If the Multiply AutoUploader is the key to the new, even easier sharing process we recently unveiled, then the Multiply Media Locker is the lock: it keeps all of your photos and videos safely under "lock and key"... only you can view them. Until, of course, you decide to share them with whomever you'd like.

For users who haven't subscribed to Multiply Premium, this makes it an easy way to share your latest photos and videos with the people who matter most. For Premium users, it's that plus a safe, permanent storage place for all of your original, full-resolution media. And for everyone, it's a super-easy way to manage your Multiply content, including editing or deleting multiple posts at once.

Let's take a closer look at it.




Down the left side of the page, you'll find a number of choices... filters, really, to choose just which media you'd like to view. They are:

Media Locker

Latest AutoUploads is where you'll find the latest photos and videos that you've saved to your computer. Of course, you'll need to be using the Multiply AutoUploader for content to appear under this section.

AutoUploaded Folders mimics the structure of the photo folders on your computer (of course, only the ones you've selected for AutoUploading). So, if you like to organize the photos on your computer in a particular way, you can browse through them in a familiar manner on Multiply.

And, of course, this section gets a lot more useful when combined with Multiply Premium!

All Photos/All Videos is the easy way to view — you guessed it — all of the photos and videos in your Media Locker... including not only those that have been AutoUploaded, but also all the ones you've posted to your Multiply site through other means.


Shared Items

Everything!  Each type of content (blog entries, photo albums, videos, links, etc.) has its own section under here; each will show you everything you've already posted to your Multiply site... and much more conveniently than hunting through your Multiply site to find them.

If that was all, it'd be pretty nice. But, of course, it isn't.



Perhaps the most exciting use for the "Shared Items" section of your Media Locker is the way it enables easy mass changing of your content's tags and access level.

And, of course, you can mass-delete content as well. But click carefully: once it's gone it's gone.


Drafts

Here you'll find posts that you've started composing, but never got around to sharing. Of course, Drafts are nothing new on Multiply, but their presence in the Media Locker makes them a lot easier to find than before (when they could be likened to needles in haystacks).

So there you have it, the Multiply Media Locker. To get to yours, click here, or simply click the "My Media Locker" link you'll find on your homepage.

Which part of the Media Locker have you found to be most useful so far?

Today, we have a quick preview of something you're sure to love.

We think that this screenshot should be sufficient to explain the feature.

If it isn't, and you must know right now... coming soon there will be an easy way to change the access setting on multiple posts. Oh, and tags too.

While this is sure to get more than a few people more than excited, trust us when we say that it gets even better. This is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

That said, the iceberg isn't here just yet. We'll let you know when it is... but not a second sooner. :-)

Sorry for all the suspense, but tag users... it's time to rejoice, at least a little bit, because we've got something that even the most emo tag user can be happy about -- a great new way to display your tagged posts. And if you haven't been tagging your posts, here's the perfect reason to get started.

Customizable tag boxes
If you use the "Boxes" homepage layout (as opposed to "Linear"), you can now create new boxes on your homepage that display content based on the tags you've given them.

That's right, in addition to the usual boxes like "Photos" and "Videos," you can now mix and match tags to your heart's content... and display your creations on your Multiply homepage. If you ever wished for a box displaying your latest posts related to, say, business, pirates and trees, this feature makes your wish come true.

To set this up, just click the familiar "Customize Site" link on your homepage, and follow this with the aptly-titled "Add Tagged Content Box" link. You'll get a pop-up that you can use to set the options for your box -- particularly what should be displayed (pick one or more tags), and how it should be displayed (box title, number of entries to display). Once you've created your box, you can manipulate it like any other content type box: drag it around, hide it, edit it... And here's the best part: you can make multiple tag boxes!

Customizable tag clouds
We've also added a new option for the way you display tags on your homepage. Rather than displaying your entire tag cloud at the end of your Welcome Message, you can now save space by choosing to only display a limited number of tags. And if you're the administrator of a group, you now have this setting available to you within your group!

Also customizable: original video download setting
On a completely different note, we've had a number of users ask for a way to disable the "Download Original" links for videos they've posted, as you can with photos. Starting now, this is possible. Make sure you've enabled Advanced Posting for your account, and you'll find this option whenever uploading a video, or editing one already uploaded.


So, how are you planning on using these new features? Do you already have custom boxes in mind? Are you planning on going the more extreme route, completely replacing your normal boxes with custom tag boxes?

We've taken a look at Multiply's tags feature on this very blog a handful of times in the past, so it's safe to say that you're already familiar with the tagging concept. If you're not, of course, you're welcome (and encouraged!) to go back and review our previous posts on the subject.

If you haven't been tagging your posts, it's easy to get started -- when posting something new, just think of terms or short phrases that describe the content you're posting. And add them to the "tags" field, separating multiple tags with commas. You can even add tags to old posts of yours -- just click "edit" on the post, enter some tags and save your changes!

If you've used tags in the past, you probably already know the benefits of keeping your posts organized in this manner. So if you're the tagging type, there's a couple new features coming soon that you're sure to love.

We won't tell you what they are, just yet... you'll have to wait until they're ready.
If we did, what kind of "teaser" would this be?

Thanks to tagging (what are tags?), it's possible for you to, with a single click of a link, find all posts on a specific topic from a specific user -- for example, posts from us regarding new features, privacy, or of course, tags themselves. You may also be familiar with browsing your network via tags, but have you discovered the power of this feature for keeping track of recent events, like the holidays?

That's right... though the holiday season may be over, the memories live on, on Multiply! Since everyone's unique network consists of different users and different posts, they will also contain different tags! Here are some of the more popular tags used on recent content from my network (though when you view them, you'll see what, if anything, has been posted with those tags in your network):

• holiday
• christmas
• new years
• travel
• vacation
  

To have a look at the most popular tags in your network, check out the tag cloud in your message board sidebar (we featured this last month), or your popular tags page, where you'll find all the customizable tag views you could (hopefully) ever want.

Since we're on the topic of tags, consider this another reminder to tag your posts! If your posts aren't tagged, they're effectively invisible to others browsing their networks using tags. For some suggestions on how to use tags, see Some thoughts about how to use tags.

What's your most used tag? How do you find them making your life easier?

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.

We told you that it was coming.
We showed you that it was coming.
And now, at long last, it's here.

We've been hard at work lately (well, harder than usual), burning the midnight oil and whatnot in preparation for today, the day that will be forever known as... The Day We Released a Giant Overhaul of Multiply.

This is a great day for us; we're proud to show off what's been keeping us up at night, what's kept us pale and vitamin D-deficient as a result of being cooped up indoors, and caused us to neglect our pet rocks to the point where they've all but shriveled up and died. But today isn't our day.

It's yours, dear Multiply users. Whether you've been with us from the beginning or if you were just invited last week, you'll notice that this is a major update for us, the biggest we've rolled out to date. You've most likely already noticed the changes to our page layout and color scheme, but that's not even half the story -- there's more to the new Multiply than just a pretty face. It'd be irresponsible of us to get you hyped up over an update without adding loads of new stuff.

If this all seems a bit perplexing to you, take a deep breath and read on.

Getting around

• New & Improved Homepage. Your home page is your brand-new starting point at Multiply. When you sign in, you'll see a quick rundown of new messages, photos, videos and upcoming events from your contacts, and even a list of tags being used by all the people in your network.
• Never Get Lost Again. We hear that leaving a trail of breadcrumbs is great for finding your way out of a spooky forest, but it works equally well for navigating Multiply. When viewing another user's site, you'll find a "trail" of links at the top of each page showing you how you arrived where you currently are, making it incredibly easy to retrace your steps should you get lost and need to find your way back.
• Navigation Made Easy. When viewing your own pages or changing your settings, the links you need most are right at your fingertips -- down the left side of every page. If you still find yourself lost, the compass is on us. For more information, see our recent post, Streamlining and Simplifying Navigation.
  
• It's All Just Text to Us. To further simplify your Multiply experience, we've removed Recipes, Links and Market from the drop-down "Post" menu. If you've posted recipes, links or market items before, those options will still be there for you, and nothing is going to happen to ones that you've already posted. We encourage you to use the Blog feature to post recipes, links and whatever else strikes your fancy (the great American novel?) for all the world -- or just a couple of friends -- to see.
  
  Having these broken up into separate categories was really just legacy from a time before we offered tagging. Tagging content with descriptive tags (e.g., "recipe," "link," "for sale") will make it just as easy for others to find your content, and is a much more powerful way to organize a wide variety of content types. Besides, eliminating cut-and-dry categories reminds us of the possibilities of the wide variety of material that can be shared via blog posts.
  

Keeping in touch

• Comments Come A-Live. Live Replies^TM is your new option for quickly posting and viewing new comments added to content on Multiply. Comments you leave on posts will appear immediately, as will comments left by others while you're viewing the post. That's right, there's no need to refresh the page. Comments simply appear as they're posted, similar to how IM or a chat room works.
• Since You've Been Gone. Get up to date with what's new and ignore what isn't. When viewing your messages, you can now choose to automagically view unread messages by using the "What You've Missed" view, which can be found under the "Explore" drop-down menu.
• Since You've Been Gone, part deux. Enable the "Always jump to new (unread) replies" option under My Messages setup to be automatically taken to new replies when viewing a thread you've previously seen. Read what you need, not what you don't.
• Popular Tags. This gives you a quick rundown of the tags being used most frequently by the people in your network, enabling you to quickly and easily find what you're looking for. (You can find this on your home page, as well as in the "Explore" drop-down menu.) Multiply is the only place you can see popular tags for your network or just your contacts. Browsing your network by tags is a great way to get a broader view of what the people you know are interested in... and remember that tagging your own content on Multiply not only makes it easier for others to find, but also adds value to your network as a whole!
• Click Post and Hold Your Breath. After you make a new blog post, we'll give you the complete rundown of who will be able to see it, how they can find it, how you'll be notified of comments posted to it. If you're already familiar with these concepts... great! Check the "Skip this page" box, click the button below and we'll never lecture you about it again.

In other news...

• Hands-Free Viewing. When viewing a photo album, click the "slideshow" link to view all photos in that album. Set the speed you'd like, then kick back and enjoy. A bowl of popcorn always goes well with a long set of photos -- and hey -- you won't have to worry about getting your keyboard greasy!
• Contacts and Groups get their own pages. Now it's much more obvious where to find your contacts and groups. Before, they were listed on the "Network" page. Now they each have their own separate page, called: "My Contacts" and "My Groups".
• User Search: On the Move. The "Find Users" is moving up in the world... to its new home at the top of the "My Contacts" page. It likes being there, we like it there and we think you will too.
• Making Posting Simple. To further streamline the process of posting new content to Multiply, we've hidden a few posting options (like disabling notifications and comments on your posts) by default. If you'd like the full array of posting options always available at your fingertips, simply enable Advanced Posting. (You'll find it under My Settings.)

Didn't we tell you we've been busy?

Once again, thank you for sticking with us and enjoying our service as we continue working to keep Multiply the best place online to share your content -- your life -- with those closest to you.

We'll be giving Multiply a bit of a face-lift in the coming weeks, and wanted to give you a quick preview. The big change will be the site navigation, but we'll have a bunch of cool new features besides that. The rundown:

Navigation
We'll post a new screen grab shortly so you can see what's coming. The important thing to know is that it will be way easier to navigate around. We've made some gradual changes in the past to improve navigation, but we think this is, by far, the biggest improvement. We can't wait to hear what you think.

Popular tags
See a list of the most popular key words that people in your network are using to tag their content. (Don't forget to add tags to all of your posts).

What you missed
We received so much great feedback about the e-mail alert, we decided to make it a feature. At any time, you'll be able to see what you missed from the people closest to you.

Calendar
It'll be much much easier to get to your network calendar from anywhere on the site - always just a couple of clicks from seeing all the events and occasions going on in your social circle.

Perhaps the coolest thing we have planned is a change to the way replies work. We can't wait to show you this! But that's all we're saying for now. We have to leave you in some suspense. :-)

There's more, but it wouldn't be any fun if we gave it all away now. :-)

Look for another announcement within a week or two. And, as always, let us know what you think.

We recently introduced a feature called "tags". A lot of people are using the feature and really liking it, but others have told us they're still not quite sure how tags work or why they should use them. We thought it might be helpful to say a little bit more about tags and what you can do with them.

Let's start with the basics... what are tags, anyway? It's really simple. Tags are keywords you can use to organize your posts and make it easier to find what you're looking for, especially when you have tons of stuff on your site. Using tags is similar to using folders on your computer to organize your documents. The main difference between folders and tags is that a document can only be in one folder, but you can categorize a post using many different tags, by adding multiple tags to a single post.

Check out Peter's Greek Easter photos for an example of a post with a few tags. While you're there, scroll to the bottom of the album and click on the Dimitri tag to see all the other stuff Peter's posted about his cute kid!... and to see how tags work.

Not only do tags help you organize your stuff so it's easy to find things, they also make it more fun and interesting to visit someone else's site. Suppose you saw Peter's Greek Easter album on the Messages page, and opened it. Maybe you agree with Peter that Dimitri is the cutest kid in the world :-) so you clicked on the Dimitri tag when you saw it. You'd have seen all those tons of other Dimitri-related posts - journals, photos, whatever - that you might not have otherwise known about without taking time to look around Peter's site.

If your posts have tags, people looking at the posts will see them, just like you saw Peter's tags in that album. By default, we also list all of your tags in the Welcome message on your site, so you and visitors to your site can always have an easy reference to all your stuff (see the image below on the right). Some tags will appear in a larger font size than the others. Bigger sizes mean more posts are tagged with that word or phrase.

You can add tags to any post you put on Multiply. Just look for the "Tags" text area as you're uploading your post, and add your tags there (separated by a comma if more than one). If you want to add tags to older posts, just go back and edit them and you'll see the same Tags text area. See the image below on the left for a visual.

Hopefully this gives you a good idea of how tags work. If you have a question about tags that wasn't covered here, feel free to send a message to customer service and we'll get back to you as soon as we can!

Multiply now has tags, which let you easily organize the stuff on your site and find things you're looking for. Tags are key words that you can add to your posts to make them easy to find at a later time. That way people visiting your site can find everything you've posted that has something in common - and you'll be able to do the same on other people's sites. The next time you upload something new to Multiply, you'll be able to add tags that identify your content any way you want. Learn more about tags here.

It's been almost a month since we introduced Gold and Platinum accounts and we couldn't be happier with the response we've gotten. Still, quite a few people asked for even more video, music and photo uploads every month. So today we introduce Diamond accounts for people who want a lot more out of Multiply. See exactly what you get with a Diamond account here.

Users with Gold, Platinum or Diamond accounts now have yet another new site theme to choose from - this one's called Shadow Box (see image on the right) - and it's available now in our gallery. Preview Shadow box on our Themes page.

As always, let us know what you think of the changes. Thanks!