InstantSpot Staff

Hi all! Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and is looking forward to the new year. The development team at InstantSpot has been hard at work and wanted to update you on some of the things going on.

First, we have subscribed each user account to the InstantSpot Staff blog, so that we finally have a good way to communicate with you all and let you know what is going on. Make sure to check in whenever you receive an update notification as we will continually discuss new features, helpful tips and other goings on here at the Spot. If you received an email notification and want off the list, well... sorry. No, just kidding. If you really want off, check the bottom of the email you received and you will find a link to unsubscribe from this blog and miss out on all the good content we will provide! :)

So with that out of the way, let's cover some cool stuff that has been going on. For some of you, this might not be entirely new information, but much of what is below are cutting edge features you might not be aware of. *DO NOT MISS THE LAST ITEM!!!*

Enhanced Friend Support!
One of the comments we have heard time and time again about InstantSpot was that while it's really cool, there is no way to communicate with other users besides commenting on their blog entries. What if you just want to give them a shout? Enter "The Shoutbox"! Now on the Friends page, in addition to seeing the headshots to your friends, you and your friends can now post public messages to each other. This is just one of the friend features that is in the works, but it is the first part to go live.

Easier Blog Commenting
So, raise your hands if you haven't been at least occasionally annoyed by the pop-up blog comment window. That's what we thought. We now have one-click comment posting for members, with no more having to type the random characters in addition to your information. For non-Spot users (bless their poor souls), they will receive an activation email containing a link they will have to click in order to publish their comments after posting them. If you receive any complaints from your readers about having to activate their comments, just tell them to create their free InstantSpot account and they will never have to activate them again!

Customizable CSS
You can now completely control the look of your Spot. We have opened up the entire CSS styling to our users, and have already seen some really creative looks by some of our users. For those of you that are not content with our packaged color combinations at sign-up, don't be afraid to get in there and start tinkering with your layout. You will find this in the Style Manager in the control panel If you come up with something really cool, let us know so we can show you off to the other Spotters.

Customizable Ad Colors
Before you read this, you *do* know you can have your own Google Ads on your Spot right? OK then, for those of you that have modified your CSS you have probably noticed that your ads may no longer match your page. Now you can pick the colors to match your layout and hopefully sway a few more people to click on your ads and help you earn money from your Spot. You can manage this in the Style Manager.

Subscriptions now really work!
Since our launch, we have had some issues with allowing people to subscribe to your blogs. This has been on our list for sometime but was recently addressed in early December. Now, not only can people subscribe to your blog, but you can invite them as well. Under the Site Manager in the control panel, click on "Invite Your Friends".

Flash Photo Galleries
In a recent update to InstantSpot, we added a *very* cool photo gallery feature. After uploading files using the Photo Manager, you can create a gallery in the Photo Gallery Manager.

Improved Stats Tracking
Since early on, InstantSpot has supported the ability for you to monitor your traffic using several tracking services such as Google Analytics, BlogBeat, MyBlogLog, and Ice Rocket. We recently added a new service called Site stats from Feedburner. We had an inside track on this one, as the feature is not yet publicly available from Feedbuner, but as soon as it is, we will update you.

More Rocket Fuel
OK, there is no real way to show you guys this one, but we worked too hard on it not to mention it. We have done some pretty dramatic work on performance lately. Speed is a real obsession of ours, so know that this is something we will always work on until we squeeze the last bit of performance out that we can.

Now... for the moment you have been waiting for:

InstantSpot wants to give you an iPod Nano!
If you are like us, you woke up on Christmas morning to find that Santa apparently didn't think you had been good enough for that Nano. That leaves you only two choices. Either mope around and wait for one next year only to be disappointed yet again, or make it happen! Starting in January, InstantSpot will be tracking how many people you refer to sign up at InstantSpot. We will soon be sending you a referral link that you can attach to your emails, put on your Spot, give to your family, etc. At the end of January we will be tallying up the active users that have been referred by other Spotters, and will be sending the top referrer a brand new iPod Nano. The complete details of this contest are under final review and might change slightly before we roll the contest, but stay tuned and good luck!

So that about wraps up most of the new happenings here at InstantSpot. We love hearing from you guys so if you have feature requests, things you would like to see different (or not at all!), or if you just want to tell us how much you love your Spot, feel free to contact us anytime.