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?

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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.

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.

One of the (many) things that makes Multiply different than the hordes of generic social networking-type services available are relationships.

On Multiply, your contacts are more than just generic "friends" – and your relationships with them are more than just a simple title. The relationship type you choose will determine how much of your contact's network you become connected to through your relationship with them. In addition, relationships not only help you determine which posts on your message board are worth reading... but also help us determine which users should be in your network. All relationship types serve to include new people in your network, save for one – Online Buddy.

While we realize that people may relate differently to those they know exclusively via the Internet, within the context of Multiply, the Online Buddy relationship connects users to one another, while not further connecting them to other users in one another's networks. This relationship type is great for, say, keeping up to date with someone who posts interesting content, but may not be someone you know well enough to accept into your network.

So if you have someone that you'd like to share with, but don't quite want to entrust with the immense responsibility of also connecting with the people you know, the Online Buddy relationship is there for you!

Last fall, we unveiled a new option allowing you to easily display only unread posts on your message board. We demonstrated some great ways to use this, along with message board filters, to pare down your message board to precisely the posts that are important to you right now, whether it be a view of posts in your network, your groups, or a combination or subset thereof.

This feature helps make sure you never miss a post from the people who matter most. It certainly seems worth revisiting; even we find it useful for keeping up to date with the most important posts in our personal networks.

"But I never miss posts!" you retort.

Are you sure? If you have high-volume groups appear on your message board, or always keep your proximity setting on "Medium" or "Distant" Network, posts from the people who matter to you may be slipping past you, unnoticed. And what about cases where you read posts, but forget to keep up with comments left later in response? Even with "What You've Missed" e-mail reports, it's conceivable that something may occasionally go unnoticed.

So why not give this filter (unread posts from your contacts) a try? Click here to have a quick look at what the filter shows for your account, or to set this filter manually (and perhaps save it for later use), click "Customize" on your message board and enter...

	People in your Network	Groups you are in	Specific Individuals	Filter by Type	Show only unread
Unread from Contacts	Contacts	None	[None]	All Posts	[Checked]

And there you have it, what you've been missing.
Or not, as it may be. (In which case, congratulations! :-)

Using Multiply is simple enough that it just takes a few clicks (and perhaps a keystroke or two, to set a title) to post and share content with the people you know. That's enough to keep most of us happy.

And then there are those who'd like more fine-grained control over certain aspects of Multiply. For them, we have the Advanced Posting option. This isn't a new option, but rather, is one that is sometimes overlooked.

Enable this once and you'll have access to the following options for your Multiply account...

• Post without notifying people on the message board.
• Prevent people from replying to your posts.
• Prevent people from seeing your hi-res original photos and ordering prints from your albums.
• Allow any combination of people from your Network, Contacts and Individuals to see your posts.
• Specify the date of blog entries
• Bonus! Enable or disable our cross-posting feature! (Note that to enable cross-posting for the first time, you'll need to set up a content import in the usual way... Post -> pick the content type -> "Add [type] from")
  

Have you ever come across a post that's received quite a few comments, but you can't quite tell who's talking to whom?

Isn't it a bit like being in a big room of people where everyone is involved in their own small conversations... but for some odd reason, aren't necessarily looking at the person they're talking to? For all you know, they could be talking to themselves, the person directly behind them, or someone on the other side of the room.

To apply this metaphor to Multiply, for example, the latest reply at the bottom of the page -- say, the fifteenth -- that simply reads "Cool!" could potentially be posted in reference to the original posting, or something insightful in any of the previous fourteen comments.

How can this sort of thing be avoided? Thanks for asking!
There are two major ways around this:

1. When replying to a specific comment already left on a posting, be sure to use the dedicated "reply" link that you'll find next to the particular comment. (Note the blue links in the screenshot to the right.)
   
   Then, be sure to quote an appropriate portion of the comment to give people an idea of the comment to which you intend to reply. This is polite to do, but not usually necessary when you...
   


2. Use "Threaded" comment view! When you do so, you'll see comments arranged in a logical order, showing you specifically which comments were left in reply to which! You can clearly see that each indented comment is a reply to the next left-most one, often the one above it.
   
   If you've never used it before, it looks a little like this:
   

   

   This is a great way to keep track of conversations, but comments will only appear in this manner if those involved in the conversation used the dedicated reply links mentioned above when posting their replies.
   
   (Additionally, Threaded mode doesn't support Live Replies^TM just yet.)
   

So there you have it. If you have trouble making sense of a conversation, you may want to switch your comment view to "Threaded," at least temporarily. And remember to use those "reply" links when responding to existing comments!

We introduced Live Replies almost a year ago, and nothing has been the same since. F5 keys and refresh buttons everywhere have been spared the repetitive strain of the constant jabbing of the index fingers of eager Multiply users awaiting comments from folks in their networks, and we sleep soundly every night knowing that they can rest as well.

But did you know that your viewing history -- those little faces that appear in the box at the bottom of your posts that show you who's viewed it -- now refreshes live as well? This means that now, when you're staring at your newly-posted photo album or video or blog entry (and so on) waiting for your Live Replies, you can also check out who's viewed your post (but hasn't commented... ingrates!) in real-time... all without laying a finger on your keyboard!


Note that, at this time, both Live Viewing History and Live Replies work with the standard "Chronological" and "Reverse" comment views. Fans of "Threaded" mode, we haven't forgotten about you... but your patience is certainly appreciated.

With the ability to see what's being shared in your entire social network, your "My Multiply" Message Board is almost certainly the best way to see what your friends, family and other people close to you, are up to.

Using the tabs across the top of the page, you can show more (or less) of what's being shared in your network with one click. However, Custom Filters really let you take this to the next level.

What we're doing here is creating a custom page view, which will allow you to quickly and easily display only the types of posts you want to see right now on your Message Board. Click Custom Filter. This tool will appear:

Simply select how much (if any) of your network you would like have appear, if you'd like to have posts from any group (or groups) included, any other specific users you would like to add, what type of content you'd like the filter to display, and whether you'd like to only be shown unread posts that meet those criteria. Give the Custom Filter a name if you'd like it saved for later, or don't bother if you only plan to use it once.

Then click OK!

When you do, you'll find your Message Board displaying only what you're interested in seeing at the moment. When you'd like to remove the filter and view all of your network once again, simply click the [remove filter] link that you'll find at the top of your Message Board. And if you chose a name for your filter, you'll be able to select it later by clicking Custom Filter once again.

Here are some of our favorites:

	People in your Network	Groups you are in	Specific Individuals	Filter by Type	Show only unread
Unread from contacts (great for catching up on "required reading"!)	You, Contacts	None	[None]	All Posts	[Checked]
Missed Video (never before viewed)	You, Contacts, Medium, Distant	None	[None]	Video	[Checked]
Multiply-related groups (groups related to Multiply; will only work if you're in these groups)	[None]	multiplydesign, muds, modify, pimpursite, multiplynewbie, customizedthemes	[None]	All Posts	[Unchecked]

If you use this feature, what's your favorite filter?

Now that our big 3.0 launch is out of the way, we'd like to discuss some of our new features a little bit more in the coming days. We planned to start off with the My Multiply page -- the place to see everything shared in your network.

But before we do that, we wanted to address some of the comments we've seen on our latest blog announcing the launch. In particular, there have been lots of questions about the new Settings page. There are definitely fewer options on that page now than there were before, but that doesn't mean we've removed anything.

Below, you'll see what our Settings page used to look like. You could call it a 'one stop shop' for tweaking your account's settings -- unless the setting you wanted to use wasn't one of those listed on that page.


So we had another idea.

Below, you'll find our new, streamlined Settings page.


(Or at least an approximation thereof. Have a look at the real thing here.)

So maybe you're wondering what happened to Themes, Page Titles & Layout and Custom CSS. Don't worry, they're safe. In fact, they're where one would probably expect them to have to been in the first place. (Hint: go to your site and click Customize. They're all there.) To change your site title... just move your mouse over it and click. Then type. It's that easy. Your Profile settings? Go to your... profile... and click the aptly-titled... Edit Profile.

In short, you still have as much ability to customize Multiply as you ever have. We've just put the options for doing so where they make the most sense.

Side note: One sticky point when it comes to making any change to a long-running service like Multiply -- is that it may take a little time to get used to. We make these changes with the best of intentions -- we're certainly not trying to make Multiply more confusing or harder to use. We're always looking to improve the service and, all things considered, we think we've done just this.

Tagging, common among so-called "Web 2.0" services, is a feature that's been at the heart of Multiply for well over a year. Like the file attachment feature we mentioned a few days ago, it's a feature that sometimes gets overlooked. So let's have another look at tagging!

Tags are words (or very short phrases) that can be used to describe photos, video, blog entries -- any content you post to your Multiply site. For instance, the following photo album was tagged like so:

maplewood, new jersey, vacation, trees, water, autumn, walking

Note how each tag describes an aspect of what's in the photo album -- a vacation spent walking around Maplewood, New Jersey, where there was much water and many trees, made beautiful thanks to the season being autumn.

There two major reasons you might want to tag your posts on Multiply:

1. Tags will make it easier for you to, at a later date, find specific posts you've made without looking through them one-by-one.
   
2. Tags also make it easier for others to find content they're interested in, both among your own posts and everything else posted in their network.

Tags are a nice alternative to folders, where every item must fit into one -- and only one -- strict category. Let a thousand tags bloom.

Bonus: If the people you know on Multiply are active tag users, you'll even find a well-populated "tag cloud" on the right side of the first page you see when signed in. This shows you what's popular among the people you know -- not among millions of strangers, like on other websites.

There are a couple different kinds of features on Multiply.

There are features we've introduced that are immediately picked up and (for the most part) universally praised and loved by all. And there are others that, while also being quite worthy of love, may be easily overlooked.

One such feature is file attachments for blog entries. This feature was released on September 15, almost two months ago. But to this day, we still get a good number of people asking customer service if they can share various other types of files on Multiply.

Well, as a reminder, you can share virtually any type of file on Multiply. Just attach it to a blog entry, like so:

1. Create a new blog entry. Easy enough?
2. See the 'paper clip' icon? Click it.
   (You'll find it at the far right side of the blog compose toolbar.)
   
3. Pick a file. Pick any file. Pick up to five files, up to 20 MB apiece.
4. (There is no step four.)
   

What uses have you found for this feature?
Have you used this feature yet?

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We should probably note that files you find shared on Multiply have in no way been scanned for viruses. Whenever downloading files shared by others you don't necessarily trust, you should always stay vigilant about keeping your virus scanner active and up to date.

Update: The "link" link now reads "share" and does everything you see here... and more. Give it a try sometime!

If you ever happen to find yourself on a website that isn't Multiply (yes, we realize how crazy that sounds), and feel that someone other than you may be interested in it as well, Multiply is a great place to share your findings with others.

To make linking quick and simple, use our BlogThis! tool. You can find it by clicking "link" on any post on Multiply. Put this link in your browser toolbar, and whenever you come across something amazing that everybody absolutely has to see, simply click your shiny new toolbar button and you'll instantly find yourself at the blog compose page. Your entry will already contain a link to the page you were previously on; just describe the link or add your own commentary.

But that's not all! (And is it ever?) If you'd like to exercise your fair use rights and grab a quote from the page you'll be linking to, select some text on the page before clicking BlogThis! Your new entry will quote the selected text; add whatever you'd like to that, or post it as-is.

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Note that depending on the browser you're using, you may need to right-click the BlogThis! link and select "Bookmark link" or "Add to Favorites," rather than dragging it.

Flexibility is one of the principles around which we've designed Multiply. For example, our e-mail alerts give you the option of being notified of new content and comments posted by your contacts... including the ability to reply to them directly from the e-mail. Or if you prefer to read your messages on the site, turn off the e-mail alerts. It's up to you.

One might say that the central Multiply feature is the Message Board, the thing that ties it all together and shows you what's going on in your network. If you just want to see what's up, feel free to use it as is. But if you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty and tweaking a few options, you'll find it to probably be much more powerful than you had previously thought.

Click "Preferences"... and there you go! In these three small boxes, you have the opportunity to shape the way you view your network on Multiply.

The options for customizing the "Look & Feel" of your Message Board are pretty straightforward. However, customizing your display options may take a little trial and error, and you may want to try out certain columns for a few days at a time to get a feel for how they affect the way you read your messages.

For instance, one of my favorite options is "Status Column." The envelope icon allows you to choose whether or not you are subscribed to a message and receive an e-mail every time a new reply is posted. The pin allows you to keep the message "pinned" to the top of your message board, which makes it easier to keep an eye on ongoing conversations, or just something you don't want to lose track of.

These preferences are just another example of how control over your Multiply experience is where it should be -- in your hands.

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Is there a Multiply feature that you can't live without and would like to see featured here? Let us know!

Welcome to the very first Friday Featured Feature! Today, and on certain Fridays to come, we'll spotlight a Multiply feature that we think you should know more about.

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We already know that Multiply is a great place for sharing photos (and photo prints!) with your family, friends and others. And with the spread of digital cameras, we're all taking more pictures, and enjoying more pictures taken by others.

But when you're on the viewing end of a photo album on Multiply, does it ever feel like an exercise in repetitive clicking? Sure, you can view a whole page full of thumbnails... if you don't care to see any detail.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could lean back in your seat and let someone else do the clicking for you? Well, you may not have noticed it, but we've got the next best thing to your own personal link-clicker. When viewing a photo album, take a look at the links underneath the thumbnails. Boom -- there's your slideshow.


Once you've begun the show, sit back and enjoy... unless you want some control over things. Make it faster, slower... or just pause and stare if you see something you like. And if you missed something and need to see it again, that's what the "previous" arrow is there for.

You don't even have to stop the show to view or add comments. Just click the photo you're interested in and its comment page loads in the background, without interrupting your show.

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Is there a Multiply feature that you absolutely love and would like to see featured here? Let us know!