your comment, that user (in this case, joe) will get an alert over email or into his Universal Inbox... so he'll know to look for your comment .

Check it out!  I'll start with a particularly insightful comment on this post, and then you can reply to it below...  hope that gives you a feel for how it works. - Marc

You may have noticed that email alerts have included the full text of comments and messages this week?

This is our small way of supporting you office workers out there that have Xanga blocked in the workplace.  Do we think it's fair that The Man is preventing you from hearing from your friends on Xanga?  NO!  That's why Dave and Ayca are helping you FIGHT BACK!

If you use Xanga mostly at home or school... then nvm - you can ignore this.  We'll still send you full text alerts though, b/c it's pretty handy.

FIGHT THE POWER!  To enable your email alerts, you can turn them on here:

• http://edit.xanga.com/editaccountsettings.aspx

Ever wondered who the designers behind your favorite themes are? Each week, we'll be interviewing Xangans like you who create popular themes; for our first installment, we held a Q&A session over email with rayray714a, whose themes are some of the most frequently saved designs this month!

X: How long have you been a Xangan?

RR: Since May of 2005.

X: Do you have a design background or any previous experience in making layouts?

RR: No formal training at all. When I joined Xanga I saw cute
layouts on other sites and decided I wanted to learn how to do that....I got
Paint Shop Pro, Frontpage, and learned basic HTML. All of this was
completely foreign to me so I dove in and didn't come up for air for about 6
months. When themes started, I decided to figure out those and now I love it because
there is no more coding! yay!

X: What do you like most about themes?

RR: No need for HTML codes! Also, I think it's fun how users can
just "try them on" so easily and save it to their site.

X: How do you come up with your themes? What's your inspiration?

RR: Usually one graphic will strike my interest. Then I'll open
a blank canvas in my Paint Shop Pro and just see what happens.

X: Do you have any upcoming ideas in mind for theme designs?

RR: I plan on converting all my existing layouts into themes. Also I love working with flowers, foliage, jewelry,
and gems. So we'll see how God inspires me for what will be coming up next.

Check back next week for our next Q&A!

Hola! After two waves of testing over the last month, we're finally releasing the new Subs page - with images!

• http://www.xanga.com/Private/SubsMain.aspx

A few of you expressed concerns that you might get fewer pageviews, or people might jack your personal photos.  So we created the ability for you to hide your images from other peoples' subs pages (click here!).

If you still want to access the old subs page, you can still find that link here for a while. 

Let us know what you think! - Chris, Adam, and John

ps Thanks for the feedback on hiding images!  We hear you .  Adam and I will start work tomorrow morning on hiding images while you're surfing your subs!

Hey guys, this is John.  I wanted to ask you to try out a beta of our new private page!

• http://www.xanga.com/private/homemain.aspx?set=1

What's so cool about the new private page?  It shows all your Feedback and Subs updates all in one place, so everything is at your fingertips.  It's a big part of our "back to basics" push to make blogging more fun!

There have been a number of other sites using this Feed type of interface recently, and I'd like to address this.  We're going to be careful not to clutter your feeds with crap like sheep and vampires.  We've always had a focus on content here at Xanga, and our feeds are designed to highlight that.  If one of your subs or friends updates, or if you get feedback on one of your posts... that's what we'll be focusing on.

We've found that this page takes a little getting used to.  Could I ask that you guys try it out for a week or so, and see how it feels?  At first even I was skeptical, but after a few days... I couldn't imagine going back.  We are hopeful you feel the same way!

We're still collecting feedback, so please let us know what you think as you try out the new private page!  And if you'd like to go back to the old private page for now, no problem - there's a link on the right side of the page (here it is too).

Let us know what you think!  Please keep in mind that this is an optional beta feature, and you can stay in the existing private system.  We're just collecting feedback right now... thanks!

Have you ever wanted to talk to the Xanga Team one-on-one? Here's your chance! Starting today, we'll be holding office hours on the Xanga Team page all week.

Drop by between 2 and 4 p.m. EST to talk to a team member (or two) - we'll be broadcasting live from the office to chat and answer any questions you may have about the site.

Hope to see you there - we'll talk to you soon!

edit: Thanks to everyone who came and chatted - to the rest of you, we're here all week, so be sure to drop by!

edit again: We're doing a 10-11 a.m. EST chat especially for our users in Hong Kong and will have an evening chat from 5-6 so you won't get in trouble for watching at work

We're adding images to your Subs page!  Basically soon you'll be able to see images right from the Subs page.  I've been using it for a month or so, and I love it!  Props to Chris, Marc and Adam for working on it...

When we asked for feedback earlier, some of you expressed concern that you might get fewer pageviews if people didn't have to click over to see your images.  We actually don't think that's the case, but just in case - we're creating a temporary feature that lets you hide your images from other peoples' Subs pages [link].  Edit: This will also allow you to protect family pictures from being downloaded (as with no-right-click codes).

Other feedback we got: people wanted usernames back near the top of entries (DONE!) and others wanted the subs area to be wider and yet fluid (ALSO DONE!).  We made a number of other bug fixes too.

Can you check out the page before we go live with it throughout the site?  Let us know what you think!

• http://www.xanga.com/private/subsmain.aspx

We're gonna make the site trimmer and easier in this new year!

There are a couple of features we've added that aren't getting a lot of use - or that on second thought, don't feel like they belong on Xanga.  Here are some of them:

• Nudges - It just doesn't feel like it belongs on a blogging site.  We've already mostly taken it off most of the site
• Blogring Pools - Now that many people are using our blogring pools feature, alas... any objections to taking it off the site?

We're also looking into streamlining some frequently used features (uploading and managing photos, adding images to the Subscriptions page, putting the text of comments in comment alerts, allowing you to edit or delete comments within 15 minutes) and other little stuff like that.

We're going back to basics, and focusing on making Xanga a fun blogging site .

Any features you'd like to see trimmed?  Or tweaks you'd like to see? Please let us know!

Hope you all had a holiday season full of family and fun and are back into the swing of things, whether that's work, school or posting on Xanga all day long! We're all back in the office (working hard, as usual) ready to make this year a great one.

Thanks for making 2007 such a successful year on Xanga - we can't wait to show you what 2008 has in store!

Give the gift of new holiday-themed Minis - and lucky you, you won't even need to wrap 'em or keep your receipt for store credit if they don't fit.

We've got Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year's animations ready for you as well as some general winter-themed ones, so check them out and send some to friends! All of the holiday Minis can be found under "Special Days" in your Minis menu.

No matter which holiday you observe this season, we hope it's a safe and happy celebration!