mixxt

Create polls and votings in your Communities

2009-07-02T16:45:15Z

Some of you may already have noticed, others may even have given their vote in one of the existing polls: mixxt has added a poll module to their community features. Administrators are now enabled to

ask for their members opinion on a certain topic
let them vote on any proposal
schedule events and find common dates
have topics or “things” being rated and
carry out statistical surveys or explore current trends

The polls can be configured individually, as admins can submit questions, answer types and options as well as the poll’s runtime. Votings can for example be helpful as a mood or opinion poll among the community or for making better decisions regarding current and community issues.

Creating a poll

Polls are generally shown on the community main page. To create an own poll, select the “Main Page” menu from the Admin Panel, choose “Poll” from the additional features and drag it into the desired column. A blank poll box will then appear on the main page and can be edited as follows:

At first, enter title (poll box title), question and (optional) a more detailed description. You can also determine whether the vote should be immediately activated, or will be unlocked at a later stage.

Setting answer options

Now decide whether users may choose multiple answers or only one, and add the answer options via the entry field. The texts may be edited and deleted, and their order can be changed by grabbing them by mouse and pulling them to the right position (drag & drop).

More options

There’s more to it than that! Polls can be specified via:

How (if at all) should the results be displayed?
Is it a vote of unlimited duration, or is there a specific deadline?
Can members change their decision and vote again?
Are comments (pinboard entries) allowed?

Poll box on main page

The poll is presented on the main page and catches the visitors’ attention straight away.

We are glad to finally have embedded this extension last month and have already spotted some nice polls in the mixxt-sphere. What are your ideas for your community’s poll? As always, questions are welcome and we are excited about your feedback!

Update: Invitations, Message Centre & Contact Form

2009-06-04T14:49:10Z

Last weekend, we added a few features to our community kit. mixxt now comes along with enhanced invitation and message centre settings as well as a new contact form to get in touch with the community’s founder directly.

Invitations

To win new members for a community, the founder – and, depending on privacy settings, other members – may send invitations to the email addresses or mixxt-IDs of the desired persons. Since the latest update, mixxt additionally provides a summary of all previously sent and accepted invitations:

As usual, an export as CSV is offered and on top of that, administrators can resend invitations another time. This feature is very helpful to politely remind potential new members to join the network.

Message Centre

The message centre has also received a small cosmetic treatment: The mailboxes (inbox, sent, drafts) now offer the option to “select all messages” with one click. By means of this mass editing, all selected messages can either be “marked as read”, “marked as unread” or entirely “deleted” at once.

Contact Form

In the footer of every community there is a short reference to their founders, such as “Created by Wile E. on mixxt”. So far, the founder has often only been reachable for members of their own community, but not for any external person. From now on, everybody can reach the founder by just clicking the link and reaching a “mini imprint” which states:

This network was created by using the social network kit “mixxt”. The network host is exclusively responsible for all published content in this network. [...]
mixxt does not accept any liability or guarantee on the correctness, integrity, quality or actuality of the provided information. The Terms of Service of the mixxt GmbH apply for this information.

Find a contact form below this information to send a message to the community’s host. Registered users just need to enter a text, all others also have to provide their name and email address.

In the past, we often received messages which were actually meant to reach the community host. Implementing this form, has especially fastened the request process by leading the messages directly to the responsible persons and avoiding a long way round the mixxt support team.

New Designs

Many of you will already have noticed, but the designs are very fancy and deserve even more attention: In addition to the creative, colourful or themed styles, administrators may now also choose from 8 very simple but elegant designs:

Stay tuned, since we will release some more nice features soon!

New footer in your mixxt community

2009-03-13T12:24:05Z

Last night we have said goodbye to the old network footer!

Now say hello to our new and elegant footer: Go to your networks and scroll down to the bottom. We have reduced it to the most important information and links to save space and offer more clarity.

The default colour is set to grey, but you can change it according to your preferences:

Go to the admin panel and open the “style” menu. Click “page” to edit the settings for the “footer” and choose a colour that fits your networks’ design.

Do you like our new footer? Always looking forward to your feedback: your mixxt team!

pixy: Three columns, feature admin and lifestream

2009-02-20T13:05:26Z

With our recent update to version 0.18.0 (pixy) we finally introduced the “three column main page”. This means, every main page now offers more space for the boxes which display the network’s various features.

Three column trinity
We have added the menu “main page” to the network admin:

eine der drei

After choosing this menu, you’ll find die settings for dragging and dropping the available features to their respective destination. It allows you to change the main page’s look according to your wishes. Just play around and give it a try: Do you like the blog module better above the videos in the main column or do you prefer it to be shown on the left beneath the content management? You may always change these settings later on!

“For each active network feature there is a box available which can be shown on the main page. If it is not shown there yet, it is listed under ‘Active features’. Other boxes, which do not depend on any network features, are shown under ‘More features’.”

This new option for configuring your network reduces scrolling down and shows more information at a glance on the main page. Since many users expressed their wish to freely set up the right column, we are again glad to announce to have incorporated our community’s proposals by introducing this new feature

Network details
Network founders may from now on decide whether to show or to hide the network details’ box on the main page. In the main page admin underneath the “more features”, you can find a box called “network features”. Drag & drop it to the left or right column or just entirely exclude it from being displayed on the main page. This setting is especially interesting and important for private networks, where non-members should not be able to see information about the network founder, or the number of members.

Feature Administration
In addition, we have developed a more convenient administration panel for activating and deactivation network features by just one mouse click.

“Which features would you like to activate in your network? Best is to begin with features you already have a precise idea what to use them for, and then add new ones bit by bit.”

Consequently, the features that you activate here will be available for the arrangement on the main page.

RSS lifestream
Some of our users will be very glad to hear this: The public network lifestream (RSS) is no longer password protected! Activity streams from public networks (!) can now be read with the standard feed readers and do not require a password entry any more.

So if you don’t go our for celebrating carnival today (as many Germans do), go ahead and give it a try. Otherwise: Alaaf and Helau from the whole mixxt team :)

Slideshow widget out now!

2009-02-12T17:59:00Z

Last night we deployed a small upate from version 0.17.0 to 0.17.1. Even though we just made some tiny changes, many of you will be glad to hear the news:

We have finally released our slideshow widget for showing photo albums on your networks’ start page or even on external websites. Have a look!

Slideshow widget
To embed such a widget into your blog or website or into another community, first go to the respective photo album in the mixxt network. You will find the embed code beneath the photos, just copy and paste it where you want it to be displayed.

Have you already spotted such a widget on external sites? We are looking forward to your reading notes in the comments.

Promote blog posts on main page
But wait, that’s not all: The blog module has also undergone some minor operations. Besides some little changes on the wording, we have expanded the settings for the promotion of blog posts on the main page.

For every single blog post you may here decide whether it should appear on the main page or not. This helps you to generate attention and promote important and interesting blog posts by placing them on a more attractive position.

Have fun with mixxt and keep in mind that we are always glad to hear about your thoughts and wishes towards our social network kit.

mixxt is “Website of the Day” on IDG Poland

2009-01-29T20:45:27Z

Today we were delighted to discover mixxt being awarded “Website of the Day” on IDG’s IT and Media news portal. This is a real treat for us and of course we think we have deserved it.

As it seems our 1-minute creation process for starting your own community is not only popular among users. We would like to say thank you and we will try to earn our next awards with further hard work, good updates and useful new features.

mixxt - IDG - 2009-01-29

Article here.

mixxt - PC World - 2009-01-29

article here.

Create your community in one minute!

2009-01-22T23:42:14Z

Our 1-Minute-Creation process is online! We have gathered all required information and settings for starting your own community with mixxt on one single page. This process has often been requested by our users, partners and friends, and today we are thrilled to present the results:

As usual, there is a small box on the main page of http://mixxt.com/ which leads to the creation process:

1-Minute Creation: Start

After clicking “Continue” the sesame opens and the 1-Minute-Creation page leaps into view. Network creators can instantly set the respective options for category, privacy or design and choose the features they’d like to start their community with. After accepting our terms of service, the brandnew Social Network is just one click away.

1-Minute Creation Process

Besides this, we continue to offer the advanced mode which allows network founders to immediately configure the network in a more detailed way. Of course, most of the settings can be changed later on and be dynamically adapted to new ideas and requirements. This obviously offers the possibility to even create a rough network draft that may be pimped and optimized bit by bit afterwards.

We have used our stopwatches and really managed to create fancy networks in one minute. What about you? How long will you need? Go for it and let us know!

Dawn of the Content Management module

2009-01-22T23:45:07Z

Very early this morning we have updated our system to a new version (0.17.0). It is called “dawn” and comes up with a Content Management module, collaborative photo albums and a 1-minute network creation process (which is described in an extra blog post).

Photo albums
The news about the photos can be described briefly: Users now have the option to open their own albums to other members and allow them to add photos as well. This is highly suitable for images which are taken from different users but represent the same topic. Imagine for example photos of an event like a concert or a conference that can now be stored and shared in a common place. You find these settings in the “edit mode” of each album.

Content Management
By introducing the Content Management, we have created another module besides blog and wiki for writing and managing texts and other content. In the past, we often realised that both blog and wiki have been “missused” for other uses than they were actually invented for. Several networks use the wiki for static pages which can only be edited by the admin (or a few moderators) and include a certain amount of multi-media content. Blogs were also missused for this, e.g. by configuring them as an “admin-only” blog named “news”. In our point of view, blog and wiki can be used much more collaboratively and dynamic as they are now in some communities and should be open for a greater group of writers and editors.

Of course, our users are totally free in their way of using our modules, but we would like to offer them the best tools to optimise and maintain their networks! To accurately separate the modules we have created the new Content Management. It is more about having hierarchical content, sorted and linked via menu. The “newest at the top” aspect is mostly unimportant in this system.

Our mini CMS
Most of our networks involve static content like information about a company or organisation, FAQs, rules, manifestos, event schedules or other service offers etc. These pages all have in common, that they are created and/or used by just a few members. The Content System should solve many of these issues and we see it as a low-powered, simple CMS with even a simple way of users’ rights management.

Here are a few impressions:

CM: Navigation sidebar

By the way: You can easily change the title “Content Management” to a name that fits better to your kind of content in the feature admin and menu builder.

Navigation items
Navigation items serve to structure the content. The “edit mode” lets you add hierarchical levels and sorting orders as well as add new items.

CM: Edit navigation

You may not only define the hierarchy of each navigation item but also assign them to a content page.

CM: Edit navigation item

Content pages
And that’s what the editor of a single content page looks like:

CM: Edit page

Please note: The content pages do not automatically appear in the sidebar but have to be connected to a navigation item first.

We are really curious about how you like this new module. Have fun creating your first pages and send feedback & questions!

Under the mixxtmas tree: A video module

2009-01-22T23:42:51Z

In deed, you got it right! Just look what we put under the Christmas tree: the video module is online! Our new fragrant version “cinnamon” fulfils one of our community’s strongest wishes.

You can use our video module to add videos from the services YouTube, MyVideo, sevenload, Clipfish, metacafe, MySpace Video, Vimeo, Wrzuta.pl (Polish) and Izlesene.com (Turkish) to your networks in a fast and easy way and share them with other mixxt users. We have tried to integrate all popular services to give you a broader variety in choosing your video sources. Please let us know which services you still miss!

Playlists
To strengthen the community touch we added “playlists” to this module. They allow the network members to collaboratively create collections of videos they like best or that belong to a certain topic.

Needless to say that we added the common privacy settings as well. For each video you may decide who is allowed to watch it and who can add videos to the respective playlists.

Mainpage of the network
First of all a screenshot of the box on the mainpage - including the latest videos and the direct link to the entire module.

Video module
On the startpage of the video module you can find an overview of the latest and most popular videos as well as some of the new playlists.

Video player
And that’s our lovely player :)

You can activate this module in the admin panel - features. Have fun with our fancy xmas gift! We wish you some wonderful and relaxing Christmas days (and hope you all receive some new video equipment ;) )

Sort forums, connect your domains and send group messages

2008-12-11T08:24:27Z

Today, we have packed a few extra gifts to optimise our current “sleigh ride” version. We are glad to announce that we have marked three more wishes on our community’s wish list as “fulfilled” :)

Sorting in Forums and Categories
We were frequently asked for a sorting option within the forum module. Administrators can now sort forums, categories and threads in their favoured order. Clicking on “edit forums and categories” (top right in the forum main page) leads you to the sorting options:

You can move the respective forums/categories up or down by just clicking the green arrows in the “edit” area. This means they can not only be sorted alphabetically or chronologically, but be adapted to the individual requirements of your community.

A sorting within a category is possible as well: The “Thread sorting” allows you to even arrange the topics alphabetically, chronologically according to the topic’s creation date or to the topic with the latest reply:

A little hint: You may manipulate the alphabetical sorting by using special characters. If you want a topic to be always on top, just put, e.g., an exclamation mark or number sign in front of the title.

Connect your own domains
Actually, we’re offering the possibility to connect one or more of your domains to your network for quite a while. Now we added an appropriate menu in the “Extras” within the administration panel to make this option more clearly visible. Here you may decide whether the added domain(s) should serve as a forwarding to your network address or the network should be exclusively reachable via the new address. We would be pleased to inform you about these options via email. Just drop us a line.

Group messages
Up to now, group messages were by default sent to the selected target group via email as full text. Now we ask the sender to choose: Should the entire text be send in the email, or just the first 80 characters?

One advantage of the 80 character limit is, that it might arouse the members’ curiosity to read the whole text online in the network. And if a member once is logged in, they might post a new thread, some fancy images or get in touch with other members. This creates more activity in the network and thereby attracts old and new users. By using a clever and target group oriented introduction, this tool can support your community management in an easy but efficient way.

Have a nice ride!