When you upload photos to Xanga, we automatically resize and compress them for faster web viewing. Most of the time this trade-off makes sense. But we've gotten a lot of feedback that sometimes - especially when designing themes or uploading particularly rawkin pics - you'd prefer to use the original, unchanged version of your photos.

We hear ya... so starting today, everyone can now display an unresized and uncompressed version of their photos! This new size is called "max"...

• Classic Users - previously, the maximum display size for your photos was 800px... with this upgrade, we've increased the max size of your photos to 1024px. If your original photo is bigger than 1024px, the new "max" size will give you a smaller (1024px), but otherwise untouched version of that photo. If your original photo is smaller than 1024px, then the new "max" size will show the original, totally untouched version of your photo!
  
  
• Premium Users - the new "max" size will show the original, totally untouched version of any photos that you upload

To help keep your sites speedy, the default options will still give you an optimized version of your photos. But if you want to upgrade it to the untouched version, just choose "max" in the little "size" pulldown (this "max" size option is also available inside your photo manager) .

UPDATE - 8/3/11 - please note: unfortunately we've had to suspend support for the API due to inordinate usage by spammers. We do not yet have a timeframe for re-enabling support for the API, but we are actively developing our own smartphone app, which we hope to have available soon.

We've gotten a bunch of requests for an API for applications like Windows Live Writer and Firefox add-on ScribeFire, so . . . here they are! Instructions are under the cut.

If you were curious, we used the MetaWeblog API to make the programs work for Xanga.

Continue reading →

One of the big feature requests we've gotten have been for "cut tags": an easy way to hide part of your entry behind a link.

Say that you write a long post... or that you'd like to hide part of your posts from people reading in on the Subs page. Just click on the "More" button in the editor - it's the button on the right, with a dotted red line cutting through some text.

Then when users come across your post on your blog (or on their subs page), they will see a link that says "more here". When they click on that link, they'll end up on your post.

To show you how it works, we've hidden an important video howto below this cut tag (if you don't see a More Here... link below, you can click here to see it).

Continue reading →

Have you guys seen outside blog directories like Blogged.com?  They let anyone submit their blog to a central directory, and other people review that blog.  It's like an open version of Yahoo, but just for blogs.  I've been seeing a bunch of Xangans use the feature, and a couple of them have said it drove some nice clicks to their site. 
 
So I was definitely intrigued when we got contacted by Blogged.com.  They asked us if we'd be interested in having them sponsor a review feature for our site.  It sounded cool but also like a potential minefield... what if someone posted an offensive review?  Sure, anyone can review your site on Blogged.com now... but if we integrated the Blogged.com blog directory/reviews into a Xanga feature, our users would expect more.
 
So Blogged.com proposed that we make it really easy for Xangans to "claim" their blogs when signed into Xanga.  Once you've claimed your blog, you can write your own description for your own blog... and also flag any offensive reviews for human review.  If you flag a review, Blogged.com editors will take a look and delete offensive/profane reviews as soon as they can.
 
So we thought we'd try it out.  To get things started, please visit my site and review my prose!  I privatized all my sucky posts, so I could put my best foot forward!   Look for the review link at the top of the page:

• http://www.xanga.com/john

Please keep in mind that this is a new feature!  We'll be trying out
the feature along with all of you, and making tweaks to make sure we
address any issues as they come up.  Let us know what you think!

John

Last week we asked
whether premium users should maybe have badges like lifetime users...
after all, premium users are supporting Xanga too!

Almost everyone
agreed that a premium badge seemed fair (thanks for all your feedback!), so now premium users get a badge too » .

To keep things clean, you'll still only have a maximum of two badges: 1) true and 2) premium or life. And if you're not into the whole badge thing, you can turn off your premium badge just like your other badges here.

Now go leave some comments and rock those new badges!

Some folks have mentioned that it feels unfair that lifetime users get a badge , but premium users do not... after all, premium users are supporting xanga too!

It's a fair question, so we're thinking about introducing a new badge for premium users too »

You'd still only have a maximum of two badges: 1) true and 2) premium or life (if you've got a lifetime account, your lifetime badge would replace your premium badge).  The thinking is that we don't want things to get too busy.

And of course just like always, you could turn off the badge if you don't want it.

So whaddya say... should we add a badge for premium?

Someone has been abusing our Private Messaging feature to send spam.

We've been working over the weekend to institute security measures to counteract this.  We've also deleted all the spam messages we could find.  I won't go into details on our countermeasures here, but you won't be affected unless you send a whole bunch of private messages.

Thanks to the many Xangans who brought this to our attention!

While we've been tweaking features for ya (Featured Content, Update to Current Time), we also knocked out another Xanga-Powered Site - please check it out!

• http://www.momaroo.com

Like all of our Xanga-Powered Sites, it's at a different URL... but you don't have to create a new account or anything.  You can comment or sub with your existing Xanga account.  That's a good thing for me personally, cuz I'm not a mom (although ya never know).

Anyway back to Momaroo - we have a bunch of awesome Mom's blogging for us (pseudo-anonymously, so they can share the good stuff): Mrs. Koala, Mrs. Lion, Mrs. Platypus, and Mrs. Turtle.  I've learned a ton about Assisted Childbirth at the hospital (wow!!) and Unassisted Childbirth at home (double wow!!!)

Check it out... and if you're interested in writing for Momaroo, please message Mrs. Koala here!

We're still working on a dating/relationships blog... it's gonna be awesome.  I'm married now, but I'll be blogging my dating tips for ya (tip #1: don't be a "nice guy" - be a man).  Any interest in blogging about your dating/relationship adventures for us?  Let us know in the comments below!

John

ps don't forget to check out and subscribe to Momaroo!

Future posting has been a big hit, but a few of you have mentioned you missed the "Update to current time" checkbox of the old editor.  We inadvertently took it out when we added future posting...

But of course, we aim to please... so Janet and Ayca added it back to the editor!   

Hope you guys enjoy.

Hey guys, just a heads up that we're launching some new sites using the same technology that powers Xanga.  As the sites start to trickle out there, we're getting some questions - so I thought a quick FAQ might help:

Why is Xanga launching new sites?

A lot of advertisers see Xanga as a general interest site, even though we have lots of different groups of people on here!  For example, we have tons of moms on the site... but advertisers that want to reach moms never think of Xanga (even though we have way more moms than a lot of sites they do advertise on).  So we're looking into a mom-focused blogging community that's just like Xanga, but using a different URL.  We're looking into applying the same idea to a few other blogging communities too.

What other types of blogging communities are you looking to launch besides moms?

So far, we've launched a hiphop site (hoodstars.com) and a christian
one (revelife.com).  We're also looking at a mom site (momaroo.com),
and considering a blog about relationships and dating (no name for that
one yet though - any ideas?).

Won't these sites just send moms (or whoever) off of Xanga?

When doing research , we talked to a lot of our  moms - and they have no desire to move off of Xanga.  But if there's a mom on another blogging community, they would like to be able to interact with them.  So that's the idea we're going with here.  You don't have to leave Xanga to interact with any of these sites, or create accounts on any other sites.  You'll be able to use your existing Xanga account to comment on any sites that uses Xanga technology.

How will these sites be different from Xanga?

The main difference is that there will be a group blog on the frontpage of
these sites.  Why a group blog?  Because big advertisers don't like to
put their names next to content that's not vetted (that's why, for
example, we hand-select the blogs that get featured on the Xanga
frontpage).  More on that later...

What does this mean for Xanga.com?

Mostly it means more money and resources for us to invest in Xanga.  All the sites will be using our Xanga Platform, so we'll be able to invest in features and bug fixes across the entire suite of sites.  As for Xanga.com itself, we'll continue to put our heart and souls into the site!  We love Xanga and the Xanga community...

How will this impact me, the average user on Xanga?

Umm... not very much?

What if my question isn't answered here?

Please comment below, and we'll do our best to reply in the comments!

Thanks,
John