New Features Coming Soon: Enhanced Comments, Mini-Profiles and Likes

If Everything goes according to the plan, ActiveRain will release our next round of enhancements to the community on July 28th (along with a squashing a huge pile of bugs.....your 'following' button will definitely be back).

On Monday the 28th, we will let you know for sure if the updates are coming that day and if there will be down time associated with them.

Here is a quick glance at some of the new stuff you will see soon in the Rain.

• Revised Comment Style Box: In an effort to maximize the comment box itself, we've done a little redesign. Most notably, you'll be able to follow another members blog directly from a comment. So if you see someone leave a great comment, and you think 'I'll bet this person has some thought provoking blog posts', you'll be able to easily follow them. In addition, we've made your headshot a little larger. You people are so darn good looking, we had to see more of you!
  
  
• Like a Comment: You will now be able to 'like' a comment. Did that one Rainer just absolutely nail
  how you were feeling? Go ahead and 'like' their comment to let them know. You will also be able to sort the comment section by 'most liked comments' in order to see which comments the community feels add the most value.
  
  
• Tag Member in a Comment: This is the one I'm most excited about. After the release, when you leave a comment on ActiveRain, you will be able to tag another ActiveRain member in that comment. By tagging that member, they will be notified via email that you were talking about them. It won't be a wide open wild west though. In order to tag someone in a comment, you will either need to be following their blog, or they will have needed to take an action on the blog post itself. An example of 'taking an action' would be that the person you are trying to tag has commented on the blog post, or they have liked one of the comments in the blog post. It will work just like it works on Facebook, where using the @ symbol will allow you to type in that users name and then select them to be tagged.
   
• Mini-Profiles: In conjunction with tagging, we are introducing mini-profiles. A mini profile is something that will pop out of the screen whenever someone were to hover over a members name when they have been tagged. So if I'm scrolling through the comment section, and I see Kerrie tag 'Craig Daniels' and then talk about how he always creates create tutorials, I can hover over his name and easily follow Craig's blog, or maybe find my way back to his profile to check out what he's all about.
   
• Like a Blog Post: This used to say 'suggest' and was how member's could suggest a blog post to be featured. We wanted to make it more intuitive, so we changed it to a simple 'like'. You can now like a blog post and that let us know you think your fellow Rainer wrote something great.
  
  
• Comment Sorting: As I mentioned above, you'll be able to sort comments based on 'most first recent', 'oldest first' (which is the default), or 'most popular' (based on which comments have been 'liked' the most).
  
  
• 76 Bugs Squashed: Poor bugs......NOT! Poor you guys for having to put up with all of these bugs. But we appreciate your patience as 76 of these little critters are getting stepped on. There are too many to name here but I assure you that all of the big ones have been handled. 

Where is This Headed and What's Really Important?

One thing that has ALWAYS kept me up at night is how we surface content on ActiveRain. Right now, the main way we surface content is via featuring posts. In the future, we're really going to be looking for better ways to serve up relevant content to you personally. The first step in doing this, is to try to understand what you 'like'. Allowing our members to 'like' comments and blog posts is a small first step in understanding what you find interesting so that we can start to surface content for you specifically.

The ability to tag other members in a comment is a way to get our active members to engage other folks in the community that may be less active, or that you have always enjoyed hearing from in the past. Rarely a day goes by that I don't see a blog post and think "(such and such) would be a perfect person to weigh in on this'. In the past, I would have had to go find them, pull up their profile, then email them a link to the article and say 'hey, could you comment here. I'd really like to know what you think'. Now, as I leave my own comment, I can ask other member to jump in and share by simply tagging them in the post. In the near future, we'll start to work these notifications into an expanded notification area that keeps you updated on everything going on on ActiveRain that relates to you. It's high time we got smarter at helping you make and develop relationships. 

The mini profiles are something we anticipate using around the site more and more. For instance, on the state, county and city pages, along with the Leaderboard, we display your name and picture and a link back to your profile. These may become places we use the mini profile. So I would suggest once the feature is released, everyone take a look at your picture and the fields we use to populate the mini-profile to make sure yours is looking sharp!

What Does This All Look Like?

Next Monday night, July 28th (or Tuesday morning for many of you since it will be late Monday night), you'll get full access to these features once they are rolled out across the community. Between now and then, here are a few screenshots to help you get familiar with some of these features before you get your hands on them live:

Revised Comment Box Style

Like a Comment:

(You can see in the screen shot below where you can 'like' a comment. It's the little area with the heart and the word like. Once someone has 'liked' a comment, others can see who has liked that comment by clicking on the number, in this case the 11.)

Once you click on the number 11, you will be able to see other people who have liked that same comment.

Tag a Member in a Comment:

(This will be done by typing the @ symbol then the member's name. You will be able to tag anyone that you are following or anyone that has participated on that blog post, including the author, anyone who has liked the blog post, anyone that has commented on the blog post, or anyone that has liked a comment on the blog post)

Once you tag someone in your comment, they will be notified via email that you tagged them and are talking about them in your comment. Their name will also appear as a link, that someone can click on to see that user's mini-profile

Mini-Profiles:

(Any time a member's name shows up somewhere, you will be able to scroll over their name and see their mini-profile, including an easy way to 'follow' their blog. In this screen shot I believe the mini-profile is a little larger than it will actually be in practice.)

Like a Blog Post:

(As I mentioned above, this will change the 'suggest' button to 'like' and will also allow you to see who has actually liked your blog post. From there, you can scroll over the names of the people who like your blog post to see their mini-profile and possibly follow them if you choose)

Comment Sorting:

(You'll be able to sort comments to see the 'most popular' or even the 'most recent'. As always, you'll be able to see the 'oldest comment first' as is the default option when reading through comments)

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned for next Monday (night), July 28th as these fun features are just over the horizon (again, assuming everything goes according to the plan). 

We had originally planned this release for the 15th and I had even told some of you in email or over Facebook that would be the date for some of these bug fixes. However, with this much happening we wanted to make sure we got a great round of testing in. 

Let me know if you have any questions! ~Bob

 

Keep Up In the Rain!