First of all, Happy New Year from everyone here at the BlastGroups Team!
Over the holidays we were hard at work and released some exciting new features!
Some of you may have noticed the addition of a new tab in your site’s Navigation bar. We quitely released a new update to make your Group’s Recent Activity “flow” much easier with the launch of Group Streams. (yes, in this case, pun intended).
Your Group Stream turns your group’s recent activity into a blog format, creating one place where you can see the most recent happenings in your group and where content is always updating. Your Group Stream will show the full content directly on the page instead of just links to other sections, as Recent Activity currently exists (FYI, due to user feedback, that module still exists on Group Dash). Thanks to Streams, you will be able to do things such as watch a video, see photos, and read the first part of blog posts all from the same page.
With your Stream, you will be able to see the freshest content in your group, who added that content, and when exactly they added it. Additionally, Streams come with Filter options so that members can filter out different types of items. Looking to find only the most recent Events? — Just click on the Events icon and your Stream will be filtered so that only Events will be shown.
To give you some ideas for how Streams make your group better and more fun, try exploring some public groups, created by other BlastGroups members and click on the ‘Stream’ tab to view and sort through their recent activity. Or even better, go get a Stream of your own!
We’ve got some really exciting plans for BlastGroups in 2009. Thanks again for all the great feedback and please keep it coming!
Streams
It started when we wanted to share things not only within our group and between our friends, but with the rest of the world as well. And so BlastGroups Streams were born.
A Stream is Visual Blog all about you and your interests. Your stream is located at blastgroups.com/stream/yourname. Think of a Stream as a visual blog that writes itself; they are created on the fly as you bookmark and share websites, embed videos, add photos, and more. Learn more by checking out a Sample Stream.
Blurbs
In order to make Streams a true reflection of you, we’re also launching the ability to write a “Blurb” or a small posting about anything. It can be about you, what you’re up to, or just a general thought or observation. Together with these small updates, Streams offer a unique way to discover and discuss what your friends and “groupmates” are doing and sharing.
Blast Bookmark Enhancements
In addition to Streams and Blurbs, we’ve made lots of improvements to the Blast Bookmark, the online bookmark that gives web publishers the ability to let readers share their content with their groups and friends on BlastGroups.
Publishers and bloggers will notice new, easy-to-use directions and code to automatically add the Blast Bookmark to their website, or to WordPress or Blogger. If you’re a publisher, go ahead, try it out and add the Blast Bookmark to your site or blog.
Sharing with groups, friends, or everyone
The launch of Streams and improvements to the Blast Bookmark makes BlastGroups the ultimate way to bookmark and share the web, making it simple and easy to share things with groups, friends, everyone, or all of the above! Learn more about how to share with BlastGroups.
You might have noticed the new look for the homepage of BlastGroups. We’ve been tinkering with a new design for a while now and just updated it yesterday.
Used for any type or size of group
The main idea was to put more of a focus on all the different types of groups you can create a group website for. These links take you to our sample group pages where you can learn more about the different types of group websites people are creating as well as get some further ideas for your own BlastGroup.
Feature set
Another goal of this design change was to better highlight all of the features you can add to your group site. Click or hover over each feature for more details.
Getting started more easily
We also wanted to make the create group form more primetime for quicker and easier access to get your group website started.
Many thanks to everyone who has already taken the time to give us feedback on the new look. We look forward to hearing more of your thoughts at suggestions@blastgroups.com.
We wanted to take a few moments to let you know about a few newly released features. All of these features have come directly from suggestions by users like you, so if you have any ideas about how the site can be improved, please let us know at suggestions@blastgroups.com.
Improved Group Blogs
The Group Blog is now enhanced to let you include photos with each Blog Post, creating a more personalized blogging experience for your group. This is the first of many improvements to the BlastGroups blogging platform. Stay tuned for additonal features in the coming weeks, including the addition of RSS feeds for every blog.
The Lounge’s New Topic List Page
One of your top requests was for a full list of Forum Topics for The Lounge. We’ve responded with a new, default Topic List view for The Lounge that lets you more easily view and navigate all of your Forum Topics.
We will be adding new features to BlastGroups constantly, and this blog is the best place to learn about them. Stay tuned for more exciting news in the coming weeks!
It has been quite a couple of weeks for us at BlastGroups. We launched a public beta version of the site exactly two weeks ago, and we got a bunch of great press about the launch.
We want to take a moment to share some of the great coverage we received from some blogs involved with the Tech Industry from all over the World including press from Mashable, WebWorkerDaily, Geekissmo (Italy), Olivier Diaz and Zerocopek (France), and Web2Null (Germany).
We’re very excited about the coverage and we especially want to thank everyone who signed up in the past two weeks. We have some very ambitious first users who have been using the site intensively, reporting any bugs they found and requesting tons of new features.
These past two weeks we’ve mainly been focusing on bug fixes and the next round of new features. For example, in light of how much international attention we’ve gotten, we’ve updated the Explore Groups page to filter different countries and regions. We’ll be adding some more new features in the coming weeks, and will be keeping you updated.
We really appreciate all of your feedback, and we especially appreciate the thoughtful and detailed suggestions about ways that we can improve BlastGroups and make it even easier to use. If you have any ideas, please send them to suggestions@blastgroups.com.
Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of the Public Beta Version of BlastGroups.
What does this mean for you? For the past few months, BlastGroups has been available to a small test audience, and in that time it has been used to create public and private communities throughout the World. Starting today, BlastGroups is now available for anyone to use and enjoy.
BlastGroups lets you create your own Free Group Website in minutes. Once you have Signed Up, you’ll be able to share pictures, videos, websites, and more by sending email “Blasts” directly to any or all of your Groups and Friends. Of particular interest, BlastGroups improves the way you’re able to share the Web in two exciting new ways:
- The Blast Button is a share bookmarklet you can add to your browser. By using the Blast Button, you can share whatever webpage you’re visiting with specific Groups or Friends with one click.
- The Blast Bookmark is a social bookmark that can be added to the html of any website, blog, or profile. By adding the Blast Bookmark to a website, Web Publishers make it easy for the entire BlastGroups community to share that content with their Groups and Friends.
You can Start your own BlastGroup today and experience first-hand how easy it is to customize an Online Community for your family, friends, co-workers, or any other group you’re involved with. You can also check out some Sample Groups.
We want to thank everyone who’s helped us test out BlastGroups for the past few months. Your feedback has been instrumental in turning BlastGroups into such an easy-to-use platform. Now that it’s available to everyone, we’re excited that even more people will be able to use BlastGroups to help their Communities, Families, and Organizations connect and share.
So what are you waiting for? Head on over to BlastGroups and Start Exploring!
Sharing things with others is one of the greatest joys in life. The main purpose of BlastGroups is to make it easy to share different things with different groups of people.
Each BlastGroup is a free group website and email list about anything. Ideas for potential BlastGroups can range anywhere from Sports Teams to Fan Clubs to Families and more.
Not only can you choose exactly what to make your BlastGroup about, you can choose exactly what you want to share. Whenever you create a BlastGroup, you can choose to add any or all of the following sections to your group website:
-
The Spot - Your Free Group Homepage
- Lounge - Discuss any Topic in your own Online Forum
- Email List - Send Messages directly to Group Members’ Emails
- Blog - Keep your Group Updated
- Calendar - Easily Plan Schedules and Events
- Pictures - Upload and Photo Albums and Images
- Videos - Share Videos from YouTube and other Websites
- Links - Share cool websites, articles, and more from around the Web
- Audio - Share and play Audio Files and Music
- Files - Share and store documents and files for work and school
-
Group HQ - Display your Group’s Most Recent Activity in one place
-
Member List - An Updating Directory of all Group Members
Each BlastGroup is it’s own unique Online Community. More importantly, they’re a fun new way to share and stay in touch with friends. Soon, BlastGroups will be available to everyone. For now, you can learn more by going to www.blastgroups.com.
One of the reasons we started BlastGroups was because of all the cool things we’re always discovering online. There’s so much interesting stuff on the Internet, but nowhere does the axiom “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” apply more directly than here. Something one person finds fascinating might seem like a complete waste of time to some of their closest friends.
BlastGroups make it easy to share a funny video with your friends, a photo album with your family, and an article with your co-workers, and keep each item separated from the rest of your contacts. This way, you can share appropriate things with specific groups that you know will appreciate them. Or, if you find something REALLY cool, you can share it with ALL of your contacts at once with one click.
Making it easy for you to share what you want with who you want, and making it fun and quick, is what we’re most proud about with the latest version of BlastGroups. We’ve made a few additions that you’re going to be excited about. Stay tuned for news about our official launch in the near future.
Welcome to the Blog for BlastGroups.com.
Stay tuned for some exciting news in the next few days…
