The BlogShares Blog

Here at Blogshares, we all know that a blog is dead if there have been no new posts in six months. We can't have that for our own blog, it just wouldn't be right.
So, given that we needed to post something here anyway, I think it's time to tell you about a new feature we are working on in the GIC Labs. For a long time, we've wanted to make the "public" market a bit more dynamic and less predictable. We've come up with a way to start that process by causing some semi-automated trading of blogs that look like they might be interesting. The only blogs affected are those solely owned by the public, and the trades will look a lot like normal player activity.
The financial effect of this functionality is somewhat limited, generating a couple of billion B$ in value through testing on a few dozen blogs. Once the kinks are all worked out, we hope that it will open up trading opportunities for shares players by exposing blogs that they might not run across in normal searches or other play.

Posted by The GIC at 04:41 PM | GIC News | Permalink | Comments (1)

AP - Santa Cruz - 27 Jan 08 18:00 - Recent huge growth in the BlogShares stock market has fueled rumors of a systemic problem with the market. Gains on the order of 25% have been realized since last Friday's news of a crash broke. Some individual stocks are up tens of thousands of percentage points.

Click the image for a larger version

Game Director Suburban Wolf could not be reached for comment. Through his spokesman, Director Island Dave expressed optimism that the future of the market was "bright and sunny."

Despite the comforting words from Island Dave, we can report that all is not well with the market. An anonymous source intimately familiar with the inner workings of the market, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak with media, said, "We're [expletive deleted]! We're totally [expletive deleted] man! We are so [expletive deleted] that the word [expletive deleted] doesn't even begin to describe how [expletive deleted] we truly are."

Only time will tell, but the recent volatility in the blogs market would indicate that troubled times may be ahead.

Posted by The GIC at 06:03 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (2)

AP - 2 hours, 44 minutes ago - BlogShares ended a tumultuous week with a sharp decline Friday, backtracking following two weeks of stunning gains as investors turned cautious and cashed in some of their winnings.

Pundits on the afternoon business channel programs unanimously declared a profound shift in market dynamics. "It's as if blog valuations have been turned on their ears," said analyst Ken Adams on the Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto show. "We don't completely understand the phenomenon, but it's clear that the business cycle has shifted."

Once mighty Wonkette and it's affiliates were among the first to feel the pain, with values dropping precipitously through early after-hours trading. Rumors place the losses somewhere near 90% before all is said and done, and cash flow for these companies appears to be severely restricted.

Rob in China, spokesman for the Blogshares Securities and Exchange Commission, could not be reached for comment. Exchange director Suburban Wolf, meanwhile, deferred comment until after his pedicure.

Posted by MrPilot at 05:47 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (1)

This has been one helluva week here at BlogShares. To kick things off, we got the new database box installed and serving live data. This is the new db box that started as a community fund drive and became the desperately needed major upgrade to the entire site. The web box got a kernal upgrade and many needed optimizations. This broke a few things codewise, but we've tracked down and fixed all major bugs to this point. And that was just the first 3 days...

We've seen the launch of Turbo Chances (and saw the Chip Market prices surge for days as a result). In-game message handling got smarter. Composite scores are now figured hourly (previously every 3 hours). The Industry Trading tool is available once more. A rewrite of the Players Market (p2p ideas market) is in the queue. And the big one: Share searching is back online, bringing back a very long awaited and very powerful tool for share play.

We'd love to officially congratulate the newest BlogShares Elite: Sage Enterprises. She has stepped down as an Admin, but she'll still be around and in force. She's held practically every role the game has to offer, but has never lost her keenest of game smarts. A very much deserved honor.

We'd also like to welcome J.T. Sage and beachtiglet to the GIC team. Ken and Ts (along with many other beta testers and bug finders) have been invaluable to the Admin and BOD this week, and are eager to see the new recruits jump into the mix. Lots of cool things are suddenly possible in BlogShares, and I cannot wait to see what the team will come up with.

For what is a first to my knowledge, someone with certified legal education has joined the BSEC. We're not sure whether to be happy about that or scared, but either way, welcome to immunis. I'm sure someone will find a cheatypants for you to bust very soon.

Don't forget to get your vote in for BlogShares Wacko and buy raffle tickets for the upcoming Futurama DVD giveaway.

Let me leave you with a pic from October when ID and IT visited Jay and SubWolf in central California. SubWolf was on his way back to the UK the next day, after having spent an extra week in the US after his mom broke her foot the night before the original flight out. Twas a great trip, and I love this shot of the 3 guys that are Santa Cruz Tech finally in the same place at the same time.

Posted by Island Dave at 08:05 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (8)

We've been meaning to hold another IRC player summit for many, many months (ok, I'll admit it, the earliest discussion in the staff forum about this dates back to September last year!). So far, things have always conspired against us and the days and weeks have continued rolling past. Before we knew it, it's winter again and over a year of BlogShares play has gone by. Amazing how time flies, isn't it?

No more excuses! This is an early warning to players to have a think about issues they want to raise. It's also a public announcement to get us to get our butts into gear. The programme of topics is quite loose at the moment, but certainly I'd like to discuss the following points at a minimum:

• Revolution in Share Play and Blog Valulation Math
• Changes to the Composite Rank
• Industry Captains
• Enhancements to Corporations
• The BlogShares Economy

Everyone is welcome to the Town Hall meeting. It will be held in one of the BlogShares IRC channels, and detailed joining instructions will be given nearer the time. For those of you who cannot make it, regular (every 10 minutes or so) logs will be pasted to the forums.

Just remember, if you're not there, you can't participate and help forge the direction BlogShares will take in 2008!

Posted by AdamF at 01:38 PM | FrontPage | Permalink

Hopefully we can get regular blogging going again. This is my first post here, so please be gentle! --Adam.

The thing about BlogShares, as many have noticed, is that volunteers keep it alive. Our Index Managers with their indepth expertise in all-things blog related; the GIC and their analytical minds helping to formulate the future of the game and coming up with innovative contests and competitions; the BSEC, rule enforcers and providers of justice for all; Tengrrl, our tireless Editor, ensuring that the documentation keeps up with the game and its myriad of changes. Everyone on this team each provide a unique and very necessary part of the puzzle and challenge of keeping BlogShares going. They all come in for continual demands from above, and hassle from below.

Thank you for doing what you do. If you've not thought of getting involved before, you can apply to join the team. Click here for more information.

Many of you, old and new, will probably by now be aware that the lead developer of the game suffered a stroke earlier this year. He has now returned to the UK from the USA to continue his recovery. I hope everyone will join me in wishing him a full and speedy recovery. We miss you, Subwolf.

This has sadly impacted on where we are with the continued development of the game. Dave, primarily committed with other Santa Cruz Tech projects (the owners of BlogShares), offers what time he can. I try and do the most pressing, small improvements or bug-fixes. We do have a great deal planned; changes to share play, share math, the voting process, and much, much more. We are accutely aware that there are issues with the game. The GIC have formulated a way forward on many of those fronts. Sage has grand plans for fixing what is wrong with a lot of the issues surrounding voting and more.

Please bear with us on these fronts. We're not burying our heads in the sand as some accuse, or simply ignoring the issues; It goes back to the volunteer nature of the game development. It has become over the years, a very, very complex beast. Even the smallest of changes have to be checked against a whole host of factors to make sure fixing one thing, isn't going to break 3 others! We will get there with time. I promise you that. Our walking-talking reference manual (Subwolf) isn't available, so everything takes 3 times as long.

With all that said, now, some good news!

The recent database crash reminded us just how pressing the need is for getting the new database server plumbed in. I am hopeful that this will finally be happening over the next 2 weeks. We were lucky that there were sufficient options available to finally get the repair to work, although it was touch-and-go at one point with just 118mb of free disk space remaining! The things we can do with the raw processing power available on the new box is almost limitless, and I'll be trawling through the forum suggestions for the last 2 years or so looking for the immortal phrase "maybe when we have a new db server"!

There's a new GIC Competition running right now and a side bet to go with it. Free chips and an artefact are the main prize, as well as potentially, many more thousands on the side bet. You'd be mad to miss it!

That's it from me for now. Until next time.

Posted by AdamF at 11:44 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (2)

My friends and fellow BlogSharesians, it gives me great pleasure to announce that the much-anticipated brand new database server has been ordered! It began with the dream of more resources for the game, was made a reality though the incredible generosity of the BlogShares community, and will soon be realized when the new database server arrives in California to be installed and put into operation. Here are some specs and highlights:

• Processors: 2 x Dual-core AMD Opteron 2.2GHz 2MB Cache
• Memory: 4 x 2GB PC5300 667MHz DDR2 ECC Registered
• Hard Drives: 5 x 73.4GB SAS 15000 RPM - Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 (RAID 5)
• Total Cost: $5,750 (the rest of the money raised will go towards shipping, hosting, and support expenses)

We don't yet have an ETA for installation, but that will hopefully be very soon after shipment. When the new server is installed, it will likely entail a day or possibly two days of downtime for the game. In addition to installing the new database server, we will use that time to do the wipe, OS upgrade, and re-installation of the web server as well. This way everything will be running optimally. More details about this process will be released when available.

Role Announcements:
I am also happy to announce several new role promotions. First, we would like to extend a belated welcome for Honey4evr and Enigma Chaos to the Index Management team. They have been in their roles for several weeks and dove right in to assist with the very complex task of maintaining our index.

Next, we would like to welcome T$ and Ken Adams to the GIC. These players are very knowledgeable about the game and we look forward to their assistance as we expand upon and improve the game in the future.

And finally, it is our distinct pleasure to bestow the title of Elite Player to R U Serious. RUS has been a valued member of the community for some time now and since the addition of the new composite scoring he has been prolific in holding onto the #1 spot. Well done!

Congratulations to all of our new roled players!

Posted by MrPilot at 01:24 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've spent the last two weeks in California, visiting with Jay and checking out the area - it's fantastic, I hope to move here very soon. During the visit, I had the opportunity to visit the hosting facility for Blogshares, and snap a photo of the old database box, shown here. In case you didn't know, it's a Quad PIII 550Mhz with 4Gb RAM and 10K SCSI disks with RAID-5. It's served us well, handling up to 900 queries per second when the spiders were running flat out alongside the website, but it's slowly failing. Not to worry, due to your contributions, soon this old box will go on easy street.

No, we haven't purchased the new one yet - this is taking some careful planning and execution, going for a balance of future security while not compromising on components. We're gonna shell out for a 3 year 4-hour response warranty out of our own pocket, on top of the community donations, to make sure that in the unlikely event of a hardware problem, we can get it sorted quickly. The hope is we'll have a box on order within the next two weeks, we'll keep you informed of any news.

Cheers!

Addendum: While doing some Java today, I'm reminded of a site that has helped me immensely in the maintenance and growth of the spiders, as well as our other projects, yet I've never given it props. It's Roedy Green's Java & Internet Glossary, a useful resource. Thanks to him for the help it's brought me.

Posted by Suburban Wolf at 11:15 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (6)

We are continually overwhelmed by the generousity and kindness we see every day by the BlogShares community, and as you may have noticed, that generousity has paid off big time for the BlogShares site. Yesterday, after numerous donations from a wide range of players and anonymous donors, our fund drive for a new database box was completed.

You did it.

You, the players, have come through stronger than we could ever have imagined. This wasn't paid sponsors or advertisers or corporate investment, this was a diverse, wide-spread group of players who have given and given strongly. Thanks to your donations, BlogShares will soon have a more powerful box for the database, which means more features, faster pages, and greater flexibility in the game.

This is no small feat. You have given over $6000 in less than one year's time. To say we are blown away would be an understatement. We are incredibly thankful for your donations, and we look forward to selecting a box and getting it online for you as soon as possible. How can we possibly say enough 'Thank You Thank You Thank You'. We'll keep you up to date as we go through the process of selecting and installing the new box, and it will be our pleasure to do so. Best wishes and our eternal gratitude to everyone who contributed in any way to this fund drive, and we at BlogShares look forward to spending time each day in this community that you all have built as a unique, welcoming, generous, and positive Home on the web. Cheers and thank you, all. We can't wait to see what you will do next!

Posted by Island Dave at 09:51 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (6)

Lots of things going on in the world of BlogShares right now, and we're asking for your help to move things forward on several fronts. Our New DB Fund (right side-bar) has been filling up nicely, but we still have a ways to go. A very, very generous anonymous donor is making a very special offer to help meet the goal. For every $1 donated to the DB Fund, the donor will match it with $2. That's right, if you donate $10, the donor throws in $20 more! You can give to the fund right now:

You may also have noticed that 3 of the Development Funds have had cash goals met. Thank you to everyone who donated to these and others! Now, we need to see those B$ goals met! Please, donate some of your B$ assets to these goals. There are dozens of players who could finish off these goals all by themselves, so let's get these goals met ASAP! Admin Sage Enterprises has offered to match B$ donations to the Text Ad Editing Fund to fill that goal, so take her up on the offer!

Finally, BlogShares' chat room #blogshares is one of the largest rooms housed in the WyldRyde IRC Network. Right now, WyldRyde has a fund drive going on to help pay for various expenses that add up quickly on a large chat network. Several generous B$ players have donated to WyldRyde, and we'd like to send them much more for the professional, spam-free chatting #blogshares regulars rely on. If you enjoy chatting in #blogshares, or any of the WyldRyde chat rooms, or even if you just want to help out the cause, please give what you can to help the folks behind wyldryde.org pay the network's bills! You'll get a special hostmask identifying you as a donor, plus loads of kudos and appreciation from the proprietors at WyldRyde.

Posted by Island Dave at 11:24 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (1)

For those who have been hibernating, we've added a lot to BlogShares lately. The most recent addition is the new drop down navigation bar at the top of every game page. Thanks to some DHTML goodness, we're using JavaScript to give us a dynamic and much more flexible menu for navigation. You'll likely also notice a color tweak to our standard blues and greens across the site, as well as a lime makeover for the top banner. Hope you like it!

Just launched are the new Development Funds. You can help determine what cool new features we work on, and help the coders spend more time on the game. Please donate your B$ and/or real cash to your favorite funds, and support BlogShares and the people behind it.

We now have a Lottery where you can spend your B$ for a chance to hit a nice jackpot. Some of the early wins have gone over half a trillion B$!

There is also a Birthday signup available on your User Preferences page (click the 'Prefs' tab from your user Profile or click [Your Preferences] in the right-side Members Area menu). If you would like to add your birthday, you can do so, and on your special day, your player name will appear in a special 'Today's Birthdays' box in the right sidebar.

Don't forget to add BlogShares to your Myspace friends list, and join the BlogShares Music Lovers group at Last.fm!

Posted by Island Dave at 04:57 PM | FrontPage | Permalink

Here's hoping you and yours are having a healthy and happy December, and are able to enjoy whatever holidays you hold dear. Real Life™ has caught up with many of us the last few weeks, so you may not have seen a lot of development or new posts here. However, we're still chugging away behind the scenes on things like index cleaning (removing dead blogs in bulk, nearly a million delisted in the last five weeks) and optimizations (code improvement, data archiving).

Thanks to tremendous work from Friendly Wholesale Bonds, Beverly Shaw, and ChrisB, our fund for a new database box has seen a healthy movement towards our $6,000 goal. Thank you, Rich, Bev, and Chris, and thank you as well to all the generous folks who have participated and helped B$ get closer to the new box!

My personal apologies for not being able to get the next community IRC Summit together. I've had some family issues that have kept me busy lately, and I've been unable to tackle all the work that goes into putting such a large gathering together. Don't fret, though, we will have a Summit in the near future, probably some time after New Years if all goes well, where we'll deal with many subjects, including fine-tuning and improving Ideas Math.

You may have noticed that we've put new blog addition (from our spiders) on hold. We were relying on the FeedMesh ping list to receive blog pings, but with the demise of PubSub, FeedMesh has gone offline. We have a couple of other ping lists / clouds that we can use, but we have unfortunately discovered that the urls pinging are very, very high in non-blogs and spam. We'd slaughter the index quickly if we blindly accepted these listings without a serious rewrite to our current code.

We are working on refining our automated ping reading, but until we can build, test, and implement such a system, the automatied pinging will remain offline. You can still add blogs yourself with Add Site. You can also use the Add Site bookmarklet (drag it to your toolbar) to quickly add a blog you are viewing. It fills in blog title and url for you, just double check and submit. We've just added Sigma and Chip rewards for your additions, awarding you 1 Sigma point and 20 chips for each URL you add. We are logging every addition, so be certain you are adding a blog and not non-blogs or spam. The BSEC will be notified if abuse is found.

Posted by Island Dave at 05:09 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (3)

We've worked out as many bugs and issues as possible with the new Idea math code, and can do nothing more until it is run on the game live. The target date for implementation is August 21, so you have a reasonable time to get your Idea holdings in order. Between coding, analysis, testing, and all the various discussions that have gone into this, the Admin, GIC, and BoD members have easily spent over 100 hours getting this ready, and the end result is a dynamic Ideas market that should be much more interesting than what you see currently. Premium Members will have access to at least one additional tool or data set to help with Ideas market play, and we'll have this ready prior to this implementation.

Now some caveats:
* We cannot predict what this new math will do beyond the spare tests we have run. Because we don't have a mirrored backup server, we can't test it live on real data beyond a one-off run. This means we are forced to make predictions of how the market will work based solely on a very small, and possibly non-representative set of data. We've done the best we can, but be forewarned that even TPTB don't know how the market will handle things over numerous iterations.

* There may be several times during early implementation that Ideas play will need to be taken offline to make adjustments to the code. This is expected to happen, so please understand that we will do so to prevent undesirable or unstable side-effects from taking place. This should only happen during the first few weeks or possibly as far as a couple months after implementation.

* We do not expect to see instant crashes of market prices, nor do we expect to see instantaneous skyrocketing of prices. However, we have observed those effects in one or two industries (and even then, only once or twice). We believe we have code in place to prevent such drastic price movements from happening in one drop or even over a short set of drops. That said, again, be forewarned that either extreme reaction is still possible. We will not correct the market should this take place except in cases where bugs cause extreme reactions.

* The new math code brings a couple new twists to the Ideas market, one of which has long been requested by a wide variety of players: consumption. Simply put, if Ideas are sitting on the market when a drop happens, the most typical response is for consumption of sitting ideas rather than dropping additional ones onto the pile. While downward price pressure during the drop remains high, consumption eats away at existing Industry Ideas, which in aggregate, pushes upward price pressure higher with each drop. Consumption does not affect Player Held Ideas!

* A second twist deals with when Idea pricing changes take place. Previously, prices changed for all Industries (which already had prices) regardless of whether that Industry was specifically involved in the current production run. This will change in the new math. Price changes will only occur on an Industry if Ideas were produced or consumed during the current production run. This will be significantly different than what takes place now. Reindexing strategies will change significantly for the best Ideas players as a result.

* There have been rumors of people losing their Idea holdings due to (insert rumor reason here). Let's set the record straight before this goes too far. The original math had proposed what was called 'Revolutionary New Ideas'. In short, this was the destruction of all Ideas in an Industry when the Industry reached a low price point which was never recoverable. This proposal item has changed dramatically. Active players will not have to worry about having any Ideas 'destroyed' by the game. Active is defined as having played within the last six months. Instead, we will be selling idea portfolios of Inactive players (over six months of not playing) down to levels of 10K Ideas in each industry. Players having this occur will be compensated. The short explanation for this happening is that large holdings of inactive players will significantly hamper growth and tend to create a drag on the entire market which cannot easily be overcome. By selling off excess Idea holdings, the Active players can decide the fate of these Industries.

Posted by Island Dave at 10:27 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (11)

Would you like to advertise your site, product, or service on BlogShares? Chances are good that we have the perfect placement for your advertising campaign. From the Top Banner to Pixels to BlogAds, there are many placements available to fit your budget and deliver your advertising goals. Visit B$ Advertising for all the details. Feel free to contact B$ Support for more information, to make a purchase, or to arrange a custom advertising program. (thanks to AdamF for his expert graphics)

Speaking of perfect advertising locations, we're also announcing a new incentive for people who purchase Pixels. Buy $100 or more in Pixels and receive a text link in the Junior Sponsors section for the duration of your Pixel purchase. This link is seen on every page load, and gains your site considerably more exposure to browsers and search engines alike. Help BlogShares purchase a new database box and get yourself a great return for your investment. To purchase Pixels, please sign up at BlogShares Pixels. Don't forget that you can also help BlogShares by purchasing a Premium Membership for yourself or as a gift for another player!

This month, we're raffling a total of $100 in Amazon.com gift certificates. Five prizes of $20 each (one per player maximum) will be awarded on July 31. Never before have we offered so much in one raffle, and our utmost appreciation and thanks goes out to the fabulous sponsors of these prizes: Suburban Wolf, Just James, Mina, Nick, and AdamF.

As always, there is lots of behind-the-scenes development going on. We've added a Project Manager cms for our groups (such as BSEC and Index Managers) to organize and track their projects. Idea Math has also taken several steps forward thanks to dozens of hours of analysis and discussion from the GIC, and coding from Suburban Wolf. We hope to set aside a few days in the near future to test the new code. Sage and Rantz are getting set to do major index building, reorganizing, and fixing, including the utilization of the new Secondary Name field for Industry names (to help solve English versus native language place names). The moderation queue has dropped in half over the last week (from 20,000 down to 9,000), thanks in part to significantly increased moderation rewards, but also to the patience and persistance of a handful of very active moderators. Much more to come!

Please note: BlogShares is not affiliated with Amazon.com or any of its products or services.

Posted by Island Dave at 11:43 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (2)

Forum Changes:
A significant change is taking place in forum rules and moderation. Please be sure to read all the details here.

Player Roles:
As some of you may already know, Mad Trollie is stepping down after a long tenure on the BSEC to concentrate on his role as Forum Moderator. It seemed only fitting that the resume Trollie has amassed over the years here be rewarded with a place among the BlogShares Elite. Only five players hold this title, and there is little doubt that Trollie has surpassed any requirements for being included. Congratulations, and many, many thanks Mad Trollie!

To replace him on the BSEC, an old friend and player who has worn many hats has returned to fill the vacancy. Just James formerly served on the BSEC, and brings years of experience and fair justice to his post. Thank you James!

Nick has recently been elected to the Chairman's role on the GIC, and with the group members, including the newest GICer AdamF, has been diving headlong into the new Idea Math proposal. We look forward to many great things to come from Nick, Adam, and the GIC volunteers. On the Index Management front, stranger has joined the ranks of the IM, and is already well into her index work. Congratulations Nick, Adam, and stranger!

Raffle!
Yes, finally, another raffle. This time, we're giving away one premium block of pixels (valued at $30) and eight smaller blocks (each valued at $10). You can buy tickets here for the raffle which will be drawn on July 1, 2006. Speaking of Pixels, be sure to check out this Mission from RUSerious!

Posted by Island Dave at 02:44 PM | FrontPage | Permalink

We've gotten lots of requests over the years to donate money to the game for support or hardware, and have never had a great means to accept such offers. Well, we came up with a neat way for you to help support the site and get something in return. We have launched a drive to help BlogShares buy a much needed server upgrade through BlogShares Pixels. B$Pixels allows you to sponsor 10x10 blocks of pixels and place your own custom icon there. Buy as many as you want. Upper pixels are 30 cents per pixel, the rest are 10 cents per pixel. If you need assistance with an icon, please contact support@blogshares.com. Thank you in advance for your support, and we look forward to bringing you a great game, stable site, and new features for years to come!

Posted by Island Dave at 06:23 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (4)

We're very pleased to announce that Sage Enterprises has accepted an offer of promotion to become the newest BlogShares Administrator. Over the past 20+ months, Sage has spent countless hours building the index, helping in the forums, and improving the game, and we are overjoyed that she wants more work! :) Seriously, she has done as much behind the scenes for the game as anyone, and will be a excellent Administrator. Congratulations, Sage!

On a personal note, I will be joining the BlogShares Board of Directors. Thank you Jay and Suburban Wolf for the opportunity and the confidence in me. Nothing much will change for me within the game, as I'm not abdicating any responsibilities or projects, only gaining a cooler title and a vested interest in the site. Still, I may be less available for administrative support than previously. As such, it is a great pleasure to announce that MrPilot will step up and assume the Lead Administrator position. MP has been my right-hand man for a long time now, and without his endless support, ideas, and maturity, most of the wonderful things that have been created and improved in BlogShares would never have been possible. Congratulations MP!

Sage will still be managing the index work on the site, but naturally, she's going to need someone to step up and assume the role of Lead Index Manager. Rantz has been to Sage what MrPilot has been to me, so it's only natural that this promotion go to him to reward his hard work, dedication, and follow through on the tedious and time-consuming duties required in the FOI program he stewards. Congratulations Rantz!

On the game side, you may have noticed the graph showing blogs listed in the game currently displays a decided negative growth. Nothing is wrong! This is completely intentional. We temporarily halted automatic adding of new blog listings a couple of weeks ago, and have been working on removing some of the glut in the tables. Dead blogs, spam/splogs, non-blogs, we've delisted almost 500,000 of them over this period. Sigma reporters have accounted for over 50k of this, a massive amount of one-off reports from players.

We will continue this effort for the time being, as we continue to delist 5k-30k listings per day. Although the effect on the game and server performance is minimal, it will buy us some much needed relief on the database box by lightening table sizes, avoiding adding new rows from new listings, and avoiding free space issues on the hard disk. A drive to help BlogShares purchase a new box is in the works and will be released very soon. Until next time, cheers!

Posted by Island Dave at 03:26 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (14)

Mod-A-Thon:
So the GIC guys were gung-ho on the Mod-A-Thon plan and had high expectations for it. I don't think anyone could have predicted that almost 20,000 votes would be modded in only seven days time. The opening relay went around the clock and around the world, and started the Mod-A-Thon with about 6000 votes moderated in the first 24 hours. We had dozens of moderators kick in time to deal with the bulging vote backlog, and the GIC members themselves spent dozens of hours administering and modding as well. There were numerous competitions within the Mod-A-Thon, including relays and endurance events. RUSerious modded for 24 straight hours at one point to win the endurance challenge. Thank you, GIC, moderators, and contributors to the prize pool. This effort was so successful, we may just have to do it again (insert collective groan from the GIC here).

Basketball:
Congrats to Bruce Wayne for winning the 2006 NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge. In our Blog Madness competition, we've crowned Georgetown and its associated blog, View From The Hilltop, as our BlogShares National Champion.

People and Site Updates:
* In order to concentrate on site documentation and tutorials, GIC member tengrrl is shifting roles to fill a spot as a BlogShares Editor. All the tools and permissions are up and ready so she can get things done easier.
* To replace tengrrl on GIC, former Index Manager Nick has been tapped and is already in the process of getting up to speed on the team's work.
* We've put a cap of 30 owners on any given blog. If you attempt to gift to a player, and there are already 30 owners, the gift will fail. This solves a bug in transactions on blogs with dozens of shareholders.
* You can now view up to 20 available artefacts on blogs instead of the previous limit of 5.
* Artefact Holder Rankings are now available, and the Top Chip Holders rankings have been expanded to show 100 players.
* All users can now see the BSID of blogs on the blogs.php pages. BSIDs are the unique numbers assigned to blogs which enable faster lookups and data storage. Suburban Wolf instituted these as one of his first major changes to the code way back in 2004, and they have been visible to Admin and some role players since then.
* On ideas.php, we've added a sortable 'Blog Count' column to the table as an often requested feature.
* MrPilot updated the GIC button and added one for the Editor role as well.

Posted by Island Dave at 12:00 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (1)

The NCAA basketball fans among us are excited to launch a new three-week mini-game featuring blog's actively cheering for teams in the 2006 Men's NCAA Basketball Championship. BlogShares players have helped us find blogs cheering for the teams involved, which you can see in our own brackets here.

To win each round, points are scored for each team based on transactions made on the blog. The more transactions, the higher the score. Winning blogs move on to the next round, and on April 5-6, we will crown the BlogShares National Blog Madness Champion. Read this forum thread for all the details. If you are a blogger whose blog is participating in this competition, please visit this page for a special greeting and information.

Posted by Island Dave at 07:13 AM | FrontPage | Permalink

Congratulations to Passer for holding the winning Albert Einstein raffle ticket (he bought about two-thirds of all tickets). Thanks again to tengrrl for sponsoring this! We've gotten a lot of questions from other players wanting to sponsor raffles, and we are more than happy to have them do so. If any player wishes to sponsor a raffle item, please contact an admin for more information.

A new promotion this month rewards completed Premium Membership purchases with chips. A monthly premium gains the buyer 1000 chips, a yearly premium is 5000. Gift Memberships are worth double to the buyer, 2000 and 10000 respectively. So if you were waiting for yet another reason to upgrade your account or do something nice for another player, this is the time to do so. This offer is good during the month of March 2006.

Several new players have taken on new roles over the last month. Congratulations to our newest Index Managers: Mina, Hildy, and Ryan Giggs. The Game Improvement Commission was launched with Bruce Wayne, tengrrl, and Passer, and today adds SpaceLord and Louie14. And filling the open seat on the BSEC will be long-time veteran Nexy, who has previously served proudly as an Index Manager. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for all you are doing for this site!

Posted by Island Dave at 12:00 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (11)

Friends         BlogSharesians        Players

Lend Me Your Eyes

The Administration and Board of Directors of BlogShares are very pleased to announce an event unlike any to ever take place in the BlogShares community. This very evening, at 8:00pm BlogShares game time, a conference will be convened, known hereafter as the 2006 BlogShares Idea Math Summit. We expect it to last anywhere from 1-2 hours, but may well go longer. You can access the Summit directly here.

There is an extensive Program Guide available, with a schedule, instructions, and dozens of links for more information on the night's subject. For those who are new to IRC, tengrrl was generous enough to create a few flash-demos to accompany the instructions. We'll have proposals on Ideas math from kucinichworldpeace and Passer, a history lesson in Ideas from MrPilot, technical information from SuburbanWolf, and the chartering of the new Game Improvement Commission.

In combination with this event, I'm launching a blogging contest, with a top reward of B$ cash, chips, and a Full Year of Premium Membership, donated by Rantzalot (Sir).

I'll 'see' those of you attending this evening at 8pm game time.

Posted by Island Dave at 12:00 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yes, finally! We have completely upgraded our payment interface. The new IPN (Instant Payment Notification) automates the Premium Membership upgrades so that you can access your unlimited transactions faster. Also, now available is a new Premium option, the Monthly Premium Membership subscription. At $2.95 per month, you are no longer limited to purchasing a full year.

Want to bring the fun of a Premium to a fellow BlogSharer? You can purchase one-month and one-year gift memberships as well. This process is streamlined. All you need is the player's userid#, which can be found on her/his user page, and the membership will instantly go to that player when your payment clears.

We've also launched a new raffle, generously sponsored by #blogshares regular tengrrl. Yes, you could win the Albert Einstein Action Figure pictured at right. No longer do you have to rely on soldier or beauty queen action figures to solve the mysteries of the universe, Einstein could be your secret weapon. Imagine how smart you will look bringing Albert to the office instead of that purple dinosaur or yellow sponge. The power of Albert Einstein in the palm of your hand. Buy your raffle tickets today!

Posted by Island Dave at 04:03 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (10)

The Opening Ceremonies of the 2006 Olympics in Torino are here, and the blogosphere is showing up to keep us informed. You'll find several interesting blogs discussing the games in the BlogShares Olympics Industry. Highlights include James Martin's Olympics blog hosted by about.com, the Torino Olympic Games Blog, Jordan Jackson's Torino 06 Olympics Blog, and Jill Manty's 2006 Turin Winter Olympics Blog. Perhaps the most unusual one is Jake Serino's Bode By Jake blog, hosted on nbcolympics.com. Serino is a friend of controversial U.S. ski racer Bode Miller, and plans to blog his experiences as he follows Miller around during this global sports spectacular. Don't miss the official blog of nbcolympics.com, the Torino Tracker, and Access Apolo, blog of Yuki Ohno, father of U.S. speed skater Apolo Ohno.

MrPilot is also sponsoring several Mission competitions. There are categories for guessing the Most Total Medals, Most Gold, Silver, and Bronze, as well as the winner of the Men's Hockey Gold Medal. Enter quickly to be considered for chip prizes. Best of luck to everyone's nation throughout the games!

Posted by Island Dave at 09:21 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (1)

BlogShares hopes that you have a great 2006 and would like to welcome our new sponsor Forex Capital Markets.

Posted by at 04:46 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (10)

Fellow members of the BlogShares community, it is with regret that I announce the indefinite retirement of Raymond, a member of the administrative team and long-time player of the game. With a family to take care of and another child on the way, he no longer has the free time necessary to maintain an active role in the game. We respect his decision as it is the one any of us would make given a similar situation. Raymond was instrumental in helping to upgrade many aspects of the game, including: the new ruleset, changes to the forums, dozens of Help pages, and resurrecting the long-neglected support mail system. He also served as Index Manager, Editor, and BSEC member during his time in BlogShares, and maintained an active presence in the #blogshares chatroom. Good luck Raymond, we'll miss you!

Posted by MrPilot at 11:40 AM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (11)

Congratulations to kucinichworldpeace for being selected to receive the highest honor available in the game of BlogShares. He has been admitted to the exclusive group known as the BlogShares Elite.

During the past year or so, kwp has demonstrated a fierce mastery of all things Ideas. He is singly responsible for introducing detailed play strategies which were adopted by dozens of players. His insight into Idea pricing, Artefacts, and the index as a whole has been invaluable to new player and veteran alike. Undoubtedly, kucinichworldpeace had no equal during the High-Priced Ideas era. Congratulations, and welcome to the Elite!

Posted by Island Dave at 03:52 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (16)

The events of the day seem to have humbled all within the BlogShares community. Though idea prices have crashed, and the currency has been revalued, the future still seems bright. Investors are secure in the fact that their rankings have not changed, they just have a bunch of empty space in their once overflowing cash vaults. In the meantime, trading has been restored for the market and life goes on. "We will overcome this day, we will rebound", said an unidentified market trader, "Black Friday will not get us down."

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CURRENCY RE-VALUED IN AFTERMATH OF MARKET CHAOS

Moments ago Chairman Purpleledger announced a major re-valuation of the blogdollar to compensate for the devestating market crash earlier today. The currency has been re-valued on a 1 for 10,000 ratio. Thus, if you had B$1,000,000,000.00 in cash assets prior to the re-valuation, you now have B$100,000.00.

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IDEAS MARKET CRASHED! TRILLIONS LOST IN HUGE PRICE COLLAPSE!

Investors are said to have looks of utter disbelief as all idea values within the market have bottomed out. Some estimations show that the market has lost over 99% of its value. An announcement from the BlogShares Treasury Chairman, Johansen Purpleledger, is expected soon. Some are already calling today "Black Friday".

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MAJOR PRICE FLUCTUATIONS SEEN IN IDEAS MARKET; TRADING SUSPENDED

After opening strong in early hours trading, major price fluctuations have begun to have an effect on the market. Investors have been selling strongly all morning in anticipation of a market crash. Idea values continue to plummet. The BlogShares Treasury Board has suspended all market trading effective immediately in an attempt to control the price drops. Developing...

Posted by MrPilot at 02:32 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (69)

One area of the index that has troubled us at times was the inclusion of non-blog entities such as blog hosts. As of this evening, and per the direction of the Board of Directors, all non-blog entities are being removed from our index permanently. This includes such long-time favorites as MSN Spaces main page and Blogger. We're moving towards a more realistic ranking of sites indexed in BlogShares. It will be very interesting to see just what blogs comprise our Top 100 from this point forward. If players wish to discuss this event, please do in the forum.

Posted by Island Dave at 07:45 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (4)

Football season is upon us here in the US, with both college and pro teams now fully engaged in regular season. BlogShares' index has grown greatly since the last football season, including the additions of College Football and NFL to the American Football Industry. Know of a good football blog not listed on BlogShares? Add it!

The Blues world lost one of its most infamous performers, Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown. Gatemouth had recently lost his home in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and died this morning in the company of his family. BlogShares currently tracks 16 blogs in the Blues Industry, and several will undoubtly offer posts about Gatemouth's story, one worthy of telling in a blues song all its own.

BlogShares is once again raffling some cool hardware, this time something for the user on the go. MrPilot has donated a brand new 64MB USB flash drive from Micro Advantage. The drive is USB 2.0 compatible and is a great tool for moving your documents, pictures, or songs quickly from point to point. Check it out on the Raffles page.

Update: Congrats to the raffle winner, News Writer!

Posted by Island Dave at 02:43 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (7)

BlogShares has seen a flurry of activity this past month. From the new Player Tutorials page to a call for Rules translators, we've had much on our plates lately. A new charter was drawn up for the BSEC, clarifying the group's responsibilities. There is also now a Random Blog page where you never know what listing you'll get.

Congratulations to The Pompatus of Love for being selected as the newest member of the elite cheatypants-fighting force known only as the BSEC, and to our newest Index Managers: tuwa, JoPro Savings and Loan, Loop Di Loop, Alexandra, Rantzalot (Sir), and Judge Fred.

The new IMs will undoubtedly see time in the trenches against the onslaught of spam the current IMs and admin are busy fighting daily. Spammers are getting creative, but we aren't giving in. We've developed new methods for blocking, finding, and delisting spam in the game. If you notice a listing for a spam site, please take a moment to use the Report Error link found on its blogs.php page.

We've also been adding hundreds of new Industries to the index, predominately locations, including states or provinces and additional cities of many nations. If you know of a location with lots of bloggers which isn't already in the index, please suggest it here, and include some examples to help us out.

Finally, a word of thanks and best wishes to DJ Swa, a BlogShares veteran and member of the Dutch Armed Forces, who is once again serving his nation in Afghanistan. Peace and godspeed.

Posted by Island Dave at 09:43 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (5)

Lots going on behind the scenes at BlogShares these past couple of weeks. First and most important being the implementation on July 4 of a new ruleset for the game. If you haven't read it, please do so now. We've also whipped up a new node on Contributing to BlogShares. SubWolf coded up the much requested bond cancellation functions, which are now fully available to all players. Manhattan has been doing the IM position proud with her index work, but was also kind enough to write up tutorials for LiveJournal claim codes.

We've also spent a great deal of time working on the Price movement issues you've been seeing lately. For a more detailed explaination, read this thread. Code changes will now prevent buying or selling shares in blogs with insufficient indexing history, thus reducing exploitable bugs.

Finally, what better way to celebrate an American holiday than by winning something you want but don't need? Our thoughts exactly! And on that note, check out the new raffle prize: a mini-Lava lamp which you can plug into any usb port. Perfect for late night idea buying or early morning PRDs.

Posted by Island Dave at 07:00 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (3)

Effective July 4, 2005 at 00:01 game time, a new set of rules will govern game play. This new ruleset has predominantly maintained the previous game rules, with a few notable exceptions. We've constructed a Guide to Rule Changes to help players understand what has been altered or added.

Please be sure to read both the Guide and the new ruleset. Also note that voting guidelines are now considered part of game rules. A week of Public Comment is now open on this issue in the forum where all members of the community are welcome to offer their thoughts, suggestions, or critiques of these changes. Please keep it civil.

Posted by Island Dave at 02:32 PM | FrontPage | Permalink

Congratulations and a big thank you to a new batch of Index Managers:

kucinichworldpeace, Manic, M. Aurora, Nexy and manhattan.

And congratulations to rhino for winning The Pen. Another raffle will be posted soon.

SubWolf upgraded the database software today, so the pesky crashes of earlier this week should be history.

Posted by jay at 05:47 PM | FrontPage | Permalink

Congratulations to mars/iris Securities for passing the B$1 Quadrillion mark this morning, becoming the first BlogShares player to do so. A veteran of the game, mars had long ago earned his spot as a BlogShares Elite player. Now that his goal has been met, he is currently offering to divest his game assets for charity. Please visit this forum thread for more information.

Premium Membership Incentive: For a limited time, all players who upgrade their accounts to Premium Membership after May 2, or who renew existing Premiums, will receive 5000 chips from Island Dave's personal stash. Once your Premium has been activated, please message Island Dave and, once confirmed, your chips will be sent. This deal ends when ID runs out of chips, so get on board with a Premium Membership soon!

New Contest: BlogShares Blogging Contest #4 is underway, with trillions in BlogShares cash, chips, and free months of Premium Membership. Visit the forum for more information.

Posted by Island Dave at 12:44 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (9)

It is with great pleasure that we welcome the return to BlogShares of former BSEC member and long-time veteran Just James after a brief hiatus. His dedication to the game and community here has been rewarded with a well-deserved Administrator position. You'll see James around a lot in the forum and in IRC (and probably sniping your rare ideas off the Ideas Market), so drop in and congratulate him on a very big promotion.

Another veteran has stepped up to take what can be a difficult position at times. Thanks and congratulations go out to King Gucci Armani II for his selection as the newest cheatypants-busting BSEC member. He's eager and ready to stomp out rulebreakers, so if you're up to no good, KGA II will be coming for you!

Recent groundbreaking code has been unleashed in BlogShares, thanks to hours of tedious and often frustratingly difficult work by Suburban Wolf. Leveraged Buy Out transactions have been fixed, and the Idea sell deadlock is no more. You'll be seeing some great new things over the next few months, including some fun surprises to shake up your summer. We hope you are enjoying the BlogShares experience, and as always, if you need help, or have a suggestion, concern, or complaint, feel free to contact any Administrator or post your thoughts in the forum. Please check Help first, though, as many of your questions are already answered therein.

Posted by Island Dave at 01:29 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (4)

No kidding! We are very pleased to announce an experimental project we're calling the BlogShares Radio Hour, and we're looking for contributions from BlogShares players. The pilot episode will be unveiled in a couple of weeks, with updates to follow on time and stream information.

We want player contributions! So pick up your headset or microphone, and record us some content! You might tell us a BlogShares-related story, offer an in-depth narrative of a game strategy (such as voting or buying ideas), even commentary or opinion about BlogShares might be used. Songs, poems, jokes, anything and everything might be included in the BlogShares Radio Hour.

The current deadline for submissions is March 22 (subject to change). Please send all submissions to radio@blogshares.com. Be certain to include your player name and #, and any location information you would like to offer.All submissions become the sole property of BlogShares. We can (and will) edit entries for clarity, content, and fit.

Posted by Island Dave at 01:44 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (6)

We are excited to announce a new opportunity for BlogShares players to invest in real stocks through ShareBuilder. We are launching the BlogShares Investment Club, a forum for players who have joined ShareBuilder to discuss their investments and progress.

Here's the scoop: ShareBuilder allows you to invest small amounts of money, whether as a one-time deal, or through automatic deposits. You set up an account and determine how you would like your money invested. ShareBuilder does the rest. If you want to buy into Microsoft or Google, you can do it with only a few dollars and a couple of clicks. If you can't afford a whole share of stock, ShareBuilder has the answer. You will buy only what you can afford, which often means purchasing fractions of a share. You reap all the benefits of stock ownership without the high-level capital needed with other brokers. The basic membership is free to join, with 2 other membership levels available.

BlogShares Investment Club: To join the BSIC, all you need to do is sign up for any ShareBuilder plan by first clicking on the ad to the left, and then following the instructions on the ShareBuilder site. Once your signup has been confirmed, you will receive 30 days of BlogShares Premium Membership, , and 1000 chips, all FREE for signing up. You'll also be given access to a private board in the BlogShares forum, reserved solely for players who have chosen to take advantage of the ShareBuilder program. Here, you can discuss your investment thoughts, exchange ideas and tips, and enjoy a community of BlogShares players who are taking part in this valuable opportunity.

Posted by Island Dave at 04:32 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (6)

Forum Logo: Think you've got good graphic design skills? Wanna see your design used as an official BlogShares logo in the forum? Check out this mission and get crackin' on your entry. The winning entry(ies) will be used as the top banner in the BlogShares forum.

Fixes: The issue with blog owners missing their 1000 owner shares was fixed a few days ago, so you should all see this issue resolved. Also, there had been an issue previously when browsing industries that prevented players from viewing sub-industries for any industries below 3rd-level. This is now fixed, and you can view all subs as normal again.

Slash-Attack seems to have been highly successful, with a couple hundred thousand duplicate entries merged. There are still some duplicate listings that were not addressed by this script, so please continue to use the "Suggest Alternative URL" form on the blog's page.

Please don't use the Report Error link to notify about alt-urls or share discrepancies. Only use this link to report dead blogs (6+ months of inactivity), non-blogs, blog name errors, or blogs that have been voted into incorrect industries.

Places Industry: All locations are now in a new hierarchy under the Places industry. There are over 400 new cities and countries in our index, so take a moment to browse them. We are encouraging voters to vote blogs into as many correct categories as possible. IE: A blog in Houston, TX should be voted into Houston AND Texas AND USA. Please join us in the forum to discuss upcoming index changes and make suggestions for new industries.

Update: Please read this thread to understand Alt-URLs.

Posted by Island Dave at 01:24 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (1)

Index Changes: We've had a hard look at the current Places and Meta location hierarchies and decided to go with a much simpler organization. We'll be reordering cities under their countries, eliminating the -Meta tag on the Industries which have them, and redefining the current Industries under Places. The end result will be a streamlined, simplified location hierarchy. Blogs will be voted into a location industry based on content and/or the location of the blog/blogger.

You'll also notice that the Weblogs industry will be changing. All current blogs in that industry will be voted out, and the category will become "Blog Services", the location for housing listings such as Persian Blog, 20.six.uk and other similar non-blogs currently in our index. Corporate will become Company Blogs, and new cities, countries, and languages will be added very soon. Other changes will also occur, and we'll keep you updated in the Index Announcements Board.

Technical Issues: We are aware that some of you are having a problem with a loss of 1000 shares in your claimed blogs. This is a widespread issue. We're working on a fix to correct this, so please bear with us.

Some blogs are also being added to the game, but not listing for trading. We are aware of this, and are working to fix this issue as well.

Posted by Island Dave at 01:36 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (9)

Many of you will have noticed the changes taking place on blogs in the system. Currently, Suburban Wolf is running an extensive script to convert URLs in the game without a trailing slash to an entry with that slash. This is also merging tens of thousands of duplicate listings in the system in the process. The end result will be a vastly reduced number of duplicate listings for the same blogs.

Many of you are concerned about your blog claims, which appear to be lost, and many additional blog listings appear to be inaccessible as a result. Don't lose heart. During this hours-long process, some blogs.php pages are inaccessible until the script has run completely. Your blogs and claims to them are still in the system, and you will see them reappear once this process is complete. Claims will move with merged entries in order to retain blog ownership during and after the transition.

The indexing spiders are currently not running in order to reduce the load on the database and BlogShares resources. Once the URL-slash activity has completed and the results verified, the spiders will resume their regular operations.

Thanks for your patience in this massive operation. You can check into the forum for updates from SubWolf as he has time. So far, progress has been substantial, and again, the end result will be a much cleaner, less redundant index of blogs. As of now, SW estimates another 1-2 hours of activity, with additional time as needed to verify and validate that the script performed as expected.

Update #1 You may notice that some blog statistics, such as valuation and share holdings, will revert back to their levels of last night. SubWolf is rolling back to last night's update to ensure that everything has gone as expected. The site may be down from time to time as fixes take place.

Update #2 SubWolf's scripts are still running. It is a massive project, affecting hundreds of thousands of listings. So far, it appears to be exceptionally successful. Also: Transaction fees for ideas transactions on the Ideas Market are now in effect. See this thread for more info.

Posted by Island Dave at 02:53 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (14)

We'd like to officially welcome, sprimal, Serise Carrashen, and Mad Trollie to their new posts on the BSEC. The new Index Managers include Kiran FG, Anodyne Holdings, ibebruce, Island Tiffiney, sara bear, and Sage Enterprises.

You've likely also noticed a new look to the forums. Thanks to a great deal of effort from Raymond and MrPilot, we've got a much more flexible, easier-to-browse board structure.

The Alt-URL backlog from a couple of months ago of close to 4000 suggestions has finally been cleared. Suburban Wolf will be working on a fix for duplicate entries, but in the meantime, please continue to suggest valid alternative URLs and listings to be merged with the "Suggest Alt-URL" form on each blog's page.

Posted by Island Dave at 05:59 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (1)

Please welcome Dave, Ray and el Piloto to the newly-revived Admin role. They have already powered through the backlog of support requests and pending BSEC actions - I personally apologize to anyone I ignored in email in some of these busy periods. The crew is now empowered to keep me from acting as a bottleneck in the future.

We've all also been busy with a slew of bug fixes, and we pared a couple gigabytes out of the database for the new year. If something's still broken for you, please let us know. One of our next game priorities is bringing the search function back online with its new functionality. The game math is getting dusted off, too, toward destinations unknown. In the interim, here are some new features: Blogs have settable public descriptions now, with UBB markup support, so you can customize your claimed blog's BlogShares profile with your logo and whatever strikes your fancy. UBB tags themselves have been enhanced and documented. More RSS and conversation links have been scattered about to aid communication.

You'll notice new experimental ads in the left sidebar. The 'punch the monkey' ads are going away, I promise. The less freakish ones will probably remain as we work toward making BlogShares self-sustaining.

Folks percolating up the roles list, and a couple resignations due to other obligations, have left some open seats in some groups. The BSEC investigates player fraud, and the Index Managers cultivate the industry categories and the blogs within them. If you're interested in participating, see the appropriate forums.

Posted by jay at 12:25 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (8)

We're pleased to announce several additions to the site. December was a busy month.

If you're a fan of blogchips, you can now earn them by advertising other blogs on your site. As the ad system grows over the next few weeks, we will add bonus chips to the pot for any ad we find especially interesting - free exposure!

You'll notice a slew of new 'Start a conversation' or '8 comments' links throughout the site. This is a new commenting system we're rolling out, and it supports a flavor of UBB - in english, it lets you make your text bold or italics with included links and images and more. You can use 'BSUBB' in BlogShares email, Missions, and other places. More help will be available on this feature shortly.

We added several RSS feeds to the Missions and Ads systems. Visit those pages for more info. Thanks to everyone who is helping us debug. We've also switched from the defunct weblogs.com feed to the new-fangled feedmesh ping stream, so the BlogShares spiders will be much smarter about keeping up with your blog.

Posted by jay at 10:08 PM | FrontPage | Permalink | Comments (3)