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As many of you know we have been working hard on a major update for the Spruz Social Platform that has been in the works for the past year. This update revolves around new levels of social interaction and brings our platform to a point where we can grow it to new levels of social website interaction. This update was designed to aid you in building a better social experience for your users. After months of research, design and development the day is almost here.
This update will be released in 2 phases. The first phase and the largest will be published to the Spruz Platform on Tuesday and will include the new member system. Phase 2 will be the addition of member or admin created member groups with group profiles. The Groups will have very similar capabilities as the member profiles. Phase 2 will be published anywhere from 7 to 10 days after Phase 1 and we will have more details announced later in the week.
To begin we want to highlight all new features and changes of Phase 1 part of this new update.
Website users will be able to enjoy;
- New Member Navigation Bar in the member profile area.
- The member bar will allow the site member to quickly post status updates, view the profile, photos, friends pages with ease and allow for quick access to get back to their home page (Revamp of the account page).
- All member options will be accessible from any page in the profile areas. Users can easily change profile options, display name, passwords and more.
- Complete revamp of the member account page.
- Users will enjoy a full friend activity feed to keep them in tune with their friends on your website. The activity feed displays information directly related to member profiles. With the activity feed users will see new comments posted, status updates, photos added to the member photo gallery and more.
- New Account summary where users can view friends, manage invites, groups and more.
- Member status updates. Just like other networks you users can make quick 140 character posts about what they are doing right now. We have plans to also add functionality so that status updates can also be sent to their twitter page with links back to your website.
- Improved profile options!
- We have added several major improvements to the security options for profiles.
- Users can now set information about them that you can customize!
- Profile Page Improvements.
- The profile page has been given a much cleaner look, improved drag and drop for elements and a quick add button for adding elements and widgets.
- All profile elements have been revamped to go along with the changes to the way member images, commenting, blogging, and so on are handled.
- New Widget Access, this really opens things up! Your users select from 1000's of widgets and with a click of a button easily added them to their profile page.
- New Photos Page, we have done away with the old way users would add image galleries to their profiles, it was slow and inefficient. The new photos page really opens things up to make it much easier to add photos and share them.
- Now users can upload up to 10 images at a time and update the captions all at once.
- We have carried over our commenting box to the photos page to allow feedback on images added by users.
- We did not add ratings to images because we want to further promote your users to add more personal photos to your website without fear of rejection. The more things your users contribute the longer they will stay with you and bring their friends.
- Dedicated friends page to make it easier to manage and view all of your friends. As part of this member profile pic formatting with new quick access options.
Screen shot of the new member account page (Your Home)
Screen shot of the new member profile page
"Please over look the theme we used on our test website. It should look great on your website!"
On the administration side of things we have made the following improvements;
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Profiles are no longer global so you have full control over members on your network!!
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Full administration control over profiles. This means you can delete, and edit profiles allowing you to better moderate your community. You can also set a separate access level so that you don't have to give out full administration to moderate the profile pages.
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Customization of what your members do with their profile pages. You can chose what elements you want to allow, change the naming for friends, status (Relationship status or whatever you want to use it for), customize the questions the user answers about themselves and more.
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Choose what basic profile information choices, such as gender, location and status options your members have access to.
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Create your own custom widget gallery for use with your website. This if for those site owners that want to tailor the widget selection towards the type of site you operate.
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Set your own default member profile pic. Since pics are a big part of any network, giving you control to create and add your own should be enjoyed.
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New styling over elements on the profile pages. We have added a new feature called accents that allow you to create your own custom styles for your users to use when they add or edit an element box on their profile pages.
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Create and modify the default profile setup that is generated when a member sets up their profile for the first time.
Screen shot of the administration settings over profiles. (Example Only) Not all options present
We have included a number of additional big improvements in this update.
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You will have a new text editor on forums, the blog and for the private messaging (Inbox).
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The inbox has been improved so that messages send much faster then before.
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Many bug fixes throughout the platform to reduce errors, improve interaction and make things easier to use.
Moving beyond this update we have want to give you a glimpse of other improvements you will see shortly after Phase 2 is published.
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All new member inviting system. This will have features for importing contacts from CSV, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. with fully customizable invite templates you can optionally customize.
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Member profile event system.
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Weekly website status update emails. So you know what has been happening on your website.
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We will be revamping the website blog, event calendar and knowledge base/content system with improved features and more member interaction.
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Member subscription module. This will allow you to automatically set access based on the subscription your user pays for. This will be an included feature with our upgraded packages that allows you to collect payments directly with PayPal.
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Member point/ranking system (Winter 09). This will be an optional feature where you can setup points for member participation on your website.
There are so many things we have packed into this update that everything just could not be listed, but with great change will come some sacrifice for what you may have grown used too. We know this may be a major change for some and we want you to know that this is only the start of many additional updates coming to the platform and the member profile system. The member profile system was important step for us to take what we have learned over the past several years and improve upon it to move forward.
Make sure you subscribe to our rss feed http://spruz.com/s/53188/rss.xml so you are informed as soon as we update the platform with this update and when we post about Phase 2 and the member group system. |
We are currently seeking people to help us test our new member profile system that is launching soon. This will be to help test front end profile capabilities, including how member activity works, friends, and so on. We are seeking people that can provide feedback and help us identify bugs and other problems.
If you would like to take part in this and get an early peek at some new features please email grow@spruz.com, subject must say Profile Tester and your email should include your Spruz email address, your geographic location and some brief details about what qualifies you to help. Once selected we will reply to you with an website you will join to begin testing these features and we will be required not to talk or comment about the new member profile features outside the Member Profile beta community.
We will be selecting people to start testing early next week. We look forward to hearing from you. |
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We are within a couple of weeks of releasing our complete rewrite of our member profile system. This update has been running a little long for us due to the size and complexity of this update, there are also issues with handling of current member profiles and moving as much as possible over to the new profile/member system.
Here is a sample list of features that will be part of the new member system.
- Each website member profile page will be unique to the given website.
- Full admin moderation over profile comments, blogs, photos, etc.
- Widget Box Gallery integration
- Advanced website profile admin settings for using your own custom naming scheme for member friends, setting the default profile pic, custom member status settings, using your own Widget Box gallery account and much more!
- Member or Admin Created Groups with full group profiles just like new member profiles!
- Member Activity Feed and status updates
- Customizable profile default elements and layout (Upgrade Only Feature).
- Improvements to member privacy settings
- Addition of setting the default viewing level for all profiles to make profiles viewing for members only on up. By default all profiles are public unless set other wise by the member. (Upgrade only Feature)
As part of this we have been updating other systems that tie into this update with some improvements as well.
New improvement added recently!
We have released an update to the deleting of site members. Now when a member is deleted it should delete all posts, content, etc that was added by that member to your website. For upgraded websites you can now ban them from joining again. This way once a member is deleted they will not be able to re-join the website easily. Plus, once the full member update is released when you delete a member it will also remove their profile, remove them from people that have added them as a friend and all files they have uploaded to their profile on your website.
I hope everyone is looking forward to this update as much as we are. This will be the biggest single release and change to the platform in almost 1 year. |
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Spruz allows anyone to create a social website about anything! Spruz launched in early 2007 and since then over 200,000 people have created socially enabled websites on the Spruz platform. The primary goal at Spruz, is and has always been to provide a free, highly customizable, powerful, yet easy to use hosted social website solution where anyone can come to create a socially enabled website. This is done by building an interconnected website platform where anyone can create, build, and customize a website with deep social interaction.
Spruz was founded, funded and programmed by it's founders Jay Roberts (President, CEO) and David Furman (Vice President, CTO). To really move forward and to keep the founders vision of what will be, the platform development was and has always been handled in house, you won't find any outsourcing here. Spruz is really made up of founder blood, sweat and tears as they say.
The story of Spruz really begins all the way back in 2002 with the launch of Clansitemanager.com a website creation portal with social features for Gamers (Clans & Guilds). When Clan Site Manager (CSM) was created, it's goal was to make it easier for gamers to build a website in order to help them form stronger groups, and as a result this would help shore up the gaming community as a whole for Mr. Roberts game related hosting company Art of War Central.com (AOWC). At the time it was a challenge for gaming groups to stay together, because there was not an easy and low cost way (Free) for gamers to build a site that offered good communication features. AOWC depended on gaming groups to use it's services. In the beginning of AOWC most gaming groups would fall apart within a few months.
AOWC was launched in 2001 to provide high performance multiplayer gaming to private groups of gamers (Clans) that played first person shooters. The plan emerged, shortly after the launch of AOWC to give gamers an on demand free website creation process allowing them to build a website that could help them strengthen their group, recruit members, and communicate. Long and short CSM helped gamers meet and attract other gamers that shared their same interests. Over time other types of gamers began creating websites on the CSM platform.
From 2004-2006 very little focus was placed on the CSM platform as other projects and obligations got in the way. In the spring of 2006 Jay Roberts partnered up with David Furman a very talented person and web designer by trade. At the time David was an employee of Art of War Central. In June of 2006, Jay made the decision to sell the gaming company in order to refocus on developing the website creation platform into a system for anyone to create socially enabled websites outside of the gaming market. Jay and David shared a vision of providing social solutions to people that wanted personal self branded social communities/websites. The goal of redeveloping the CSM platform into what is the Spruz Platform Technology was born in the Spring of 2006 and followed with the official launch of Spruz in March of 2007. Since then it has been a long road for the Jay and David, but well worth it as they have seen hundreds of thousands of users, create social websites on the Spruz Platform. Every day the team is working hard to bring features and improvements for new and old users alike.
One of the biggest benefit to users of a centralized platform like Spruz is the ability for the development team to roll out new features and improvements on demand without users having to worry about applying updates or websites on the platform being out of sync. This makes for an infinitely advancing website platform while still giving users an unmatched level of customization control to make truly unique social websites.
For the Spruz Team and its users, the Spruz platform is a growing, living machine, without the limits and bounds that users with stand alone websites often experience. Between the platform and the users that experience it, the future is a bright one. |
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Today is a day to remember our fallen, we shall never forget their sacrafice for our country. God Bless America.
As with any US holiday, our office will be closed. We do have staff on hand for any major issues should they occure.
Have a great day!
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Previously all websites had an option to set a website to private only. When you set your website to private access only, only users that have registered with your site or have been approved access to your site would be allowed to enter, while site visitors would only see a login box or register options.
Effective Tuesday May 26th the private setting will be a feature only available to user that are upgraded to a Lite or Pro package. All free websites accounts (Non-Upgraded Websites) that have their website set to private will have their private setting set to a public website. If you want to keep your site private we request you upgrade by to our upgrade page and select a Lite or Pro package.
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We have just added a new element. It is a member activity that shows a list of recent activity on your site by the member. This will show when new people register, comment, and so on.
To add this new element go to your content builder, click add element, select member elements and click on Member Activity.
The new element ties into your sites activity log, we are adding new areas that the activity log monitors so that you can display a centralized list of all your site activity as it happens.
We hope you enjoy this new element. Once you try it out, feel free to share your feedback and suggestions.
As a foot note, it will only start showing activity from today onward as we had to make some database changes to deploy this feature. |
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On June 1st we will be changing our optional upgrade plan pricing. We will be increasing the rate for all packages and switching to monthly billing with optional yearly prepays with that give a discount. Currently all plans require yearly prepay.
For our current customers, your plan pricing will not increase as long as you stay with on your current service plan. If your account is canceled then reactivation will be based on current pricing at that time.
The changes to our upgrade plans will be:
Lite Plan: Currently our Lite plan is $5/mo paid yearly that comes out to $60/yr. The new price for the Lite plan will move to $9.95 per month and can be paid monthly with discounts for yearly prepays.
Pro Plan: Currently our Pro plan is $10/mo paid yearly for a total of $120/yr. The new price for our Pro plan will be $24.95 per month and can be paid monthly with discounts for yearly prepays.
As part of these new changes we have a new member subscription module that will be released around the same time the new member profile system is published that will allow you to charge your members for access to your website. When people subscribe the system auto sets their site access level, in addition you directly take all payments for your member subscriptions.
If you are using our free service and you are planning on upgrading, then upgrade before June 1st 2009 to take advantage of our current low rates. If you only plan to use our free service then this does not apply to you.
Go to our plan page to view our current structure or to upgrade click here.
As an update on the new & improved member profile system, we are still working hard on this update and hope to have it released in the next few weeks. |
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The suggestions that have been posted in the new suggestion box forum has really helped us understand your requests and increased the number of people contributing ideas and endorsing other peoples ideas. The suggestion box forum was but one of many new features released to a admin welcome page revamp that was released to your website administration welcome page a few days ago.
As a result of the new feedback and going through the old idea forum we have rolled out 2 really cool updates today.
New HTML Page Editor! On the Content Builder we have replaced the New Blank Page option when adding a New Page, with a more robust HTML page editor that allows you to build a static HTML page much easier. Features of the full page editor include; building tables, adding images, viewing the html source, and over all full control over a custom page. You can still add dynamic element based pages with the New Dynamic Page option when clicking on the New Page button.
So try it out by going to the Blue Content tab in your site administration and click on New Page.
New Offline Feature! We have also responded to a number of requests for an Offline feature that can be enabled so that you may make changes to your site without anyone seeing what you are doing. You can now set your site to go into offline mode from the site properties page. With the offline feature you can set the time you want the site to be offline for, then at the end of that time period the site will automatically return to normal service.
As a community we can grow together with the new collaboration that can be done through your site administration welcome page. While it is great to point out ideas, suggestions and such. Please make sure to endorse other user ideas that are posted in the site admin forums. Even if it is just to say I like it! or that idea needs work! |
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