Spruz Owners' Community For owners of websites powered by the Spruz Platform

Remember the “Win a Custom Theme” contest we did a couple weeks ago?  Well, the new themes have now been applied and ready for all to see.

DirtyDiaperClub.com got a fresh new look, with balloons, babies and soothing pastels; it now has an exterior look that matches its heart and soul.  Any mothers out there, take note, this is a great community for you to meet with other moms and talk about mom stuff, so be sure to check it out.  We all know you need a place to unwind now and then.

Thr33CityGamers.com has been refreshed.  Sporting new graphics, retro greens and mixed together with a modern look; this, for gamers by gamers, site is a great place to hang out in an open atmosphere and talk about your latest digital conquests.   If you’re a gamer you’ll want to head on over there and starting sharing the w00t…

Have your own community? You can get it a facelift for the holidays too!  We have a special price if you order a custom theme before January 1^st, only $199! Click here to order your very own custom theme, made to your specs.

A few days ago we told you a bit about the new calendar update for the Spruz communities, here’s the full poop on what it means to you: 

• Better event formatting; including the option to add images, format text add links, etc.
• Event discussions let your users talk about the events.
• RSVP and Event Compactly settings allow you to host size restricted events and know exactly how many people will be there.
• You can now edit the event template, choosing if and where comments can be added as well as all the other parts of the event, a great way to add a bit of uniqueness.

Also with this update we have changed the far right section of the page builder to a non global area to allow more room for system pages such as gallery and calendar as well as make the dynamic pages such as the home page more flexible.

grow yourself.™

One thing is for sure, the folks here at Spruz have not been taking off for any snow days.  And it is paying off and will continue to pay off for you in a big way this holiday season! Here’s a quick recap of features we have added to the Spruz sites/communities in the last few weeks:

Nov 21^st – A new communities page is released on Spruz making it easier for users to find your community as well as helping search engines get your sites listed faster.  Also in the communities page update is a more polished community browser that shows pictures of users in the communities. more information...

Nov 24^th – Slick new themes are released, as well as new site modifiers. more information...

Nov 25^th – Spruz Mail is launched. Now for the first time any member of any community on Spruz can have a completely free email integrated with their Spruz ID.  Each email account comes with 500MB of storage space, the ability to check other email accounts, full contacts management, personal calendar and task manager and can be accessed anywhere. more information...

Dec 1^st – New commenting system comes online with beautiful new styling that matches your community seamlessly. Everything that uses comments, such as news posts and blogs takes advantage of the new commenting.  The Discussion page element is also released, taking full advantage of the new commenting; it allows you to allow users to discuss anything just by adding it to the page. more information...

Dec 5^th – The first in a new series of Spruz help and information videos is released explaining everything you need to know about Spruz Access Levels, how they work and how you can use them to make your community better than ever. more information...

[Don’t you just feel the momentum building?]

And that brings us to now; we have just released some awesome new updates you’ll want to tell your friends and family about. (heck, maybe even your pets)

We have added more permission options that take advantage of Spruz Access Levels; allowing, among other things, you to let users post news/blog entries in your site blog based on their access level. You can even allow them to create categories if you want.

A brand new system has been released allowing you to sell subscription services to users. With Site Subscriptions you can now charge people to access parts of your site, opening up new possibilities for paid communities, premium news, online magazine subscriptions, etc. Just add a site subscriptions page in the Page Builder to get started!

A huge calendar update has been completed that improves everything from how the mini-calendar looks to how events are added.  Highlights include: rich event formatting, the option to allow commenting on events, access level support, simpler event viewing and adding and styling improvements.

Styling and functionality improvements have been made to the site blogging to take better advantage of social bookmarking and make the blog

We have had several questions from users about how the Spruz Access Levels work. (Why are there so many levels of access? What does each of them do? Etc.) To answer all your questions we have put together a new help video, the first in a new line of help videos we will be releasing.  The Spruz Access Levels Video has been posted in the Video Help section in Q & A.  Feel free to give your comments on the video in this news topic.

Links:

• View Spruz Access Levels Video
• View Spruz Q & A Section

We are working on some new promotional documentation that we would love to have some user feedback for. So, who better to ask than you? (No brainer, right?) Anyway, if you enjoy using Spruz for you or your business’s website, if Spruz being here has helped you grow your community or any other way that what we have provided has been a benefit, please let us know.

Here’s what we are looking for:

• Just leave a comment on this news post. A short, one or two paragraphs, testimonial of how the tools Spruz provides has helped you, your business, your community, your church, or anything else.
• When you are done just sign your full name.
• Then include your city and state at the bottom or the business/organization you are associated with.

That’s it, happy holidays and thank you in advance for your great comments.

grow yourself.™