First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.
Have a great weekend,
daisy, Team Vox
In my last Team Vox post, I let you know that we're aware that the Amazon conduit is broken and that we're working to fix it. Many of you want to know when it's going to be fixed and I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to you about that sooner.
Unfortunately, I don't have an exact date to give you, but rest assured, the Amazon conduit will be fixed in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, I'm about to finish my latest book and I could use a few suggestions as to what to read next, so... if you don't mind, let me know in the comments what's on your nightstand and/or what book you think I absolutely must read next.
Thanks! :)
Some of you may have noticed that right now you cannot add books from Amazon to your Vox library. Giving people a glimpse into what's on your night stand is important to many of you, so I just wanted to reassure you that we are doing our best to get this bug fixed. I'll keep you posted.
So sorry for the inconvenience.
Hope you have a great weekend!
daisy
tonight I was lucky enough to be invited to a round table meeting with the cream of the young adelaide arts, music, design and advertising scene and the adelaide city council.
- band / gig posters - the city needs more public spaces designated for sticking up posters, so people can pop by and find out what's on that night in the city.
- water frontage bars / cafes - we've got the awesome grassed areas next to the festival centre with lovely water frontage that's an ideal place to hang out on a long summer night, but we need some bars / cafes / street food there to attract people so they don't have to venture to the west end for a drink.
- reduce inner city housing costs - there needs to be something done to create affordable inner city housing for young people. at the moment there's just opposite ends of the spectrum from student 1 room accommodation to $700 / week penthouse living. more young people living in the city = more young people out and contributing.
- increase noise in the city - in the last decade pubs and live music venues have been getting screwed by suffocating noise restrictions forced upon them by touchy old residents in new apartments. the city is meant to be noisy and bustling, so stop listening to the whinging few and bring the noise back to the CBD.
- street art zones - there needs to be a few council-blind-eye areas, where street art can go up and not be buffed.
- first friday gallery night - the first friday of the month becomes a night when all galleries in the west end are open with new artwork, attracting people to west end and building a real sense of community amongst the art scene.
- short term empty shop front leases - the council needs to act as a broker for short term shop front leases, so that empty shop fronts can be transformed into month long exhibitions without the usual pain of going through landlords and huge short term lease fees.
- rolling leases - continuing on from the short term leases are rolling leases, so empty shop fronts get leased as exhibition spaces rolling month to month until the landlord has a full-time tenant. this provides great opportunities for emerging artists with little track record to exhibit and a steady stream of income for landlords that would otherwise have no income from those shop fronts.
- close hindley street - the council experimented with closing hindley street for one saturday night. unfortunately the only attraction was a hotdog and a clown. proposal is to regularly close hindley street once a month on a saturday night to traffic and have food and drink stalls from the clubs and shops on the street and some live bands playing. that would attract people, and make the street less scary / seedy.
- improve public transport - free public transport within the CBD, and extended running hours so that people can stay out in the city longer and still get around and home.
- simple bus route naming system - to make it easier for international students, visitors and the general public, there needs to be a simple naming system to replace the bus numbers in adelaide. colour coded routes and simple names of the directions busses are headed would be much more user friendly.
- dedicated street art laneway - it would be great for the council to dedicate one laneway in the CBD to foster street art. a safe place where anyone can paint anytime. a place where we can run masterclasses by the legends of adelaide street art. ideally the laneway would have a secure stereo system that artists / bands / djs can plug into and have live performances there. we'd install picture frame rails so that there could be outdoor exhibitions there.
- de-regulate the rundle st markets - the gilles street markets are a huge success because they're run by the people. move the rundle st markets to east terrace and put them back into the hands of the people, sell organic farmers market style food and have some live bands and art to attract people.
- take more risks with modern architecture - we're sick of the glass stumps going up around the city. hand some architectural design work to graduate students and talented conceptual architects so that there are more interesting buildings.
- support industrial design - after graduating, industrial design students have few job opportunities in adelaide. to keep the talent in adelaide, fund more gallery spaces devoted to industrial design to show off furniture and product designers.
- more public art - hire local designers to create more public art, especially more interactive public art. art that can be modified by either digital manipulation via SMS or the internet, or even by physical touch.
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