 | Hi there! | |
We hope you're enjoying your experience here so far and (like us) are finding it easy to stay in touch with your friends and family. Keep an eye on this space for a closer look at Multiply, including feature spotlights, announcements and more great stuff!
Multiply is a great place to share things like your photos, videos and blog entries... but what about your spreadsheets? PDFs? Other random things? Guess what — you can do all that here too. Just attach the file, or files, to a blog entry. Long-time Multiply users likely already know this. Not-as-long-time users may have even taken notice. It's been well over a year since we first introduced this feature, and we thought it was a great time to re-introduce it to those who may not have been aware. So... if you want to share any random type of file on Multiply, here's how:
 First, create a new blog entry. (Or edit an existing one.)
Then, click the paper-clip icon you'll find on the blog editor toolbar. (If you don't see the bar and use Safari, try upgrading to the latest version.)
Next, select the file you'd like to attach. (You can attach up to five files, each smaller than 20 MB.)
Finally, save your changes to the blog entry. (Use the handy "Save Changes" button.)
Have you learned something new today? If you already knew about this, how have you found the feature useful?
Note that files shared on Multiply have in no way been scanned for viruses or other malware. We don't recommend downloading files shared by people you don't necessarily trust, but thought we should remind you that it's a good idea to keep your virus scanner active and up-to-date, regardless.
 Remember the Web 2.0 Conference we mentioned last week? It's over now, but we've heard that it turned out to be good times for all... or, at least for Multiply's own Julie and Dave! They had a veritable blast, not only posing for photos but naturally, talking up Multiply, hearing about what else is out there, networking with interesting people, and so on. Julie says, "We enjoyed meeting with a wide variety of attendees both at the conference and at the networking events, and were pleased to see Multiply really resonate with everyone who heard about us." Sounds great, guys!
A few months back we announced a feature that came by popular request: separate access settings for Online Buddies. As you already know, the Online Buddy relationship type on Multiply lets you connect with a single individual, without becoming part of their network, and vice versa. This is useful when you want to add someone you may not know that well as a contact: if you don't know them that well, how likely is it that you know the people they know? Using the new settings, you're able to choose whether to include or exclude your Online Buddies, not only when posting content, but also for sharing your profile information, like your last name, e-mail address, interests and such. First we previewed it for you.
Then we announced that it was available.
And now, we're curious to hear how you've made use of it. Is the feature as useful as you hoped it would be? Is it more? Have you added more contacts you otherwise wouldn't have been able to before? Were you able to reclassify any existing contacts following the introduction of the feature?
 We're proud to announce that renowned author and New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee is using Multiply to share news and updates related to her new book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: A Book Adventure through the Mysteries of Chinese Food... including links, videos, blog entries, and even a calendar of events. Not only has Jennifer chosen to share all this content on Multiply, but she also invites you to weigh in with your own, related to the book and the topic, on a Multiply group she created. Jennifer's book details the history of Chinese food in the United States, and sheds light on things you may not realize you never knew, like just who that General Tso guy is, and what people from China think of fortune cookies (which are not as Chinese as you may think). In fact, here's a video about just that! The book also previously made the New York Times bestseller list. Congratulations, Jennifer!
| Start: | Apr 23, '08 | | End: | Apr 25, '08 | | Location: | Moscone West, San Francisco |
Web-savvy folks: if you're going to be at this year's Web 2.0 conference (which they refer to as "a global annual gathering of technical, design, marketing, and business professionals who are building the next generation web"... which sounds a bit like us!) next week in San Francisco, keep an eye open for Multiply's very own Dave and Julie. We suggest this course of action because, well, they'll be there too, and would like to say hello.
One thing that became apparent while looking over the results of our recent photo survey is that a clear majority of respondents were interested in more options for getting their photos onto Multiply.  We're looking into the feasibility of upload plugins for specific applications, but in the meantime, we wanted to remind you of an option available right now that you may find useful: Posting Via E-mail! A brief aside: as you probably already know, it's been possible to post content to Multiply via e-mail since 2006. To do so, simply select a secret PIN and choose a default access level on the settings page. Then, you can post content, like photos, by attaching it to an e-mail sent to secretpinhere@your-user-ID.multiply.com.
See the FAQ for all the details on Posting via E-mail. But consider this: you can use Posting via E-mail to send content directly to Multiply... in ways you may not have realized! Let's say you're on a Windows computer (as shown in the screenshot); you can easily select a bunch of images, right click them... and post them directly to Multiply using your default e-mail client. (If you don't use Windows, your operating system may make this just as easy to do. Why not try it out?) Also, if your mobile phone can send e-mail, you'll be able to post via e-mail from wherever you happen to be. Are there any other applications you use that have built-in e-mail support? Have you tried posting to Multiply from within them?
We've reason to believe that you've come to rely on our blog for the latest news regarding the most important goings-on at Multiply, including new and upcoming features, thoughts on the state of the Web... and lately, even surveys asking for your opinions on things Multiply-related. And if you have, you've done so for good reason, too — here is where you'll find this sort of stuff. One thing we haven't done much is talk about the people behind Multiply. Well, we have something to say now — we've hired a new one! We're proud to announce that Julie Wohlberg has joined our team in order to head up our public relations efforts. She brings to the team years of experience, previously working wonders for not one, but five 'Web 2.0' companies. She's also done consulting work for a number of other companies, even spending time at a couple PR firms specializing in emerging technologies like, say, Multiply! In case you haven't guessed, Julie is our new primary contact for all things press-related. If you're writing a story about Multiply, in need of a spokesperson for an article or industry conference, or just want some background information about our company, Julie's the person to talk to. To contact her directly, feel free to drop her an e-mail.
We really, really appreciate the helpful feedback you guys gave us a few weeks ago, letting us know what you thought of some of the ideas we'd been considering related to a new "premium" service for Multiply users. Such a service would offer users extra stuff, in addition to the existing features that all users currently enjoy. Thanks to your input, we've determined that there is sufficient interest in premium extras on Multiply. We'll be unveiling our offering in the coming weeks, although we haven't quite settled on a name for the new service. We already have some ideas of our own, but are interested in hearing what you might think such a service might be called. We're thinking along the lines of... - Multiply _________
- _________ Multiply
- ______ _______ _____ Multiply ______ _______ Multiply
- [or perhaps, something that doesn't contain the word "Multiply" at all!]
But what do you think? Feel free to post your own ideas and suggestions below. (Oh, and while we can't reveal all the details about the service just yet, stay tuned!)
Going over the replies some astute users left on our recent feature announcement post, it seems we actually forgot to announce a (albeit small) feature we added along with the other two. Our mistake!  It's now possible to have your Viewing History pages display views from users in "Compact" mode. Why is this great? With Compact mode, you can more easily get an overview of the people who've viewed a page on your site, or a particular piece of your content. You'll even see their headshots. Think: more information in less space. We've also upgraded our "Headshot" view to a more sensible three-column mode that works just like Compact, just a bit larger. As a side-note, if you're concerned with who's viewing your content, we'd like to remind you that the power to share your content intelligently — that is, as privately as you like — is in your hands! For more information on Multiply's access controls, see this FAQ.
Remember that survey we recently posted, asking for your thoughts and feedback? Well, we received such overwhelmingly positive responses, helpful feedback and — to our surprise — even requests for another survey, that we've come up with another opportunity for you to express your feelings about Multiply by answering multiple-choice questions! :-) This time we're interested in learning more about the way Multiply users take, store and organize their photos. To take the new survey, simply click here. And, as always, we thank you for your feedback!
This is a little different than the sort of post you're used to from us (though it's not unprecedented). We know it's usually new and upcoming features, news and notes and stuff... but today, we bring you a word (or a thousand) from the Pezident.  | For regular guys like me, Multiply is it.
For discussion between real-world friends and family around your personal media, there is no better solution than Multiply.
by Peter Pezaris, President and CEO |
For the exhibitionists of the world, there is no shortage of web sites that can distribute your content to a wider audience of strangers: MySpace, YouTube, Flickr to name a few. For regular guys like me, however, we care more about sharing our personal media with people we actually know in real life.
MySpace offers very crude privacy controls which are unsuitable for exchanging personal media in all but the most basic use case scenarios. Your entire profile on MySpace is either set completely public so that anyone in the world can see it, or completely private, so only your direct contacts can see it. You have one switch to throw, and it's either ON or OFF.  On Multiply, everything you add to the site — and I do mean everything — has individual fine-grained privacy controls. On Monday I can take a photo of the Empire State Building and post it to my Multiply profile for the whole world to see. On Tuesday I can write a blog entry about politics and make it available to my extended circle of friends, and friends-of-friends (through trusted, bi-directionally confirmed relationships). On Wednesday I can take a video of my kids in the bathtub and make it available for only my Mom, my sister and my wife. Facebook offers better privacy controls than MySpace, but they are still crude. The world is still binary: either someone is your contact or not. There is no way to share your media with your co-worker's wife, your Mom's best friend, or your sister's roommate without first making them a contact of yours. This artificial pressure to add contacts degrades the quality and accuracy of your personal "social graph" over time; anyone who has used Facebook or LinkedIn has seen these effects. Multiply allows you to meaningfully and appropriately communicate with tier-2 and tier-3 contacts based on our proprietary system which ranks users in order of how close they are to you in your real-world social graph (this is similar to how Google's PageRank works, only applied to social networks). This recognition that friends-of-friends are important to you for the exchange of personal media is how we keep our representation of your real-world social circles more accurate. Multiply's proprietary messaging system, which alerts your personal network not only when new content is posted, but also when replies are added to those posts, is sometimes compared to Facebook's news feed. Facebook's news feed is a snapshot of web-site activity containing such crucial nuggets as "Debbie vampire bit Julie," "Dave added the superpoke application" to be followed closely by "Dave removed the superpoke application." Importantly, this activity stream is not a communication tool; it fails miserably at that. The insanely low signal to noise ratio is one important aspect of this shortcoming, but perhaps the fatal flaw is that there is no "page 2." That means you can only see the last 15 items of activity, and can never go back in time before that. Imagine if your email INBOX contained only the last 15 emails that people have sent you, and when you receive the 16th, the first one — poof — is gone for good and there's no way to get it back. That is exactly how Facebook's news feed works. Some people have referred to it as drive-by social spamming, but whatever it is, it's not suitable for meaningful communication around personal media.  Contrast this to Multiply, where you have an Inbox that combines all of the media sharing and communication that happens within your personal network in one place. When your sister's roommate posts a new photo album, it shows up in your Inbox (if she has granted access that far). When you get a personal message, it shows up in your Inbox. When someone replies to one of your videos it's also in your Inbox. Importantly, you can filter this message-board like application to show you only those items you are interested in, and you can go back in time as far back as you want... want to see all the videos that have been posted by contacts of yours? No problem. Want to see all the replies to posts you made that you haven't read yet? Click click done. Want to see everything that's being discussed in your extended network of friends-of-friends, including notification where the ongoing real-time discussions are? That's where Multiply adds real value. And each one of these settings is but a couple of clicks away, and saveable in a personal/private RSS feed, unique to you. Most importantly, however, when you take that precious video of your daughter's first steps, when you share it on Multiply you're guaranteed that your Mom will see it, because it won't be pushed off the front page of her newsfeed (and into oblivion) when someone she didn't know got "top friended" by someone else she didn't know. On Multiply, not only is there a page 2 so she'll see it, we even keep track of when she does so you know for sure. Simply put, Multiply delivers next-generation technology to make lives easier, more engaging, and more fun for those like me who want to share our lives and communicate with people we actually know. We'll let our competitors focus on social gaming, social flirting, and social hangouts. Four years ago we had a vision to deliver the best personal media sharing site in the world to as many people as possible, in the hopes that it would bring family and friends together. Since our launch in 2004 we have focused on nothing else. The end result is a product suite geared specifically for one purpose: for those more interested in meaningful discussion between real-world friends and family around their personal media, there is no better solution than Multiply. - If you're a semi-pro photographer, Flickr is the site for you.
- Are you an exhibitionist? Try MySpace.
- YouTube is the best place to post your viral video if you don't care who sees it.
- Facebook is the hands-down winner in social gaming and profile toys.
Do you have friends and family that you care about and would like to have a better way to stay in touch with, and share those precious photos and videos, and discuss current events? Multiply is it.
We just released a couple small enhancements that we're sure varying percentages of loyal Multiply users are sure to enjoy! Quick(ly) Remove Inbox items So let's say you don't want to see content from groups you're in or users to whom you're connected, but for some reason, also don't want to leave the group or remove the contact. Let's also say they post a lot, so clicking the remove link next to each individual post, then clicking "OK" on the warning is just way too much trouble. What's a Multiply user to do (aside from de-associating themselves from these contacts or groups)? Just head over to your Inbox preferences and enable the brand new Quick Remove preference... but remember that you need to first enable the Show Subscribe, Pin and Remove option, of course, to remove items in the first place! This will eliminate the warning message you'll otherwise get when removing an item from your Inbox. But be sure to click carefully! "Remove" means just that, and as always, there's still no way to restore an item back to your Inbox once you've chosen to remove it. As an aside, we think now is a good time to remind you that there's really no need to remove items from your Inbox; items you ignore (i.e. stop viewing) will fall down the page as new items are added. Unlike other "inbox"es you may be used to using, there's no storage limit on Multiply!
 Safari + Blogging = <3
For Mac users who like their operating system's default browser (or Windows users curious to see how the other half lives), we're proud to say that it's now possible to use Multiply's rich-text blog compose tool in Safari!
 As some of your may have already noticed, yesterday we added a small feature that's sure to make your lives a little easier. While you're probably already aware that your homepage's sidebar displays your online status (and if you're offline, it'll show when you were last logged in), we made this information a little easier to find by making it available in an additional location. This information is now part of users' mini-profiles as well, so it's possible to see another Multiply user's online status by clicking their headshot, whether on your Contacts page (for users who are your contacts, naturally), or next to a reply that any user has left to a particular post.
You've probably, over time, come to expect certain things out of this blog, namely news, notes and previews of things to come from Multiply. And, of course, an opportunity to reply, letting us know what you think of these things. (And we absolutely treasure your feedback.) But from time to time, we've asked you to give us your feedback in a slightly more, say, easily quantifiable manner. :-) Namely, by taking a survey! We haven't done one in a while, but we ask that if you have a few minutes to spare (no more than five, we'd guess), that you share with us your opinions on some ideas we've been kicking around lately. To take the easy, multiple-choice survey click here. Thanks for your help!
While we think that Multiply is almost certainly the best way to share pretty much all of your stuff with the people you know, we understand that there are legitimate reasons you might want to, from time to time, share links to interesting things you find on Multiply, elsewhere on the Web. Go ahead. It's okay. We won't be jealous.  In fact, we make it easy! You know that "Share" link you'll find above the reply section on all of your posts (and others' "Everyone" posts)? This page has always made it easy to share content in a number of ways... by e-mail, simple copy-and-paste links, and of course, buttons for sharing on other services you may use. So, last week, we made that last bit a little easier. We've integrated AddThis's one-button sharing widget, which ensures that the share links for dozens of other services stay up-to-date, even if the services change their URL format. And as AddThis adds more supported services (we hear Multiply support is coming soon! :-), you'll have even more options for easily sharing Multiply links in other places!
Remember how we had that great new feature that was coming "soon"? Well, "soon" is now... though "feature" may have been an understatement. It's actually a whole bundle of features, including... Separate Online Buddy settings Yes, the wait is finally over! The things you now share with your contacts, whether it's your content or profile information, may now be selectively shared (or not, if you choose) with your "Online Buddy" contacts. (Confused? Click here for a complete explanation.)
Flash-enhanced photo slideshows Using our certifiably awesome Flash-based video player as a base, we've created a slick, optimized photo slideshow player. Find your favorite photo album and give it a try; it is nothing short of amazing. (Cool bonus thing: you can now embed slideshows of your photo albums elsewhere on the Interwebs, just like you can videos!)
Filter Inbox by your replies We've added a new filter to everyone's Inbox. It's called "I've Replied" – select it to filter your Inbox to only display content to which you've replied, making it easier to keep track of the conversations you're interested in. (As with all filters, click the "Custom" link you'll find near the top of your Inbox to set it.) In addition to this preset filter, there's a brand-new "only posts I've replied to" option that can be added to any custom filter.
Block HTML in your guestbook The choice is yours – you can now choose to only allow others to leave text replies to your guestbook. Say good riddance to large, flashy, glittery animated images (and other paragons of tasteful, modern graphic design.) Unless, of course, you like that sort of thing. If you do, feel free to continue allowing them on your guestbook.
Easier social bookmarking If you ever link to great content you find on Multiply using an outside "social bookmarking" service, you'll be pleased to know that we've replaced the old, individual bookmarking links with a simple, single link to an outside service responsible for keeping these links up to date. (Click the "Share" link you'll find under any post, followed by the "Add to" link.)
Photo album navigation beautification You guys asked for it, and here it is. We've made navigating Multiply's great new (fasterer) photo albums more visually pleasing, making the text controls look like they actually belong on your page.
Fix for deleted guestbook replies If you've ever deleted a reply from your guestbook, are you tired of seeing "Comment deleted..." in its place? Us too. That's why we've come up with a pretty intelligent way to not display those... while also preserving the guestbook's reply pagination.
New contact imports Actually, they're old... but new again! We're proud to welcome back our contact import tools for Myspace and Friendster. We've missed ya, ol' buddies.
Now, wasn't that both pretty soon and a lot more than you were expecting? As always, let us know what you think of these features!
On Online BuddiesIf you use Multiply, you're certainly already aware of what makes it different than other social-sharing-networking-Web2.0-addmeup sites. Instead of having a list of generic buddies or contacts, on Multiply, you specify your relationships, which makes the way you're connected to others easier to understand. (But you already knew all that. :-) Our thoughts on the matter have always been that you should only add individuals that you know and trust as contacts. We later added the Online Buddy relationship type when it became clear that users desired a way to connect with people that they may not necessarily know as well as their "real world" contacts. For instance, when you connect to another user as an Online Buddy, their contacts don't become part of your Multiply network, and vice-versa. But we still believed that you should trust all individuals with whom you connect as contacts. The ChangeIt seems that some users have different feelings on the subject. One of the most requested changes on Multiply (ever!) is a special access level for Online Buddies, a way to keep the contacts you kinda/sorta know separate from the ones you know very well. Something like this: So we're changing our tune a little. Coming soon, we'll be moving Online Buddies to its own category (joining "Friends," "Family" and "Professional Contacts"). As such, you'll be able to specify whether or not you want to share with Online Buddies when selecting "Contacts." But... also!These changes don't only apply to the content you post. Now, we're extending this new access level to the other places on Multiply where you can already choose to whom your information should be made available, including your profile and account information, as well as the Contacts, Groups and Guestbook boxes on your homepage. It's important to point out how these changes will affect content that you've already shared on Multiply. Anything that you've already posted for "Friends" (under the "Contacts" option) or "Friends, and their Friends" (under "Network") will no longer be accessible by your Online Buddies. You'll need to go back and edit those posts to explicitly give them access again. Content posted for your "Contacts" or "Network" will continue to be available to your Online Buddies. Another important thing to remember... this is all Coming Soon! We'll be sure to let you know as soon as we know when "soon" is. :-)
 We're proud to announce that Multiply has been recognized by AlwaysOn. We've been named to their OnMedia 100 Top Companies list, made up of "game-changing players." Yeah, that's us. Changing the game and such. According to AlwaysOn, Multiply was... handpicked by the AlwaysOn editorial team and other industry experts spanning the globe, based on a set of five criteria: innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value and media buzz That's awesome! We pride ourselves on those sorts of things... not to mention user satisfaction. If you're interested in reading more, have a look at our press release.
Many users lavished us with high praise (thanks!) for the recent changes we made to the way photo albums are viewed on Multiply: faster and easier than ever. If you share photos on Multiply — over 2,000,000 are shared daily, so we've reason to believe you may — or even if you don't, but just enjoy viewing others', we've yet another reason for you to be happy. Now, when viewing a photo, the next photo in the album will actually begin loading in the background, just waiting for you to click "next." It was definitely fast before, but you should now see photos loading a little... more instantly.
 Regular readers of this blog (awesome, well-informed, generally good-looking individuals) may recall the new feature we recently unveiled to help administrators manage the types of content posted in their groups. We've got another group enhancement you're sure to love. Multiply users have asked for an easier way to identify administrators of the groups they're in. So we've gone and given you just that. You guessed it; we've gone over each and every admin of the thousands of groups on Multiply with a, um, highlighter. Yeah... a digital one. It was lots of work, and our hands are very tired, but we've done it. Just for you guys. Let us know if we've missed any. ;-) So now when you come across an administrator in a group (whether on the Members page, or in the Members homepage box – we did it there too!) it'll be easier to pick them out of the crowd. This should make situations where you need to contact one a lot easier.
| |
Feedburner