Can’t we all just get along?
Now that we've gotten our Privacy Policy in order, we're going to start working on our Terms of Service. We figure it's always better to commit to how we're going to act before we submit a framework for anyone else. And the more that I think about it, our new ToS is really just a further expansion of how we're going to act. We'd rather have an express set of guidelines for when we're going to suspend an account or ask for a change or decree that something is spam. There are always exceptions to the rules, but arbitrary sucks.
So as we're formulating the ToS, feel free to point out others that you think are cool, or fair, or well written. Also, if there's anything you'd like to make sure we're clear about, post a comment about that too.
Can’t we all just get along?
Now that we've gotten our Privacy Policy in order, we're going to start working on our Terms of Service. We figure it's always better to commit to how we're going to act before we submit a framework for anyone else. And the more that I think about it, our new ToS is really just a further expansion of how we're going to act. We'd rather have an express set of guidelines for when we're going to suspend an account or ask for a change or decree that something is spam. There are always exceptions to the rules, but arbitrary sucks.
So as we're formulating the ToS, feel free to point out others that you think are cool, or fair, or well written. Also, if there's anything you'd like to make sure we're clear about, post a comment about that too.
Extended Pro/Trail Memberships
The MyBlogLog team received an email on 17th of last month from a user saying that we had downgraded their membership from "Pro" to "Free" by mistake. Due to scheduling constraints, we simply switched the person back to Pro and turned off the automated downgrade system. We would rather give users extended Pro and Trial memberships than inadvertently downgrade anyone.
Well, we finally got around to tracking down the bug and have reactivated the system. As such, many of our Pro and Trial members received notification that their accounts were downgraded earlier today. A large group of users have already renewed their annual Pro memberships or signed-up for Pro subscription service since sending out the notices. Thanks!!
To those of you that have not yet setup/renewed your Pro membership, we wanted to ensure you that we will keep your complete stats history for an additional seven days from today to give you time to sign-up.
Addressing JillTxt’s Privacy Concerns
Jill pointed out an area (or three) where our privacy disclosure could improve. The most critical to me is making sure that the MyBlogLog Privacy policy is in the best shape it can be. We're planning to make the following two updates to the policy. Please let us know if you think there's a better way to go about it. I can't guarantee that we'll always blog changes if they're minor, but we'll do our best.
First, the second paragraph under Cookies will become:
You are always free to decline cookies, but by doing so you may not be able to use certain features on the websites or take full advantage of all the website offerings. Among these features is the Recent Readers widget. The widget as displayed on MyBlogLog's company blog is pictured here. It places your profile picture on the faces of certain of the sites you read. Site-by-site control of where your profile picture appears will be provided, but is not available yet. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, erase cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the ''Help'' menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.)
Second, we'll add an additional bullet point under Information Sharing and Disclosure:
When you visit a site that is using MyBlogLog's Recent Readers widget, our system will add your profile picture to the widget, where it will be displayed for a period of time. The only way that the site knows that you have visited is to view the widget as you can. No person-specific information is provided to the site in any other way. Site-by-site control of where your profile picture appears will be provided, but is not available yet. Similarly, the site publisher will be able to ban the appearance of specific profile pictures from the widget and will no longer know when those individual MyBlogLog users visit their site. That feature is also not yet available.
Addressing JillTxt’s Privacy Concerns
Jill pointed out an area (or three) where our privacy disclosure could improve. The most critical to me is making sure that the MyBlogLog Privacy policy is in the best shape it can be. We're planning to make the following two updates to the policy. Please let us know if you think there's a better way to go about it. I can't guarantee that we'll always blog changes if they're minor, but we'll do our best.
First, the second paragraph under Cookies will become:
You are always free to decline cookies, but by doing so you may not be able to use certain features on the websites or take full advantage of all the website offerings. Among these features is the Recent Readers widget. The widget as displayed on MyBlogLog's company blog is pictured here. It places your profile picture on the faces of certain of the sites you read. Site-by-site control of where your profile picture appears will be provided, but is not available yet. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, erase cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the ''Help'' menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.)
Second, we'll add an additional bullet point under Information Sharing and Disclosure:
When you visit a site that is using MyBlogLog's Recent Readers widget, our system will add your profile picture to the widget, where it will be displayed for a period of time. The only way that the site knows that you have visited is to view the widget as you can. No person-specific information is provided to the site in any other way. Site-by-site control of where your profile picture appears will be provided, but is not available yet. Similarly, the site publisher will be able to ban the appearance of specific profile pictures from the widget and will no longer know when those individual MyBlogLog users visit their site. That feature is also not yet available.
A Simple Feature with a Lot of Requests
The French blogging community has arrived on MyBlogLog in force. Loic Le Meur (EN community, Communauté FR) signed up and a lot of great people followed him (Henri Kaufman et ses idees, par example). As a group, they've had a lot of great ideas ideas that we'd like to deliver over the coming months, but one was so easy and useful that we did it right away.
The request was that we provide a simple text field for people to describe themselves as they wished, similar to the summary field provided for each community. Here it is. The results display at the bottom of each person's profile page.
I'll do more posting shortly about what features we're considering, in order to get everyone's feedback on the order in which we introduce them. In the meantime, Lord Matt graced us with some suggestions earlier today.
Context means everything
So the top 5 global links are down for a little bit while we sort out a longer-term solution for seemingly creepy pictures that are acceptable with more context. We're not looking to arbitrarily censor sites and links (and our hats are off to the VAST majority of truly adult sites who mark themselves as such) but this is a case where it will simply cause too much confusion when people click the Top 5 links without knowing what the full scoop is.
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Music Search or Just SEO your MP3s?
David Byrne wants just the right thing, but is not quite searching in the right place:
Soon enough a site will open that is like a Google search for music
downloads — downloads that are not copy-protected but you still pay
for. eMusic tracks have no copy protection, for example, but their
catalogue is limited. Eventually a meta search will turn up the tracks
you want, wherever they live, on whomever’s site.
Narendra, co-founder of Webshots and 30boxes, danced closer to the solution yesterday, but he did so in response to a completely different Battelle posting:
Google has not yet been able to
index the 420 million photos that live on Webshots and have a wealth of
metadata associated with them. They need to focus on improving their
crawling ability and be able to play with large existing systems like
Webshots and Flickr to improve relevance instead of forays into odd and
ambiguous user annotation.
The solution isn't a Music Google; it's building a new site that springboards off Google's massive traffic. Jason DeFilippo showed us all the way when he put together the Technorati Tags system. It's so much better to ride your users' tags and links to put your new search engine on to the first results page of the big one. It helps your users almost as much as it helps you. The linklove from T-tags been a big factor in Technorati's success, and they're trying to copy that success universally via microformats. However, sector knowledge and passion matter. Techorati's expertise in and enthusiasm for blogs is clear, but do they possess the same for events, identity, streaming media, etc., etc.? If Technorati wants to be the King of Metadata, they should offer a Ning-style microformat service that lets anybody with motivation built their own specialized SEO site.
While we're waiting for that, a great independent music SEO engine
could emerge. Just make a groovier version of Edgeio's homepage and copy YouTube's SEO. For a critical mass of media to kick off the project, look no farther than partnerships with FileCargo and SaveFile, which seem to be the PhotoBuckets of Music. At MyBlogLog, our most populous communities center around the big DJ directory (~2000 members so far), and its most highly ranked celebs: DJ Tiesto, DJ Paul Van Dyk, Armin Van Buuren, etc. We see ton of people clicking to download legal DJ mixes. Since "6) Linking is the new storage," the music storage companies would benefit tremendously by SEOing the files they host.
[via John Battelle]
Thank you, Nigeria, for motivating us to add a new feature
Another milestone down this evening -- we were visited by the 419 fairy who messaged about a dozen people on the site before Ferret alerted us to the problem. We deleted the account (and the corresponding messages) and all is well again in the land of MyBlogLog.
Thank to the experience, though, members can now delete messages in their profile and community pages. If you get a message you don't need anymore or a piece of spam, a simple click and the problem is solved. If you receive a piece of spam, don't hesitate to drop me a note in my profile page and I'll take care of the situation asap.
You may remember that the first time we had a spammer come visit us we discussed adding the dreaded captcha to our messages. We received a number of emails from members requesting that we find another solution so we've backburnered that solution for a while. Let's see if giving everyone more control takes care of things.
Thank you, Nigeria, for motivating us to add a new feature
Another milestone down this evening -- we were visited by the 419 fairy who messaged about a dozen people on the site before Ferret alerted us to the problem. We deleted the account (and the corresponding messages) and all is well again in the land of MyBlogLog.
Thank to the experience, though, members can now delete messages in their profile and community pages. If you get a message you don't need anymore or a piece of spam, a simple click and the problem is solved. If you receive a piece of spam, don't hesitate to drop me a note in my profile page and I'll take care of the situation asap.
You may remember that the first time we had a spammer come visit us we discussed adding the dreaded captcha to our messages. We received a number of emails from members requesting that we find another solution so we've backburnered that solution for a while. Let's see if giving everyone more control takes care of things.
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