Blogivists HQ

One of our big goals for 2010 is to become more than a blogging platform. Of course, the blogs will always be the core part of the Blogivists family, but we want to expand out and be able to offer a lot more to our user base.

We’ve recently coded in a community feature that allows any user to create a community through the backend, we’ve added internal instant messaging systems, we made it possible for any user to start an internal discussion forum, we’ve expanded our themes to include premium themes, and now we’re adding one of the coolest features we’ve ever had… Read the rest of this entry »

It’s obvious that a lot of changes are happening around Blogivists.com. We’ve upgraded our software, coded in a ton of new features, cleaned up the old themes and upgraded the existing themes.

We’re also building a new support system that we hope will help deal with any major issues as they arise. This new system will be in place by New Years Day of 2010.

One of the new functions we haven’t talked much about is our upcoming premium services. As you might imagine, running this website is not cheap for us, but we work hard to keep it free for you. Of course, we can’t do this forever without building in alternatives that can bring in revenue needed to operate the site. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, I admit… I’m kind of excited about this poll. Not just because the poll is about the upgraded software we’re running, but also because I get to announce a new global plugin that will help you host polls on your blog as well.

That’s right… we now have the PollDaddy Plugin running on all Blogivists blogs. What this means is that once you set up a free Poll Daddy account, you’ll be able to easily post Poll Daddy polls in your blog posts.

Instructions:
Once you set up your free Poll Daddy account, find the button that allows you to create a new poll. Poll Daddy will walk you through the simple steps and options on setting up your poll. Once you save all of the settings for the poll, you’ll be taken to a page with some code for the poll.

Ignore the code that you’re presented with, and in the right sidebar you’ll see a box for “Wordpress Blogs”. Click on that box.

The next page presents you with three options. You want the option that says “I host my own WordPress blog (version 2.5 or higher)”. When you click that option, you’ll be given a short strip of code. Copy that and paste it into your blog post.

Save… publish… and vote!

With that said… please vote in this poll.

[polldaddy poll="1343719"]

Good news!!!

Last night we upgraded our software from Wordpress MU 2.6.5 to Wordpress MU 2.7 and we think everything went through smoothly. You’ll notice a LOT of changes in the way the backend looks and feels, so you may want to take some time to surf around and get comfortable with the new system.

Now that the software is completely upgraded, we’ll be able to go in and do a final clean up of plugins and themes.

This means you’ll begin to see a lot of new plugins and themes in the coming weeks.

Thanks for hanging in there with us during these changes!

-Eric Odom

There will be an official announcement coming out this week, but I wanted to drop you a line letting you know why you’re seeing changes happen during the weekend.

First of all, regarding the server move that happened Friday night, it went pretty smoothly for the most part. We think we got all files and databases moved, and we think the domain structure is also fully intact. We are experiencing some slow downs on the backend (after you log in), but I think we’ll be able to iron those problems out this week.

You might notice significant decreases in the number of themes available. In fact, the theme you’re using may be taken out of the system during the next few days. The reason for this is that we’re getting ready for a major overhaul and software upgrade, and most of the themes we’re running are old, outdated, buggy and overall problematic to the site’s performance and visual appeal.

Chances are high that during the last week of January, there will only be about 20 themes available on Blogivists.com. Don’t worry though, we’re going to be installing some new themes that are much more modern, user friendly, up to date, bug free and visually appealing.

The same goes for plugins… many of our plugins were outdated. Some of them weren’t even supposed to be running with our current version of WordpressMU, so there was potential for serious damage within our code.

We’ve stripped out almost all of the plugins that were running on Blogivists.com. We’ll be taking a look at our current situation, the fixes that are coming with WPMU 2.7, and based on our findings, we’ll upload new plugins that will better fit our needs.

The support system will also go through a complete revamp. Instead of the old ticketing system, we’re now going to be using BBPress for a discussion forum setup. The cool thing about BBPress is that if you’re logged in to yoru blog, you’ll automatically be logged in to the forums and will have the same profile.

This should all be cleaned up, completed and ready to roll out in early February.

Thanks for hanging in there with us while we go through these changes!

-Eric Odom