tagged w/ Feature Release
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As far as releases go, this one is stuffed to the gills. There's a lot to cover here, so let's not waste any time.
New Profiles With Activity Streams
Ever since I began working at Current we've fielded requests for improved profile pages, and feed based activity streams. Well, prepare yourself because here comes feed overload. Today we launch a totally revamped profile page experience, and here's everything you need to know about the changes in place.
Note: Activity streams will only display the most recent 200 events to help reduce load on the system.
As far as releases go, this one is stuffed to the gills. There's a lot to cover... more
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Despite our recent DDoS attacks, we managed to squeak out a feature release for the site last Tuesday. Unfortunately, the DDoS attack resumed shortly after.
“For the love of Pete, tell me what was in the release!!”
While this wasn’t a huge release (those are being reserved for later this month), we were able to sneak a few improvements in that you may have already noticed. Here’s the rundown:
Facebook “Like”
Those of you with Facebook accounts will find that sharing Current TV with your friends just got easier. Have you met the Like button yet? Chances are, you’re already familiar with it on Facebook, and now we’ve implemented Like buttons on all of our content, too. Have you told your friends about Mariana Van Zeller’s recent Vanguard documentary “Missionaries of Hate” yet?
Make sure your Facebook account is connected to your Current profile, then visit the “Missionaries of Hate” page and click the “Like” button to share it with your friends and family on Facebook. Go ahead. Try it out. I’ll wait for you here.
Popularity and Voting Updates
A few weeks ago, we discovered a few kinks in our popularity-scoring algorithm thanks to a few cases where stories were pushed onto the homepage to prove a point. Your message was heard loud and clear, and I’m happy to report that we’ve deployed a couple of notable tweaks to the system that should vastly improve things going forward.
First, your red votes will factor in more prominently going forward. For those of you familiar with gaming mechanics, our voting system needed to be re-balanced to better account for red votes. No longer!
So, fire up your voting fingers. Vote up. Vote down. Vote often. Your votes help determine what belongs in the popular stories feed, so if something looks old, out of place, or you just don’t think it’s as important as other stories out there, you know what to do.
But wait, there’s more. We’ve received a plenty of feedback from our community about the ability to push stories into popularity based upon multiple comments from a very few people on a thread. It goes something like this:
Person 1: I think this is great.
Person 2: @Person 1 -- I disagree!
Person 1: @Person 2 – Well, I disagree with your disagreement!
Person 2: @Person 1 – OK, but your disagreement with my disagreement is disagreeable to me!
Person 1: @Person 2 – Sir or Madam, PLEASE validate my disagreement with you!
This exchange continues on for 40-50 comments, and the next thing you know the story is ranked in the top 10 popular stories on the homepage. Not cool, right?
Well, we’ve now implemented a new addition to comment scoring that will factor for this sort of thing. We would like to see stories containing a wide spanning discussion, with input from a variety of people via comments and votes, not just the back-and-forth between a select few.
So there you have it! We are already working on the next couple releases which plan to include revamped profile pages, new activity streams, and Twitter integration.
Stay tuned!Despite our recent DDoS attacks, we managed to squeak out a feature release for the... more
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We’ve just completed a major revamp of our site and wanted to let you know what we’ve been up to. Over the past several months, we’ve set out to improve upon the features that we know you love and also to introduce you to some of our amazing content that was previously hard to find – we think you’ll love it too.
To accomplish this, we've made some pretty significant changes, added new functionality, and even brought some old friends back to the party. Without further ado, here are some of the major changes:Simplified LayoutWe’ve made it easier to navigate your way to your favorite places on the site. Are you looking to catch up on infoMania? Maybe you’re curious about what our Vanguard correspondents are up to? Each show has its own page, and all the show pages are easy to find from anywhere on the site – just roll over the TV SHOWS tab and you’ll see them all. If you’re interested in the popular news stories submitted to Current TV by members of our community, roll your mouse over the NEWS tab, and select the category that catches your fancy. Some people prefer to just kick back and watch a good session of original video from Current TV. If that sounds like your cup of tea, click on the VIDEO tab, choose a TV show or channel, and soak in a feed of your favorite videos from Current TV.As on the old site, you can still click on the SCHEDULE tab to see what’s airing on Current TV in your time zone, and take a look at what is coming up a full week in advance.A new addition to our site is the Participate section, which will always have the latest opportunities to submit content to Current TV for use online and on air. Whether you want to participate in the latest BFD (Big Featured Discussion), upload your entry for the latest VCAM (Viewer Created Ad Message) assignment, submit webcams in response to a recent Current TV show, or submit news stories to discuss with your fellow community members, the PARTICIPATE tab is the one to click to get involved with all things Current TV.Home Page MarqueeThe new home page marquee has a more cinematic feel – now we’re using the full width of the site to present top-shelf content: not-to-be-missed broadcasts, great web extras from our TV shows, and must-read popular news stories. Find Us on Your TVNow it’s easier than ever to find Current TV in your living room. We’re often asked, “Hey Current TV person, where can I find your shows on my TV?” So now our most common channels and our handy channel finder are front and center on the home page.Popular StoriesWe heard your feedback loud and clear, so we've re-introduced the popular feed to the home page! The Popular Stories area lists stories posted to Current.com by you, in order of popularity as determined by our community. It's powered by an all-new scoring system that takes your votes, views and comments into account when programming items into the feed. What are you waiting for? Participate in making a story popular enough to hit our home page and rise through the ranks to number one!Big Featured Discussions (BFD)This is a brand new way to participate on Current TV, and we’re excited to see what you think of it. Big Featured Discussions are, as the title implies, interesting topics we’re serving up for the community to tackle on a daily basis. Discussions could come from a hot topic in the news, a TV show host with a bone to pick, or from who knows where – your guess is as good as ours to see where this ends up! To make things more interesting, you can vote each response posted on a BFD into popularity, and we will feature the best-of-the-best on our home page. We have a lot of ideas for this new addition to the site, so we hope you’ll dive into our BFDs, participate, and vote, vote, vote!Popular CommentsOur new home page now features popular comments from all the discussions around the Current TV site based on votes from our community. Help others discover the best conversations brewing on the site by voting up comments to surface on our home page.Your FeedbackWe always love hearing from you, so please take some time to share your thoughts, suggestions or questions on our new feedback page. The work around here never stops – tomorrow it’s onto more improvements, so let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see next!Thanks for stopping by, and we hope you enjoy the new experience waiting for you at Current.com.We’ve just completed a major revamp of our site and wanted to let you know what... more
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Last week we released some new features alongside some bug fixes on the Current TV site, and there are a few important changes I'd like to call out. Apologies in advance for the delay in posting, we had some kinks to work out on our end. We've squared everything away on our end, and we're now ready to go. So, let's dive right in.
New Process for Feedback and Support
photo by: jurvetson on flickr // used with permission via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
You may have noticed that our header now includes a link to our new feedback page. We're making a move to power our support and feedback initiatives via Get Satisfaction, and getting this page up and running was an important first step.
Get Satisfaction will allow us to publicly answer some of the most common support issues and feedback questions in one place. Believe me, we see the same questions quite frequently on our end. The upside is, every question we answer is available to our community, searchable on Get Satisfaction, and can eventually be used to help freshen up our FAQ page.
As an added bonus, this new feedback system won't require a login to our site to participate. We know that a lot of our TV viewers visit the site, but never actually log in to comment or vote. We wanted an option for those folks to let us know when they experience site issues, or have suggestions for future site releases.
Now that this new option for feedback is in place, we are going to institute a new policy on Current going forward regarding feedback and criticism posted to the site. The ability to submit stories to Current is intended to serve the sharing and promoting of news related stories. Granted, news is pretty open to interpretation, but our definition for Current includes things like entertainment news, otaku news, and celebrity news.
Current TV occasionally turns up in the news, and when this happens, posting these stories certainly applies -- to some extent. As many of you know, these items are not always posted with the focus on reporting news, but rather with underlying questions and criticisms of our company policies, direction, or specific initiatives.
We love that our community is so concerned about the direction of the company, and we want to encourage your continued feedback. Over the course of the next couple months we'll be unleashing some pretty significant updates to the site, and we want our community to play a big role in helping us shape these changes in the months following.
One of the goals we hope to accomplish in the coming months is a revamped homepage that better represents core of our company, a TV network with original programming and content, and a website with a community that rallies around discussing the latest news and content on the web. Having a feedback loop from our community is vital, but having these posts surface on our homepage is discouraging to new visitors and potential members of our community.
We feel that posts and threads such as these are much better suited for our new feedback and support forum on Get Satisfaction. So going forward we will institute this new policy with the following steps:
Posts on Current that are support, feedback, criticism, or policy related will no longer be eligible for popularity ranking on the site.
These types of posts will be marked by our community team by adding them to the "Community Feedback and Support" group.
Posts and threads marked with this group will be ineligible to appear in popular feeds, or in the new or popular lists on groups and channels.
NOTE: These posts will not be removed from the site. Members of the community will still be able to find these posts on Current via search and the original poster's profile page. Commenting will still be enabled, but to get your inquiry heard and/or answered you should consider posting in via our feedback workflow.
We will post a comment informing the original poster of this action, and requesting that they re-publish their inquiry via our feedback page instead.
We will also send the original poster a message to make certain that they are informed about the action taken on their post.
We realize that this will be a change for many of you, and that it will take some getting used to. However, this solution will offer the best of all scenarios -- the opportunity to provide feedback, get answers to company questions, and still have a homepage focused on our promoting both original content from our TV shows and mix of news stories made popular by our community.
The Bug Report: Updates!
Our release also brought about some important bug fixes. Many of you had already written in about some of these, and Im happy to report that we've released fixes into the wild. Here are the details:
"How is this banned account still able to comment?" -- Yep, we were frustrated with this one as well. We've released a fix for this, and now accounts that have been suspended or banned for bad behavior will no longer be able to comment or post.
"Why does the video page skip playlists when I'm watching shows?" -- This was happening for a few of you, our Video page was jumping playlists for some reason. We've released a fix and you should be good to go. Give it a try!
"Why is every comment vote showing up in my Activity Stream?" -- We're planning an overhaul of activity streams later this year, but for now this unfortunate side effect from our comment voting release was causing some frustrations. We've streamlined things, so now multiple votes will no longer appear in the Activity Stream.
"What happened to my Picked for TV points?" -- Last release brought us shiny new URLs for our show pages, but unfortunately it also broke our "Picked for TV" level counts. Many of you noticed this pretty quickly, and we set to work on a fix. You should see the correct counts reflecting on your profiles.
"Facebook email notifications = no go." -- Have you ever sent a Current.com message to someone who never responded back? Don't fret, it may not be you. Chances are, that community member might have been logged in via Facebook and never received the "You've got a message" notification. We've re-wired things via Facebook Connect, so notifications should be going out according to plan. If you don't get a response now, well then it might be you after all. :)
"Logging in gives me an error page." -- This one makes us sad. Apparently, if you happened to take a break from Current.com and then attempted to login for the first time in a while, you might have received an error page. No more! We've resolved the issue so try logging in again and let us know if you have any trouble. You can connect via Facebook, too!
We're still hard at work on the big releases we have planned for the coming months. We'll have more news as we get closer to our next release, and you'll be the first to hear about it.
We appreciate hearing your feedback, so please try out the new feedback system and let us know what you think. Thanks for reading!Last week we released some new features alongside some bug fixes on the Current TV... more
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Hello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release is serving up some major upgrades to our commenting system. Discussions on Current.com are extremely important to us, and we've come up with a few updates to existing functionality as well as some new enhancements that will help pave the way for the months to come.
Let's take a quick tour:
Comment Voting: That's right, comment voting is now officially implemented on Current.com.
Each comment will have an individual score based on the aggregate count of votes, so for example: If a comment has 51 votes up, and 52 votes down, a "-1" will display. So, what are you waiting for? Reward discussion-driving folks by giving them a coveted vote up. Find someone detracting from the discussion at hand? Give 'em a vote down.
Sorting Options: Why not offer some alternative ways to sort comments?
We're changing the default sort on all threads to "Newest" first, this way you'll always see the latest discussions on the main landing page. But, for those of you who prefer to read threads in the order in which they developed, you can always sort by "Oldest" as well. And since we implemented comment voting, it would be a travesty not to offer a sort by "Popular" option. We think this will be an interesting way to find new and insightful commentary on Current.com threads as our discussions develop. Try it out!
Replies and Pagination: We've made a couple important changes to the way replies and pagination work on Current.com.
All reply threads are now "open" as a default, you are no longer restricted to replying only to the original commenter, and we've changed some of the design aspects for replies as well. In our older system, any time you reply to someone on a thread you were automatically replying to the first comment on the thread. Now you can elect a person to reply to, and their name will appear at the beginning of your comment. You'll also notice that replies longer indent on discussion threads -- instead the avatars in reply comments are slightly smaller in size.
These decisions were largely made to help facilitate the ability to sort by popular. For example, a reply to a thread could be more popular than all of the comments on the entire thread. This allows us to display each comment ranked on popularity, while still retaining it's reply status.
Additionally, we've done away with pagination. That's right, each comment now loads by default, which means your scrolling finger will now be ready for a workout.
Like the changes? Have some feedback? Please be sure to share your reactions in the comments below, and if you notice any bugs or have any recommendations visit our Get Satisfaction support page and leave us some feedback.
Thanks!
marioHello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release... more
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Hey community members,
We've just released some new changes to our story item pages, and I thought it might be a good idea to list some of these here. Alongside some submission tool bug fixes, we've released a fairly substantial change to story item layout. Here's a list of the changes:
We've made a significant change to font sizes in the item headlines, description, and comments.
Comments, views, and story submission date are all relocated. These pieces of information deserve more prominence, so we moved them up below the story headline.
New "more from" module below item media.
The primary URL for a story is no longer anchored below the title of the story. We feel pretty strongly that a story can comprise of multiple URLs in the description, so making one URL directly associated with the headline seemed confusing. Now the primary URL for the story appears just above the description (below the image and the "more from" section).
The ID card (avatar and username) of the story submitter has been moved to the top of the page. Now you'll know who submitted the story you're reading with a quick glance at the top of the right rail.
Huge "share this" buttons below description. Now sharing with your favorite social network is easier than ever. Many people we spoke with never realized that we offered some of these options, so we've made them more prominent. Share away!
We've also made a few changes to our methodology for handling profile removals on Current, but that deserves a blog of its own, so keep an eye out for more details.
Of course, we also want to know what you think of these changes! Leave a comment, shoot us an email at feedback(at)current(dot)com, or head over to our Get Satisfaction page to let us know.
marioHey community members,
We've just released some new changes to our story item... more
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[UPDATE: Please note that when posting a story you should leave source links in your description text if you intend to include them or pull media from those links for your story. It does not matter where in the description they appear, just note that the link closest to the top of the description text will be your primary source, and you can pull media from up to five other sources. Thanks!]
While news of our new Fall episodes has been at the forefront these days, that doesn't mean that our dev team has been twiddling their thumbs. To the contrary, we're happy to announce that there is a new release hitting Current.com today, and we can't wait to hear what you think of it.
Let's face it, contributing to Current.com has never been the easiest thing to do -- a refresh of this workflow has been long overdue. With this new release, clicking the "Post a Story" button (located in the green navigation bar) will now produce a submission tool overlaid on whichever page you're on.
We've streamlined the process, here's a walkthrough:
Title and Description Please: We now offer only two initial fields to enter, one for Title and one for Description. The new tool will work with you to customize your post, while putting the focus where it counts: clearly titling your post and adding a description.
Link it up: Adding a link to your post is super simple -- merely copy the link into your description field. Once you paste a link, the submission tool will immediately process any and all available media (photos, video embeds, etc.) on the source page and offer them as selections for you to include in your post. Click on the one that makes the most sense, and you're one step closer to posting.
Place your post where it counts most: A story is only as good as its location, and we use groups and tags to help place stories in areas that make the most sense on Current.com. You'll find an easy groups dropdown menu pre-populated with all of the groups you belong to, along with an open field for tags. Tags are important. They help lost stories find groups to live in. If you don't belong to a group that you think the story might make sense in, use relevant tags to help it along its merry way. It's like Mom always said, "Don't forget your lunch tags!"
Tired of the minors? Time to go pro!: Anyone can submit links to Current.com, but it takes a true professional to raise the bar by posting alongside video, images, or webcams. Clicking the "add video/image/webcam" link, you'll open the secret door to file uploading, webcam recording, and embedding video. Are you up for the challenge?
Those of you who mastered our older submission workflow will recognize that all of the essential pieces are still here, just repositioned and streamlined.
Since we're never content leaving well enough alone, we've also taken an initial stab and refining our commenting workflow as well.
You'll notice that at the bottom of each post there is now an open comment box (regardless of login/logout status). This new comment flow acts similarly to the new submission tool. Clicking into the comment field allows you to type up a response, and you can add links and select media by following similar steps.
And as always, if you've connected your Current.com account to Facebook, you can publish your awesome stories and comments to your Facebook feed to share with your friends.
So what do you think? Does this make things easier? Is it simple enough? Shoot us some feedback on our Get Satisfaction page, and help us out with future product releases.[UPDATE: Please note that when posting a story you should leave source links in your... more
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It's been a while since we've made a significant update to our TV Schedule on Current.com. Our previous version of the schedule focused on what is airing right now. We collected feedback and are proud to present the latest version of the Current TV Schedule.
The brand new Current TV Schedule page on Current.com
Some highlights:
Our featured timeslots let you know what is coming up next from our franchise shows. For example: Tonight at 10/9c Vanguard correspondent Adam Yamaguchi walks you through a sneak peek of the upcoming fall season. It's all NEW!
The list view let's you see what is on Current, one day at a time. When you land on the new schedule, the grid will automagically jump to what is on Current TV right now. In addition, you can scroll back to see what you missed, or jump ahead through the next six days to find out what is coming up.
There are still a few more things we plan to roll out in our next release (scheduled for Wednesday). Here's the list:
Grid view: This will let you look at an entire week's worth of Current TV scheduling in one go. For those of you who like to plan out your week, this will be the way to go.
List view time zones: We squashed a bug from the previous release that left out time zones on the list view. Those will make their triumphant return.
Homepage schedule: Our new schedule page is nice, but sometimes you'll want to know what's coming up on Current TV from the comfort of the Current.com homepage. With this new feature, that problem is solved.
What do you think of the new schedule? Do you have feedback or recommendations? Leave us a comment or make some suggestions on our Get Satisfaction page for the new TV Schedule.It's been a while since we've made a significant update to our TV Schedule... more
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It's time for another feature release here at Current, and we've been cooking up some new features for your enjoyment. There's a lot of exciting new things to explore, so let's dig right in.
Facebook Connect
If you're like me, trying to keep track of all your different social networks and logins can become a hassle, and we hope this will make it just a little bit easier. You can now use your Facebook ID to log into Current, with your new or existing account. It's totally optional, so don't worry. If you want to keep your Facebook and Current identities separate, you'll still be able to log in as usual.
If you're reading this, you're probably already a member of current, but some people may hesitate to join Current.com because they don't need another account to manage. Being able to register and sign in using a Facebook account means that it's just that much simpler to become a part of the Current community.
If you've decided to link your Facebook and Current accounts, you'll also be able to share your Current activity on Facebook. It's super simple; whenever you leave a comment or add an item, you'll see a ticky box that says "Publish to Facebook." If you don't want to share that comment or item, just uncheck the box!
You can edit your Facebook setttings on your My Account page, to automatically share everything you do on Facebook, or to share nothing at all. And you'll always be able to change the setting on individual items or comments, no matter which option you choose.
Current Toolbar
We've also added a new Current toolbar. Now, when you click on a link that's been added to Current, you'll see a toolbar on the top of the page. You can vote, respond or share the story, all from the original article.
Shrink your URL
So, you're browsing around the internet, and you come across something you just can't wait to share. Like these caramel apple sticky buns you're hoping someone will make if you send the link out on Twitter. But first you need a shorter URL.
Just add http://current.com/ to the front of the URL
And get your brand new, shortened address! If the link isn't on Current, you'll also be able to clip it right using the handy Add to Current option.
As always, if you have feedback, suggestions, or just want to say hi, drop us an email at feedback@current.com, or head over to our Get Satisfaction page and let us know what you think!
StephIt's time for another feature release here at Current, and we've been... more
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As Mario mentioned, we had so much going on in this release that we couldn't possibly cover it all in one blog post. He's already covered the new groups functionality, but that's far from everything! We've also made some changes to comment notifications, RSS feeds, and recommendations on item pages.
Comment Notifications
Many of you have mentioned that you don't like the fact that comment notifications cut off after a certain number of respones. Well, those days are no more! Comment notifications will now be unlimited.
If you're thinking that might be a little overwhelming to get individual emails for every comment, you can head over to your account settings and sign up for daily, weekly, or monthly digests instead.
RSS
We've made some changes to offer even more options for RSS feeds. In addition to being able to grab RSS feeds for a group or tag, we now have RSS feeds for searches and people. You can also grab an RSS feed for Current Stories, or for videos recently added to Current.com.
Grabbing an RSS feed is super easy. For example, say I want to grab an RSS feed for any knitting related items on Current.
First, I'd do a quick search for knitting.
After I've checked out Real Men Who Knit, I might decide I want to get an RSS feed to keep up with my knitting-related content. So I'll check up in my browser's address bar for the blue (or orange, depending on your browser) RSS button.
Once I've clicked that, I'll be able to add the RSS to whatever feed reader I like and get all the latest updates!
Recommendations
We've also made some changes to the recommended stories on item page. Rather than mixing all the related items together, you can now view related stories by group.
So, if I'm checking out Why America is flunking science and I want to see what's similar, I can look to the right and decide if I want to find related stories in Movies, News, or News and Politics. But if you really loved seeing recommendations all mixed together, don't worry. Just scroll down a bit to see a random selection of related stories.
And that's it! Keep in mind that your feedback helps us shape things to come, so be sure to let us know what you think, or if you see any quirky behavior on the site. You can send us feedback by clicking on the feedback tab on the blog, head directly over to our Get Satisfaction page for groups, or by sending us ol' fashioned email at feedback [at] current.com.
StephAs Mario mentioned, we had so much going on in this release that we... more
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This week's product feature release is so big, we had to crack our blog announcement in half just to do it justice. Part II covers RSS feed enhancements, email notification tweaks, and a brand new way to browse recommendations on Current.com items. But first, we tackle the elusive beast that is the Current.com group:
Way back in May we posted a callout for top secret testers to play around with some curation tools we built in preparation for launching groups. We received a pretty positive response to the test from a little under forty curators, and now the time has come to unleash our new groups functionality for the rest of the Current.com community to enjoy.
Starting now, every single member of our community will be able to create and customize a group on Current.com tailored to their own specific interests. This is a monumental change to the site, and there is a lot to cover. So, here goes.
Start a group!
It's simple, click the "Start a Group" button in the green navigation bar on Current.com. You'll need a name, description, and some tags for your group. For example:
Setting tags for your group is essential, because these will be used to recommend Current.com submissions to consider for your group. These recommendations will appear below you group, like this:
The items and submissions listed as potential "quick adds" are determined by two things: the tags you use to define your group, and the tags people use to define their story submissions to Current.com.
So for example, if you're trying to set up your group to contain up-to-the-minute Nintendo gaming news, you will want to add tags related to video games, gaming, and of course Nintendo. A healthy set of tags for a Nintendo group might include: "Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo Wii, Super Mario Bros, Shigeru Miyamoto, Video Games, and Gaming."
Not only will you be able to handpick stories to add to your group, you'll also be able to curate your group by featuring stories, or removing submissions that don't truly belong to your group. You can use our curation tools to feature an item, and once it's been featured you can then use the up/down buttons to position it on the page in the order of your choice. Featured items will have a star icon appear next to them.
If you feel that an item that someone added doesn't fit with your group, simply check the red X button and it will be removed.
Your default view for your group will be a list view, but you can change it to a playlist template in your groups admin page.
The curation tools for featuring work the same in both templates, so the choice is really up to you. If you prefer the playlist layout, head over to the admin section of your group and select a different template.
Once you've finished setting up your group, all you'll need are members! Share your group with others on Current.com, or reach out into your various social networks like facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to let your contacts know about your group!
Sometimes groups grow quickly, and you may find that you need more than one set of hands manning the ship. Once you've built up a following, you can even grant some members moderator status to help curate the group with you. Keep in mind, giving moderator powers to another group member can be easy to do, but it will also give them full access to curating your group. Choose your moderators wisely, and if things get out of hand, you can always revoke this status by using the ban function.
If you happen to find that some of your members get out of line in your group, you can even ban them from your group altogether. This will prevent them from adding content to your group. Remember, if you believe that a member is violating our community guidelines, make sure to flag them after you ban them and our community team will take a look at their profile.
Join a group!
Maybe creating a group is not your speed, but you can still join and participate in a group on Current.com. Who knows, someone might even make you a moderator!
You can find new groups to join on our newly added "Groups" tab -- conveniently located in the Current.com header. On the groups page you'll find some of our featured groups, as well as listings for other groups on Current.com. Browse around, see what you find, and if you don't see a group that fits your needs that could be an indicator that you should make one yourself!
On every groups page you'll find a "related groups" section that includes exactly what it sounds like -- other groups related to that group. And as if that wasn't enough, you can also find groups via search on Current.com. Search for keywords that interest you, and potential related groups will appear in the search results.
Contribute to a group!
There are couple different ways to contribute to groups:
1) When you submit a story to Current.com
2) When you read a story on Current.com
When you submit stories, you'll now find a new "groups" section in the clipper. This section has a dropdown menu that comprises of all the groups you are a member of. Remember, you have to be a member of a group in order to add a story to that group.
A similar drop down menu can be found on Current.com item pages. So, when you read a Current.com story, you can easily access a dropdown menu of all your groups, and select one of them to add that story to.
If you are not a member of a group, you can still help recommend stories to different groups on Current.com with tags. We recommend stories to group moderators based on the tags on individual items, so if you see a story with very few tags, consider adding a few to help it find a new home.
Our team has been working very hard on groups, and we have plans to expand this functionality by make groups more customizable in coming releases. In the meantime, create and join some groups. Play around with the new features, and test out some of the other Easter Eggs we've rolled out in this new release.
So that's it for groups. Steph is following this post up with Part II to our feature release announcement, and she'll be laying out the latest updates to our RSS feeds, email notifications, and highlighting a brand new way to browse content on item pages. Check that out after the jump.
Otherwise, please keep in mind that your feedback helps us shape things to come, so be sure to take some time to shoot us your thoughts, make some suggestions, and let us know if you see any quirky behavior on the site. You can send us feedback by clicking on the feedback tab on the blog, head directly over to our Get Satisfaction page for groups, or by sending us ol' fashioned email at feedback [at] current.com.This week's product feature release is so big, we had to crack our blog... more
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Hey Currentators,
We have a feature release scheduled this evening, which means Current.com will be having some scheduled downtime tonight 7/15 at 9:30pm PDT. We're really excited to get this new release out to the community, and many of us will be online tonight when the site comes back up in anticipation of what our community will do with this new release. It's going to be fun, so if you're on West Coast (or are an East Coast insomniac) stay up with us for the big reveal. As always, I'll be available on our @current twitter account if anyone has questions.
In the meantime, check out this cool landmark that appeared outside of our SF offices this morning. Al Gore picked Current SF as one of his favorite places on Google Maps, so Google dropped off a landmark statue in the shape of a place marker along with a placard to commemorate this.
Check it out:
Hey Currentators,
We have a feature release scheduled this evening, which means... more
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hey currentians,
i know, i know...it's been SOOOO long since our last feature release. all jokes aside, the second part of our feature release doubleheader just rolled out, and it introduces a brand new concept to current.com called "bundles."
Q: what is a bundle?
A: a bundle is a group of stories packaged together based on their relationship to one another. these stories usually come from different sources, but are all related based on keywords and other similarities.
Q: why are you calling these "baby-bundles" then?
A: well, the bundling concept is still in the infancy stage -- hence, the use of the word "baby." we have much, much bigger plans for these once they reach the "adult" stage, but we are not quite there yet in this release. so let's get into some of the details.
Q: where can i find these baby-bundles?
A: each homepage channel on current.com (news, music, movies, tech, green, gaming, comedy, and art & style) has a new module in the right rail of the channel homepage. this module is titled, "real-time news" and it includes a cloud of trending terms and links to the most recently created bundles for that channel.
Q: how do baby-bundles work?
A: for our first iteration, we've deploying a team of current bots (e.g. current_news_bot, current_tech_bot, current_movies_bot, etc.) to scour the web for stories to turn into baby-bundles. these baby-bundles are created specifically for the current.com community to engage with and discuss. baby-bundles are similar to individual items on current.com -- you can comment, vote, and share them with others.
Q: what can i do with a baby-bundle?
A: when someone comments and/or votes on a bundle for the first time, the bot associated with the bundle's channel will place the bundle in that channel's stream. by voting and commenting, you tell our bots which bundles are interesting enough to place in the channel. so, if you see a bundle in the music section that looks like something the current.com/music community would be interested in, vote and comment! the bundle will automatically be added to the current music channel, where others can vote and comment on it as well.
Q: can i create my own baby-bundles?
A: baby-bundles? no. full-blown "adult" bundles? yes! as i mentioned, this is just the early stages for bundles, but we plan to roll out the ability for our community to bundle stories together when we get closer to releasing the fully matured bundles.
Q: what do the trend links mean?
A: these are terms that we recognize as trending within our bundles creation flow. clicking on these links will take you to the bundles that directly reflect those trends.
so, take our new baby-bundles for a test drive and let us know what you think. we'll be tweaking the process for bundle creation over the next few weeks, so any feedback you have will be very helpful. you can ask questions or offer suggestions over on our Get Satisfaction page.
in the meantime, here are a few bundles that caught my eye:
Movies: Orci and Kurtzman talk about deleted Shatner cameo (in the new Star Trek film directed by J.J. Abrams)
Music: Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, and David Lynch album, Dark Night of the Soul, scrapped
News: Tamil Tiger rebel leader dead, Sri Lankin state TV reports
Tech: Wolfram Alpha: The Beginning
Green: Northern Florida burning more wood to meet renewable energy targets
shoot us feedback, and feel free to share some of your favorite baby-bundles with me,
-- mariohey currentians,
i know, i know...it's been SOOOO long since our last feature... more
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Hey Currenteers, it's time once again for another product release on Current.com. This time around we've made some improvements to our thumbnail creation process. You may recall the grey "image processing" thumbnails that would show up when you submit a new item to Current?
Well, the team has worked diligently to reduce the amount of time needed to create a thumbnail for new submissions. This means faster thumbnails, and hopefully less time with "image processing" messages on Current.com. Keep an eye on the new feed, which is a stream of new submissions to Current.com, and check out how quickly new thumbnails resolve. Spiffy!
Special thanks to our dev team! You guys rock!
And that's not all! We've received some steady feedback regarding a mobile version of Current.com. While our iPhone and Andriod compatible version of Current.com have been in the wild for some time, we haven't fully supported other mobile browsers to the mix...until today.
Point your digital leash of choice to http://m.current.com/ to access a mobile version of Current.com. This is, we stress, a test of the mobile webapp, but please let us know how things go. Shoot us feedback, suggestions, and bugs (include your device and browser type) over on our Get Satisfaction page for Mobile Current.
As always let us know what you think in the comments,
- marioHey Currenteers, it's time once again for another product release on Current.com.... more
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Hey Currenteers,
Welcome to April! We have some new features to cover, but first I'd like to welcome you to our new digs...say hello to the brand new Current.com Blog! Each one of our new channels and our TV shows will be setting up blogs in the coming weeks. So far Current Music, Current Movies, and Current Comedy are all up and running, but keep an eye on our main Current blogs page for new additions.
Let's dive right in, shall we?
// Email verification //
In our never ending quest to thwart spam on Current, we've turned on email verification for newly registered members of the community. Until validated, these new members are not able to contribute items, comment, or vote. Requiring that new community members validate their email address is pretty standard for social sites, and we feel that although it isn't the sole answer to battling spam, it is certainly a step in the right direction.
Those of you who are already members of the Current community will not be required to validate your email to participate, but I still highly encourage it. We occasionally like to send out swag and inform our community about special ways to contribute to Current, and we can't do that without a valid email. So, take a minute to update your account preferences and request verification for your email address. Thanks!
// Channel Curators //
In one of our recent Town Hall chats I mentioned that the team is working on building group creation functionality into Current.com -- which we are calling channels. We're still a long way away from launching this new feature, but we are making some headway. In the next few weeks we'll be opening up a set of tools related to our channels project to a handful alpha testers, and we'd like to invite some of you to join in on the test. If you're interested in testing out our new tools head over to our alpha test page on Get Satisfaction page and put your username on the list. If you don't make it into the alpha this time around, don't fret. We will open this up to a wider group of testers in the near future, and we already have a target date for a full release. Stay tuned!
// Improvements to Search //
Our search functionality on Current.com has been improved in the last few releases. This time around, we've added a new "highlights section" at the top of the search results page. The "highlights section" is used to surface some of our TV show content for certain search queries. For example, someone searching for comedy will now find the latest clips from infoMania in the highlights section. Try it out and let us know what you think.
// Questions about Channel Staleness //
We've been receiving frequent questions about the staleness of content on the channels, and we totally agree. When we made the switch to our channel structure, we knew it was only a layout change for the time being, and we still have some heavy lifting to do with regards to channel specific algorithms, scoring, freshness, and decay. The good news is, we have a brand new addition to our team, and figuring this out just happens to be on his project to-do list! So, ladies and gentlemen of the Current.com community, I'd like you to meet Gary:
[current 89941974]
Thanks Gary! We're all looking forward to some of the coming improvements, but in the meantime if you have suggestions or wish to shoot us feedback, feel free to start a thread on our Get Satisfaction support page, or as always you can shoot us your thoughts at feedback@current.com.
// Increased File Size for Video Comments //
If you've ever tried uploading a video file as a comment, you've probably bumped your head on our 200mb file size limitation. NO MORE! We've upped the total file size for video uploads in our comments to a full 1GB. So what are you waiting for, fire up that camera and record some video comments. My suggestion? Upload video reviews for this week's movie releases for a chance to get on The Rotten Tomatoes Show. Check out Current Movies this Friday for the updated list of eligible films to review via video for the next episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show!
(Note: this update to file size does not pertain to webcam comments.)
Well, that's it for this release. As always, let us know what you think!
MarioHey Currenteers,
Welcome to April! We have some new features to cover, but first... more
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives/ / CC BY 2.0
Hey community,
We have some maintenance downtime scheduled for later tonight. We don't anticipate this outage taking too long, and wanted to give you a heads up.
During this maintenance period, we will be deploying a new structure for our URLs on Current.com, and a brand-new scoring system in anticipation of some of our future updates to the site.
We hope to begin this scheduled downtime around 10pm tonight, and we'll be back up and running as soon as we can. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience!
Thanks!http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattlemunicipalarchives/ / CC BY 2.0
Hey community,
We... more
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It's time, once again, for another update to Current.com. This time around we're introducing a brand new interaction when watching video on the site. Whenever you finish watching video in the Current player, continuous play will be triggered. This will queue up a new video for you to check out.
Whenever continuous play is activated, a bar with a 5 second countdown timer will appear at the top of the page alerting you to the next video in the queue. When the bar appears you have the option to stop continuous play in several ways:
Don't Play
Clicking on "Don't Play" will stop the continuous play feature from taking you to the next video.
Comment
If you're in the middle of typing a comment continuous play will automatically disable so you can finish commenting on the video you just watched.
As always, we'd love to hear what you think of this new feature. Please send us feedback over on Get Satisfaction.
It's time, once again, for another update to Current.com. This time around... more
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Today we released a few major changes to Current.com. As I've mentioned in recent updates, we have some very specific plans for Current.com in 2010, and this release is another step in that direction. This is a big one, so hold on tight while I take you through the breakdown:
Video
Have you ever wished that Current.com had one page dedicated to watching our TV shows? Have you ever wanted to watch an entire season of Vanguard in one sitting? Or find all of our infoMania clips in one place? Well, the new video page on Current.com was made just for you. Sort by your favorite show, watch video in a continuous loop, and quickly jump from episode to episode in one big video consumption experience.
Take our new video page for a test drive, and let us know what you think.
Trending Topics
As a part of this release, we've incorporated aggregated feeds of content from all around the Internet, and used them to create a brand new trending topics section on Current.com. Want to know how much of a buzz Google's latest release is making? Take a look at the trending topics section on the homepage.
Each trend is accompanied by a graph displaying the overall trend line of the topic. Additionally, we've included images from the most recent stories to play into making that trend spike. If you click on the trend, you'll find a collection of stories from various sources all around the web. Clicking on each individual story will take you to the source of the story, with the Current bar at the top in case you decide to add the story to Current.com and kick off a discussion.
Trending topics is an easy way to see what is rising and falling in popularity across the web, learn which stories are causing the trend, and turn those into hot discussions on Current.com.
So here's your homework, play around with our new video page and our trending topics pages, and then let us know what you think over on Get Satisfaction. Both of these new sections are a big part of where we're going in 2010, and we have much more planned for these in the coming months, so stay tuned!Today we released a few major changes to Current.com. As I've mentioned in recent... more
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Hey Currentians,
Yesterday I highlighted the release of our commenting upgrade, but another aspect of our released slipped under the radar: Following. If you've visited a profile page recently, you may have noticed that your connections module no longer exists.
Don't panic! We've replaced the connections module with a followers module, which clearly lays out a new distinction between the people who follow you vs. the people you follow.
Now you can easily tell who you are following and who is following you, and then you can make adjustments accordingly. As always, the ability to manage your blocked lists is rolled into these lists so you can keep track of who you have on your "don't bother me" list as well.
Additionally, we've made some changes to the profile layout again. Obviously the addition of a "Follow" button was necessary, but we also tweaked our "Send a message" button as well.
For this first iteration, we are laying the groundwork for further improvements to our sharing and private messaging systems on Current. We'll post updates to those as they arise. For now, follow and be followed!
Like the changes? Have some feedback? Please be sure to share your reactions in the comments below, and if you notice any bugs or have any recommendations visit our Get Satisfaction support page and leave us some feedback.
Thanks!
mario
Hey Currentians,
Yesterday I highlighted the release of our... more
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Hello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release is serving up some major upgrades to our commenting system. Discussions on Current.com are extremely important to us, and we've come up with a few updates to existing functionality as well as some new enhancements that will help pave the way for the months to come.
Let's take a quick tour:
Comment Voting: That's right, comment voting is now officially implemented on Current.com.
Each comment will have an individual score based on the aggregate count of votes, so for example: If a comment has 51 votes up, and 52 votes down, a "-1" will display. So, what are you waiting for? Reward some discussion-driving folks by giving them a coveted vote up. Find someone detracting from the discussion at hand? Give 'em a vote down.
Sorting Options: Why not offer some alternative ways to sort comments?
We're changing the default sort on all threads to "Newest" first, this way you'll always see the latest discussions on the main landing page. But, for those of you who prefer to read threads in the order in which they developed, you can always sort by "Oldest" as well. And since we implemented comment voting, it would be a travesty not to offer a sort by "Popular" option. We think this will be an interesting way to find new and insightful commentary on Current.com threads as our discussions develop. Try it out!
[UPDATE] There has been some concerns about the switch from "Oldest" to "Newest" sorting, and I thought it would be best to clarify. For this iteration we are setting our sort to "Newest" for all threads, but we are investigating ways to store your preferred sort in a cookie. This means if you prefer one sort over the others, you will be able to make these stick across the site.
Replies and Pagination: We've made a couple important changes to the way that replies and pagination works on Current.com.
All reply threads are now "open" as a default, you are no longer restricted to replying only to the original commenter, and we've changed some of the design aspects for replies as well. In our older system, any time you reply to someone on a thread you were automatically replying to the first comment on the thread. Now you can elect a person to reply to, and their name will appear at the beginning of your comment. You'll also notice that replies longer indent on discussion threads -- instead, the avatars in reply comments are slightly smaller in size.
These decisions were largely made to help facilitate the ability to sort by popular. For example, a reply to a thread could be more popular than all of the comments on the entire thread. This allows us to display each comment ranked on popularity, while still retaining it's reply status.
Additionally, we've done away with pagination. That's right, each comment now loads by default, which means your scrolling finger will now be ready for a workout.
[UPDATE] How do I edit and reply to comments? Our admin controls for commenting are now hidden when reading through threads. When you mouse over a comment, you should see the vote buttons light up, as well as a "reply" button below the posted comment. If you happen to be the comment author, you should see both "edit" and "delete" functionality in this mouse over state.
[UPDATE] There seems to be some confusion around our decision to default to open threads without pagination, so let me clear a few things up. First, going this route actually fixes one of the bigger issues we've had since introducing threaded commenting -- broken email links. Now when you receive a comment notification email, the link you receive will actually direct you to the comment in line. Giving you the preference to hide replies on threads is something we are investigating, but there are some hurdles involved in accomplishing this without re-breaking our email notifications.
[UPDATE] Questions about the comments that have been removed from commenting threads have been popping up. We're now displaying wherever a comment is removed, and this includes comments removed as violations of community guidelines as well as comments removed by the original poster. Why? Well, whenever a comment needs to be removed, the replies to that comment often have to be pulled as well. By showing that a comment was removed, the replies can stay live as long as they meet our community guidelines. Eventually we would like to add additional clarification between removals for abuse purposes, and removals by the original comment author.
Like the changes? Have some feedback? Please be sure to share your reactions in the comments below, and if you notice any bugs or have any recommendations visit our Get Satisfaction support page and leave us some feedback.
Thanks!
mario
Hello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's... more
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