Group administrators — and Multiply users of all kinds — that time is finally here. You know, the time at which we tell you that we have new features for you.

So now, we have... no, wait.

Now, you have...

Faster photo album browsing  Multiply has always been a great place to enjoy others' photos (not to mention sharing your own), but doing so has never been quite this much of a breeze. As you browse through a photo album now, you'll notice photos loading pretty much instantly.

Group admin content control  That's right group admins, the feature we recently announced is now available! If you run a group on Multiply, you can choose which kinds of content members can — and can't — share in the group. We really are looking to make your "job" easier. How else can we help?

Quicker replies  If you use the dedicated "reply" links that appear alongside existing replies, you already know how these make it easier for others to follow conversations. Now we've gone and made these even more of a pleasure to use; click one and your reply box will appear instantly! Write your reply, click submit, and you're back to the original post in a snap.

Guestbook pages  Are you really, really, ridiculously popular? Do people use your guestbook like a chat room? Are you sick of having to load every comment every time you view your guestbook? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you'll be pleased to know that we've made viewing your guestbook a lot easier by dividing it into easy-to-consume pages.

New e-mail alert format  If you receive HTML e-mail alerts, you may have already noticed this one; these alerts now have a fresh new look! (If you don't currently receive e-mail alerts, you can enable them by clicking "settings" followed by "My E-mail Alerts.") Be sure to keep an eye out for the new photo album alerts in particular... the new layout is really nice.

We hope that your enjoyment of these new features ranks right up there with that of your current favorites.
Be sure to let us know if it does (or doesn't), and keep us informed as to how you're using these new features!

In addition to the Multimedia Replies and Default Access Setting features we recently announced, we wanted to give you an advance look at another upcoming feature!

Any day now, we'll be unveiling a dedicated page where you'll be able to view all of the posts to which you're subscribed for e-mail alerts. You'll even be able to unsubscribe from multiple alerts... without having to leave or refresh the page! A simple click of the small envelope () next to the post will change your alert subscription for the post.

As some users may know, it's certainly already possible to subscribe or unsubscribe from individual alerts... we're just making it easier. To do this for the time being, click the "Preferences" link on your My Multiply page and enable Show "Subscribe," "Pin," and "Remove" links for each item. This will enable envelope icons on your message board; click one to subscribe or unsubscribe from alerts for a particular post.

If you receive our What You've Missed e-mail alerts, you certainly understand the value they provide: if you tend to go more than a day or so between visits to Multiply, these are the best way to effortlessly keep up to date with new replies to your posts, new posts by the people you know, and so on. Think of these as, well, exactly what they are – a custom update letting you know exactly what's been going on in your Multiply network since you've been gone!

While the alerts themselves aren't changing, their subject lines are, making it easier to, at a glance, know what you've missed. We, clearly, can't cram the entire message into the subject line, but we're doing the next best thing – having the subject line reflect the most important news contained within. If someone replied to something you've posted, the subject will reflect this. If not, we'll go for the next-most-relevant bit of news.

(Actual subject lines are subject to change and will, naturally, mention people you actually know. :-)

As always, we'll let you know when these changes go into effect, but just in case you happen to miss it, we wanted to give you plenty of notice of the change, so as not to leave you wondering what these unfamiliar e-mails are.

And if you don't currently subscribe to What You've Missed alerts, this is a great opportunity to give them a try! You can change your WYM preference by clicking the handy settings link at the top of any page, followed by My E-mail Alerts. Then, simply look for the Send me posts I've missed drop-down menu and pick your preferred delivery frequency.

While your "My Multiply" message board is almost certainly the best way imaginable to keep up-to-date with the latest posts from other Multiply users to whom you're closely connected, it's conceivable that one may, from time to time (but no more frequently, please!) go a day without signing in to Multiply. And even if one does sign in every single day, it's entirely likely that they'll miss something interesting posted by someone in their network.

What You've Missed reports are a great way to deal with this, and are perhaps the second best way (tied with RSS?) to keep up with posts in your network... including the latest unread replies to your own posts! And now, we've given the What You've Missed reports a brand-new look.

The new look looks a bit like this:

(But that's not all!)

The reports also contain, as you can see above, a new section at the bottom with quick links to some of the most-used account settings, posting links for new content, and (ahem) the latest staff blog entry. Just the important things. :)

As you surely already know, What You've Missed reports give a quick look at the most recent things you haven't yet viewed in your Multiply network... whether they're unread replies to your own posts, posts by your contacts, or even posts from others in your network! In fact, there's a dedicated section for each of the above.

These e-mail reports are sent to users as often as they wish (once daily, once weekly -- pick your favorite day -- or not at all! What You've Missed, as well as e-mail preferences in general, can be changed here.)

You may have noticed that we just rolled out some new features for Multiply. We hinted at some of these a few days ago, but now they're all finally ready.

We'll touch on each pretty briefly; there's a lot that's new and worth mentioning.

Flash video. Now when you share video on Multiply, we'll automatically convert it to Flash format, for easy viewing in your browser. You'll be able to download the original, and yes, embed these into other websites... just click "share." (We took a closer look at Flash video the other day; be sure to have a look!)

More imports. You can now import video content from YouTube, Google Video, and Photobucket. We've added ImageShack support to our growing list of image import tools. And if you blog on TypePad, you can now easily import your blog entries to Multiply.

Cross-posting. Blog imports are one thing... and are quite useful for catching up. But more excitingly, you can now blog concurrently with your LiveJournal, Blogger, or yes, TypePad account. Compose once and it's posted twice. (Enable each of these on the import pages for each respective service.)

Backdating. Many users have asked for the ability to have blog entries reflect a time and date other than the time they're posted. This new option will appear on your blog compose page once you've enabled Advanced Posting.

Revamped search. All the search tools you need -- whether you're looking for people, groups or content -- are now in one simple place.

Drag-and-drop your layout. If you use the "Boxes" layout type (as opposed to "Linear") for your Multiply page, you can now easily drag and drop content type sections -- or edit the way they display without leaving your homepage!

What you missed. These are still the same 'new content' alerts you may already be receiving, but now you can choose whether you want them daily, weekly (you choose the day!) or not at all. You can change this here.

As always, we hope you enjoy the new features.
We'd love to hear what you think of the changes.

We just added some great new features, including four more Gold and Platinum site themes, a "Summary" e-mail alert, and a tool to import photos from Flickr. And, by popular request, we've re-introduced the "table view" option, and made it much better than before. Here's the full list of what's new:

New site themes
Users with Gold and Platinum accounts now have four new custom themes to choose from. Check out Basecamp, Outburst, Avlack and Red Frog here. (Avlack shown to the right).

New e-mail alert summarizes "what you've missed"
We've added a new alert that, in one single e-mail, summarizes what's been shared by the people closest to you during the past week. This alert will the be the new default, replacing the alert that was sent each time a contact adds something new. Now you can post as much as you want without worrying that some of your contacts may be getting too many alert e-mails from Multiply. As always, you can change your alert settings here.

Improved performance
We've tweaked a few things behind the scenes to make Multiply pages come up faster. We're working hard to keep up with the increased demand from our user base.

Display your pages in table view
We've brought back the ability to display your pages in table view, although the feature is slightly different than it was before. Now you can fully control whether your pages are displayed in table view or as full entries. Visitors to your site cannot change that setting, as they could before. Just go to the Settings page and select Page Titles and Layout to check it out.

Flickr import
If you've ever posted photos on Flickr, you can now bring them over to Multiply, where it's much easier to share them with your network. Just click on the New link at the top of any page, select Photos and you'll see a link to import from Flickr.

Improved Linear/Blog layout
We've improved the linear/blog layout so that it displays all of your content in one list, with "next page" links for easy navigation.

Expanded search results
The Search box at the top of any page is an easy way to find content shared by people in your network. And now it's also an easy way to find other Multiply users and groups, and answers to frequently asked questions about the site. Just enter the word(s) or name you're looking for and we'll show you everything that matches.

No more wondering how long it will take your video to upload
We've added a progress indicator for video uploads, so you can see approximately how much time is remaining until your upload is complete.