Community News
Unique display names are a thing of the past
Category: Community News

Today we have applied an update that no longer requires someone to pick a unique display name. The Spruz platform uses a global member system, so that when someone joins any website in our network they can easily join another website on the platform without having to register all over again. This has its advantages and some disadvantages such as our requirement to having picking a unique name that was not already in use on the platform by someone else.

So just like in real life where there is more then one John Smith in the world, so is the case on the Spruz Platform from this day forward. I am sure many of you will welcome this change as it has been, a bit of a problem for people that feel they should be able to select a name that was already taken.

 We are hoping in the future to have a feature where display names can be unique to just the website a member is on. But without major changes and a good chance of breaking a few things, this feature is several months out.

This should improve the number of registrations since it reduces a friction point in the registration process.

Community Spotlight Changes and Competition
Category: Community News

As many of you know we've been hinting at some changes coming to the Community Spotlight article we run every Friday. The Spotlight's purpose is to bring the community closer and hopefully inspire you with ways to improve your site, while at the same time providing the Spruz developers with insight on changes you'd like see. The revised format will consist of three section: Community of the Week, Suggestion of the Week, and Tip of the Week.

Read on for a more thorough description of each, as well as a brand new competition we're starting!

Community of the Week and Competition

The Spruz platform is used by an amazingly wide range of websites, and up until now there hasn't been a way for us to showcase them. We will be highlighting one site a week from our community that we believe represents the Spruz platform well, providing the members of the community with a description of the site and a chance to see what other site owners have done with their website.

Once eight communities have been highlighted we will allow you, the members of this community, to vote on which of the eight you like the most. Voting will last for five days, at which point a winner will be announced. The winner will receive the following from the Spruz team:

  • Six month upgrade for their site of up to $20 a month
  • A featured spot on the Spruz homepage with a link to their site for two months
  • Name announced to all website owners on the Spruz platform with a link to their site
  • Spruz t-shirt

In order to be eligible you must create an introduction of your site using the format we've provided in the Introduce Your Website forum category. We will be reviewing each site that posts an introduction, so it's important to make a good first impression!

Suggestion of the Week

The Spruz development team has always taken great interest in what the members of this community want to see improved or added to the Spruz platform, and that's certainly not going to change! We will be featuring one suggestion that we'd like more feedback on, consisting of a short description of the idea, credit to the original poster and a link to the topic in the forum. The more people that support an idea, the more likely it'll be added!

Tip of the Week

As mentioned at the beginning of the news post, we want to do everything we can to help you improve your site. Each week we'll provide you with at least one thing you can do to create a better experience for your users that you might not have known about before. If there's something you think other site owners would find helpful please post it in this topic.

Each tip will be added to a brand new element we'll be adding to the home page this week which will display a random tip. Our goal is that you learn something new each time you visit the community.

In Conclusion

We hope you'll enjoy the changes we've made to the Community Spotlight. Since this is such a big change we'll be keeping a close eye on how it all works out and make adjustments as we feel they are needed. As always we're open to any suggestions you have. This is your community!

New Website Account Page on Spruz.com
Category: Community News

Making it easier for free and premium members to view the websites created is important. That is why you will notice that on Spruz.com we have a new menu that provides the options you need on the Spruz.com website.

When logged into www.spruz.com you will now see just Account and Support Ticket Links in the login area at the top of the page rather then Your Home, Inbox, Etc. Clicking on Account takes you to a new website information page that list the websites you own, presents options to automatically load your manager, access support tickets or delete the website if needed.

We were able to customize the login menu area thanks to a new customization feature we have added, this new feature will be available on your website soon.

Our new login area customization has templates for Vistor (Login/Register), Invite Only websites and Logged in Member. Remember Spruz.com uses the same platform that you are using for your website, thus we have the same tools to customize our website as you. It has always been our goal to provide the most customizable, and robust, hosted social website solution on the net. When login menu customization is publicly released, you can do all sorts of cool things like make your own member account page. We hope to have this feature open for all in the next month or so.

Community Site Revamp
Category: Community News

Lately Spruz has been taking a careful look at the Owners' Community Website and brainstorming ways to improve it. It's been a multiweek process, the result of which is outlined in this news post. Read on to see what's changed today and what's planned for the future!

Community Manager
 
The first change is the addition of a "Community Manager" position to the Spruz team. The developers have worked very hard to make the Spruz platform what it is today, but a side effect is that they haven't been able to devote as much time as they'd like to in communicating with their loyal user base. The Community Manager will be in charge of ensuring everything on this website runs smoothly, as well as making the opinions of the Spruz development team known to the community and vice versa. Seeing as I'm posting this, it's probably a good bet that I accepted the position ;)
 
The first order of business will be starting a weekly "Community Spotlight" article that will be released every Friday (starting next week). The article will highlight specific threads that have gotten a lot of attention from the members. At the end of each week a copy will be sent to Spruz and posted on the Owners' Community. This will give the Spruz developers more time to focus on improvements to the platform, while at the same time giving members the opportunity to make sure their voices are being heard.
 
New Moderator
 
Because of how much the site has grown we feel it necessary to bring aboard another member of the community as a forum moderator. Kirumiri has been a huge help to the community at large, answering questions and resolving issues with speed and accuracy. As such it's my great honor to announce that she has accepted the position of moderator! Please remember that forum moderator positions are given on an invite only basis, and the number of moderators we have is only increased as we feel they are necessary.
 
Updated Home Page
 
The first thing you probably noticed on visiting is the new home page. Our goal with the redesign was to make it easier for new members to get active on the website, while still providing veteran users with an experience they're comfortable and familiar with. There are a few things that didn't get added this time around, but that we plan to add in the (hopefully) near future.
 
Reorganized Forum
 
The forums have been the biggest draw of the Owners' Community, but as always there are things that can be improved. We've restructured the forum categories, which included combining, renaming, removing and creating threads. It may take a little time to get used to, but we're confident that the new structure will be better in the end. Below is the list of the newly organized forums:
 
Owner's Lounge
  • General Discussion
  • Idea Room
Your Website
  • Introduce Yourself
  • Constructive Criticism
  • Tips and Tricks
Support
  • General Support
  • Custom Coding
  • Design
The Future
 
As stated earlier, there were things we wanted to add that we didn't have time to. We realize that it's always possible to improve on what we've done before. As such we're always trying to think of new ways to improve your experience both here and with the Spruz platform in general. Read on for a few things planned.
  • Website of the Month
  • "Quick Tip" section on the home page
  • Member created guide using the future Wiki system
In Closing
 
We hope you enjoy the changes that have been made. Remember that this is your community, and without your interaction and input it wouldn't be what it is today. If there's something you'd like to see added to the website we'd love to hear about it in this thread.
IM bar will be discontinued in February
Category: Community News

We will be discontinuing the integrated IM and the who's online features will revert back to a standard time out rather like other whos online systems. Those of you that want IM and Who's online features can use these features by adding the Skysa bar to your website.

Skysa is a website App Footer bar you can add to your Spruz powered website that features many different apps including live chat, IM, commenting, Facebook and much more. In addition Skysa will soon have a friends online messaging App just like the one that is currently on our IM bar. If you have a premium account before Feb 1st you can request a 1 year free branding removal from Skysa by emailing help@skysa.com with your account email address.

The reason for this is this allows us to focus development resources that would be spent on improving the current integrated IM bar and IM features on other features and improvements within the Spruz platform. In addition since we develop the Skysa bar, this makes it easier for us to centralized development resources.

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