This is some cool news indeed.
WordPress 2.6 Release Candidate 1 is available from wordpress.
This means the imminent launch of 2.6 final is close by and that means a whole new world of blogging.
We are pretty amped about it and even though this blog runs an older version of WP2 we use the cutting edge stuff on some of our own personal blogs.
Paul wrote a cool article on SEO for wordpress that you can read on his blog over at
http://www.pauldesousa.co.za/
Did you know: Vault9 has hundreds of free, fun flash games for all its members?
eXlinks will be launching a public beta on the 1st of May 2007!
1. The year past
2. The year coming
3. BlogMad sells credits!
4. BlogMad wiki
5. New Feature - Ticket based Support system
6. New Feature - Pre-approved blogs
7. New Feature - Advanced Credit allocation
8. Random Free credits
8. Vision for 2007
Wow! what a year it’s been! We have gone from strength to strength in the last year and we keep growing in numbers. It would never have been possible without the help of our members and for your assistance we thank you!
This is the last time you will hear from us this year and we just wanted to let you in on a few things.
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The year past
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This past year has not been without challenges, we did however, manage to secure a small investment through acquisition which was a positive move for us and the additional funding, although not huge, meant a better infrastructure. BlogMad was moved to better servers almost seamlessly and again recently additional servers were added to support the site because of the need for additional resources.
So for this we’d like to extend a hearty thank you to the folks behind Kinetiq.
The support team have been marvelous and we’d like to extend a special word of thanks to Ender who has managed to keep the shoutbox rocking and has been instrumental in keeping the sanity levels in check. We urge everyone to pop by the shoutbox from time to time, chat to the support team and generally join in the fun.
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The year coming
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2006 was a year that saw us achieving many of the goals that we set out and 2007 will be another such year where we set goals and push hard to achieve them. Some of these goals include a lot of additional functions which are mentioned below. We have list of things to get through and implement before the site goes final. While the Internet is a fast developing dynamic entity, it’s difficult to keep pace with the fast moving things and we keep resetting certain goals so that we may try to keep abreast of the changes. But 2007 promises to be a very good year for BlogMad. Watch this space!
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BlogMad sell credits!
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One of the much requested features was implemented a couple of months back and that was to allow people to purchase credits. Initially we experienced a few hiccups with Visa credit cards but that has since been resolved and you are welcome to use the facility to purchase credits. Because of the 1:1 ratio making credits available for purchase was nearly impossible but because we are able to displace credits from banner views on the actual BlogMad site which means that each month we can only allocate about 50 000 credits for sale. Be sure to buy early in case the month’s allocation ends quickly. The proceeds made from the last batch of credits sold was used to purchase additional servers to assist with the load. A BIG thank you to the people who purchased credits. BlogMad is a lot more stable now because of your contributions.
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BlogMad wiki
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We have implemented a wiki to assist people with queries and will be doing away with the forums. The wiki can be updated by anyone so the info on the wiki will always be up to date. Joe, one of the support moderators is the wiki guru and you can approach him for assistance on the wiki. Anyone is welcome to add articles and help files to the wiki. Active volunteers will get a few credits for their help.
We are currently populating the wiki with content and will release it shortly.
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New Feature - Ticket based Support system
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We have been getting huge amounts of support emails and need to implement a way to quickly resolve the support emails so that we don’t lose track, so we’ll be launching a new ticket based system within the next week or so. The way it will work is that it will assign you a number, and the ticket will have various degrees of completion so that you may track in detail how far your query is.
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New Feature - Pre approved blogs
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The majority of the blogs that join BlogMad are good genuine blogs that we want to be a part of our community but there are still a few that join that have pop ups and other nasty things going on, so we are implementing a system to pre-approve blogs that join, meaning that we will be able to control what comes in therefore creating a listing of only the best blogs. We’ll also clamp down heavily on blogs that are too adult in nature as we want BlogMad to be family friendly. Gone is the spam, gone are the pop ups, gone is the porn.
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New Feature - Advanced Credit allocation
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A few weeks back we started rolling out the new credit allocation system. We are aware that its not working 100% but we are going to be working hard to get it up and running before New Year’s Day. The new credit allocation system will allow you to dictate where and how your credits get used.
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Random Free credits
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Many users will notice that every once in a while, they are awarded free credits and have asked why they are not distributed more often. This is again because of the ratio. It becomes difficult to set aside credits for random give aways. However from time to time people in the shoutbox get told of a double credit session where you earn double credits for surfing. Make sure you check the shoutbox out!
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Vision for 2007
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With a new year comes new resolutions, new ideas and new focus, not to mention new features. Our focus for the new year is to pump out additional features based around increasing traffic. We have a few other nice games and other goodies coming but the big one is eXlinks. We know that you have been hearing eXlinks eXlinks eXlinks for a while now and we’ve been pretty quiet about, except for the overzealous user who managed to take a few screenshots of a private area, but the low down is this: eXlinks means exponential linking. The way we have structured the site and the function is that its going to work on who you refer. The more people you refer, the more incoming links you will get and we all know that incoming links is king! It’s structured in such a way that you will have blogs and sites that link to other people that link to you. It’s the best thing since sliced cheese and we are almost ready to release a working alpha version. In the meantime, get busy and start referring your friends and fellow bloggers. The reason we kept it as a separate site is so that we can allow general sites and forums to get in on the action too so you get incoming links from any web presence and not just blogs. Diversity is where it’s at! Go visit the eXlinks website and get the referrer images and banners.
We know that we have been promising reviewr for a while, but with the need to focus on adding additional servers and optimizing the new webserver, fx (Dave) has had to put reviewr on the backburner. He aims however to release it in February. We got a sneak peak of it recently and boy! is it looking sweet!
The other focus of Kinetiq for the new year is to be able to use the proceeds from advertising and other ventures for community benefit. As of 2007, Kinetiq is going to start donating a portion of all proceeds of credit sales and advertising to a worthy cause.
A sad reality of African countries is the number of homeless people that perish during the cold winter months, so out 1st order of business in this regard is to use our donations to purchase blankets to be given away in June to the cold homeless people. We’ll put up a counter from January 1st and mark off each blanket bought so you can keep track of how well we are doing. We are really excited about this as it has been a big dream of ours to be able to make a difference. We have been lucky to find a supplier who would be able to give us blankets quite cheap, for the equivalent of $7.50, we can buy 1 thick blanket, so that means for every $30 spent on credits, we’ll be able to put aside some money to upgrade our infrastructure and also have enough to buy 1 blanket, possibly 2 if we buy in bulk.
If anyone wants to make donations to be used directly to this cause they can contact us and we can arrange something. All help will be appreciated.
That’s it from us!
Enjoy the holidays and we’ll see you on the flip side!
regards
The BlogMad Team
The latest addition to the Kinetiq network has been launched, Blognetiq. It is, for now, a network of blogs published only by Kinetiq and based around the technology scene. The full list of blogs, their feeds and their links can be seen here.
This has also seen the re-launch of an old favourite, Blolg!
We’ve just given every single user 50 free BlogMad credits to use however they wish! This is our way of saying thanks for being members, and even though we are trying to sell a few credits - we’ll always be the highest ratio site!
Enjoy
As with any Beta product, BlogMad too has hit a few bumps in the road that we are looking to clear up.
We have recently had reports of people’s credits being eaten up way too fast.
This is something that we have laid into full force with everyone on the team (other than Ian who is on honeymoon) looking into it.
We have decided because of popular demand and numerous requests, to rewrite many portions of the site to allow for greater credit control. This means that in the next 4 to 6 weeks we will be releasing new features or rather enhanced features which will allow blog owners to allocate credits to their blogs and blog features all without compromising credits.
To make up for any inconvenience caused, we have decided to go with double credits at regular ,more frequent intervals, allowing people to make up the credits.
We will be posting a full explanation of how things are going to work which will be incredibly fair for everyone.
We would like to thank you for your support thus far and look forward to having a mutally beneficial and long relationship with our users.
We are months away from releasing the blogmad site as a final product and there are huge changes coming.
Watch this space!
We are proud to announce that one of the core team members got married this weekend.
Ian & his lovely bride, Judiet had an awesome garden wedding that was like something out of the movies.
Dave the best man pulled off an incredibly awesome speech and the evening was fun filled and the alcohol flowed.
WARNING : Tequila bombs are lethal! Ask Paul and Darryl.
Here are a few photos for your perusal.
| Dave (FX) The best man |
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| The Setting |
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| The Groom |
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| The Lovely Bride |
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| Not sure who is more nervous, Dave or Ian |
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| The Vows |
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| A prayer for the couple |
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| The Newly married, Mr and Mrs Barnes |
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Kinetiq has opened its doors with a bang, with two community driven websites - Vault9 & BlogMad - we hope to take to the next level! With this bold move we have also launched our website.
Its a big day for us, and a big day for any of the members on the Kinetiq network. We have slim-lined our team and our websites, and joined forces to take these sites forward.