Things are brewing at Shout these days!

Hello everyone!

Long time no see and there's good reason for it too because Sergio (theArtofEnnui.com) and I are hard at work on Version 2 of the site and hope to release it not too long from now. I know you all are probably chomping at the bit to get a glimpse of the future but don't fret because the wait will totally be worth it. We've got a ton of great new features and and additions to the site as well as other boring pieces like making the site more stable and easier to bookmark so you can always go back to your favorite places quicker and easier.

In other news I want to give a shout out to our new friend DJ over at Webneeks. He recently joined the site and has posted a glowing review of the current site which is worth a quick read. Check out his blog and his other postings as well as the site seems fresh on new Web 2.0 offerings as well.

In the upcoming days and weeks we will probably be releasing a few sneak peek screenshots of what's to come just to get the creative juices flowing and build some excitement. Until then I hope you all have a great 4th of July weekend as I hope to spend it in Washington DC with the girlfriend and friends and family.

Peace out homies!

- brian

Blogging and more!!

Hello once again everyone!

I said last time that I would try not to spam everyone because I really don't believe in that but at the same time some of you let me know that you like receiving the periodic email update. So what I've done is try to accomodate everyone and if you go to Customize My Page and then at the bottom you will see that you can turn off email notifications. If I have once again accidentally included you on this mailing list login and change your notification settings and you'll never get this again.

Ok now that that's out of the way! This last week we surpassed the 500 member mark as well as our one month anniversary which is today! Over the last month we've seen a lot of changes to the site and many of you have been super understanding as things get reorganized and moved around. Thank you for that! Hopefully they were all for the better!

Today I introduced Blogging to the site. This is a way cool feature that lets you keep an online journal very similar to other sites but the amazing thing is that you won't have to touch a lick of HTML or JavaScript coding to get your blog up and running! It's so easy your momma could do it. Other small things you might have noticed are the transparency on your pages so that your lovely backgrounds will show through a little so they're not so hidden. Also we've introduced captions for your photos so people will know what the heck is going on in those crazy photos!

In the upcoming days and weeks prepare to be blown away with some of the new features in the works! A community site wouldn't be complete without communities right??? HINT HINT!

One last thing before I sign off and that's the topic of promoting the site. Lots of you have been telling friends and for that I thank you! But you can also help by bookmarking us at Del.icio.us and Digging us! Please join Digg and digg this article so that we can bring more and more people to Shout Central and show them what they're missing!!



Cheers,
Brian (hoffmabc)

So busy lately!

Well everyone I just got back from losing my money in Atlantic City and it's back to Shout Central! I kind of ditched everyone after unleashing the latest changes to the site and went on vacation. BUT I'm back and I'm ready to bring out some new stuff!

In other news we've recently been reviewed on a couple of spanish speaking web sites with some favorable comments. If you speak spanish check out these links:

GenBeta
WWWhatsNew

It's really cool to be back and start having people enjoy your work!

Several new updates

Well I've made a few new changes and uploaded some of the new interface updates. The whole goal for this update was to really make everyone's page a lot easier to use and read. With all the amazing backgrounds everyone is uploading some of the navigation pieces were getting hidden. Hopefully this update will resolve some of those issues. I also tried to bring a lot more of the pages together. Please let me know if you find any bugs!!

- brian

Marketing and Promotion

Today's efforts really consisted of boosting the site's appeal to potential new users. Thus the front page was redone. I think it will really help two things, mainly curbing spam accounts who don't know what's in the site and just sign up fake accounts and luring people in to check out the site who don't want to waste their time signing up for something that might not be cool. I'm coming to a slowdown of bugfixes and I think the site is pretty stable at this point. On another cool note, our first Alexa rating was pretty good, here's a graph.



I think the reception the site has received so far proves that there might be a real following soon! Make sure to tell all your friends and family to sign up and start SHOUTING! today.

cheers,
brian

Recent Bugfixes

A lot of you have really gone out of your way to let me know about some of your issues, concerns, requests and a LOT OF BUGS! I was actually flying home from Dallas to Washington, DC tonight and worked on a lot of those issues. Hopefully the biggest of which is the problem with people having really slow experiences. Please let me know if you have any problems with unbearable slowness on the site as I hope I've taken care of most of it. I'm sure as we grow we'll have lots of growing pains but I will try and address them as they come along and we'll continue to build a great community!! Thanks again!

cheers,
brian

New User Notice

Hey everyone,

I am letting everyone know that there is now a new place for postings related to this site (http://shout-central.blogspot.com). From now on any postings about changes to the site or updates will be placed here as opposed to spamming you all with unwanted e-mails. Until I have the official e-mail addresses for the site up and running you can reach me at brianchoffman@gmail.com.

Now to the meat of this message! If you recently signed up for an account on Shout! you probably noticed that when you tried to "Add Photos" on your profile you were automatically logged out! This is due to an issue when accessing the site through http://shoutcentral.com instead of http://www.shoutcentral.com. Since I am working on a way to have all your accounts easily accessible through a http://username.shoutcentral.com way I have temporarily disabled accessing the site without the www. on the beginning. I have fixed the add pictures link though and you should be able to login properly now. PHEW!

Lastly but not leastly or something like that...

If you find yourself not being able to view anything but the buddy list, check to see if up in the address for our site in your browser that you have http://www.shoutcentral.com with the www. INCLUDED! :) This makes the site much happier!


Cheers!
Brian (brianchoffman@gmail.com)