Saturday, August 28, 2004
Two changes based on member feedback
We're pleased to announce the following changes to Blogit based on member feedback over the last few weeks.
When adding someone to your block list, you are now asked to confirm the addition. This keeps people from being accidentally blocked.
Member pictures can now be larger (up to 120x120 pixels -- was previously 70x100 pixels).
We appreciate all feedback and try to incorporate your suggestions when we can in our ongoing efforts to add features and improve the Blogit experience.
Thank you!
Brian
Blogit Team
www.blogit.com: The online writing marketplace.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Blogit rolls out new features!
We have added a number of frequently-requested new features. As some of you may have noticed, we upgraded the Blogit site with a brand new template system earlier today. We're now pleased to announce the following new features accessible through My Account:
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The Member Pictures page makes it easy to add a picture to your About Me page. You can upload a picture in JPEG, GIF or PNG format, up to 2 MB in size. We expect to offer the option of multiple pictures in the future.
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The People List allows you to track the names of the most fascinating members of the Blogit community (e.g. Brian of the Blogit Team 
) and share them with readers of your blog.
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The Blog List allows you to add your favorite Blogit blogs so that readers of your blog can see who you recommend as good reading (besides yourself, of course!).
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The Link List allows you to track and highlight your favorite web pages, articles or sites.
With the new Blogit Lists, it is now a snap to track -- and share -- the most scintillating Blogit personas, the best writing, and your favorite spots on the Web.
If you have a blog, the first ten items from each list appears in the sidebar, along with an Explore link that allows readers to page through all of the items in the list. The Blog List page also displays useful information such as a blog’s owner and last post.
If you are using a custom template, please see the Template Tags help page to learn about the new People, Blog and Link list tags.
We hope you enjoy these newest improvements to Blogit!
Regards,
Brian
Blogit Team
www.blogit.com: The online writing marketplace.
New Template System for Blogit
We're pleased to put in place today a brand new template system for Blogit!
The rebuilt template system will allow us to add many frequently requested features, some of which we will be making available shortly. Other benefits include:
- Quicker display of default templates, using the powerful XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Transformations) technology standard.
- More stable custom templates. When creating custom templates, please follow the new Style Guidelines section on the Designing Templates help page. We expect this to help prevent custom templates from being affected by future changes to the default templates and/or to the Blogit header and footer.
- Better accessibility and web standards compliance. This is the first step of a long-term goal to make Blogit as accessible and consistent as possible across web browsers on various computers.
Do you have an existing custom template?
To minimize display issues for existing custom templates, there is a new “Use old template styles” box on the custom template editing page. This box is checked for existing custom templates.
Although this checkbox appears to resolve most issues, some custom templates may require minor changes. If you would prefer to switch to a default template, go to your blog's editing page, click "Change template" and select the default template.
Regards,
Brian
Blogit Team
www.blogit.com: The online writing marketplace.
Friday, June 4, 2004
One month since upgrade
It has been one month since the system upgrade, so we wanted to post an update.
Without most members noticing, we moved from the old system to a brand-new system in a different state. Thanks to careful planning, we were able to minimize downtime to less than 30 minutes during the move.
We are spending about ten times as much on the new system. This has been a significant investment, but uptime logs show that availability and reliability have greatly improved as a result.
The expanded capacity will make it possible for us to add new features and improvements to Blogit. We will be announcing some of these over the next two months.
Regards,
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Home page design and content changes
We're pleased to launch the new Blogit website design today. As mentioned earlier, we've been working on this as part of our Blogit service upgrade.
The design and content of the home page has changed. If you prefer the previous home page, you may still view that by clicking on the Old Home Page link at the bottom of the current home page. Newest Posts are also still available via the link on the home page. And all of the Category links take you to a specific category where you can sort blogs by name, ranking and how recently they were updated.
While we continue to make improvements to the Blogit service, we are also working to grow Blogit (and the money available to writers) through marketing partnerships and additional advertising.
To ensure that Blogit can be marketed as widely as possible, partners need to know that Blogit writers cover many different subjects, not solely adult-only subjects. When writers post Mature Audiences (MA) content on the general site instead of on the MA site, and it appears on the home page, it can cause confusion about the scope of Blogit.
This is why we made the decision to move New Posts to its own page to reduce the risk of misplaced MA content appearing on the home page. If you see MA content posted on the general site, please notify the writer (or us) so it may be moved to the MA site. We've also changed the way Featured Blogs appear on the home page for the same reason.
We hope you like the new Blogit site.
Thank you.
Brian
Blogit Team
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Changes afoot
Many changes are coming to Blogit this year. The major system upgrade and the rotating home page lists were just two of the first steps.
Coming next: additional changes to the home page, a brand-new design, and much more!
Thanks to its members, Blogit has grown tremendously over the past year, and our goal with the changes is to accelerate growth further and faster.
Regards,
Brian
Blogit Team
Wednesday, May 5, 2004
Home Page Changes
With the Second Phase of our upgrade now complete, we'll be making changes to the Blogit website over the next few months.
One immediate change is Blogit's decision to showcase more blogs and members. This will be based on a variety of parameters. You will now see a dynamic Top List in the right hand column. This will feature some of the more popular categories as well as the Longest-Running Blogs, for example, and various other lists.
Please note that the original Top Blogs (in the last seven days) list continues to appear in this rotation. It is also linked at the bottom of the home page, next to New Comments and Most Popular (in the last 24 hours).
Your suggestions are always welcome. Thank you!
Brian
Blogit Team
www.blogit.com
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
Thank you 100,000 times!
As some of you have already noticed, we hit the 100,000th post on Blogit last night.
The Blogit Staff wanted to thank you for making Blogit the success it has become. Each member has contributed to this -- with thousands of blogs, and almost 170,000 comments on over 100,000 posts!
You can see Blogit's tremendous first year growth here.
Brian
Blogit Team
Monday, February 23, 2004
Welcome to Blogit!
Please note that the site is now accessible at its new URL: www.blogit.com.
All links to Blogging Network will continue to work in case you have existing links to your writing. That is, all links to Blogging Network will get redirected to the new Blogit site so you don't have to do anything!
Please note that you may need to sign back in via the new site www.blogit.com. If you don't remember your password, click on the link below the Sign-in section that says "Forgot your password?"
Brian
Blogit Team
Friday, February 20, 2004
Name change to Blogit on Monday!
As promised we wanted to notify you ahead of time. Blogging Network's name will change to Blogit on Monday.
However, all links to Blogging Network will continue to work in case you have existing links to your writing.
Please note that you will need to sign back in via the new site www.blogit.com. If you don't remember your password, click on the link below the Sign-in section that says "Forgot your password?"
Brian
Blogging Network Team
