The blog.co.uk Blog - News, tips and more.

New widget!

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

01. Jul 2009 - 16:35:02

Dear Bloggers,

Next week we'll be activating a new widget, with which you'll be able to display posts from other BCUK blogs. You'll be able to sort them by tags too, so that you could, for example, link to all the photography.blog.co.uk posts tagged with 'seaside' or 'mountains'.

This new feature will work in a similar way to RSS feeds. So if you don't want other users to be able to link to your posts, simply uncheck the 'Enable RSS-Feeds' option in your blog settings.

Happy linking!
Your BCUK team
Links:
Lots of improvements and changes to BCUK

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

08. Jun 2009 - 13:43:44
Dear bloggers,

We've made a number of small changes and improvements all over blogland. See below for an overview.

My blog.co.uk
- Improved layout in the blog overview
- In your PM inbox, more messages can be marked by dragging the cursor over the checkboxes while the left mousebutton is held down
Design
- After clicking on the paintbrush icon, a new overview page improves useability
- Three new Mokono designs are available: Discomama, Newspaper and Crimson Inferno
- Group moderators can modify group designs
- Improved spacing in the various areas of your blog. If problems with custom CSS arise, please let us know in the help blog
- The WOW headers in the WOW designs can be removed:
  #header-inner .bL {display:none;}
Blogs
- The 'recommend/bookmark' under each post has been expanded. Now there's a code there for a direct link to the post, making it easier to link others to the post
- There is now a 'login' link right at the comment box
Uploads
- The following file types can now be uploaded:
- .ppsx .odp (OpenOffice presentation)
- .odt (OpenOffice Text document)
- .ods (OpenOffice table document)
- .bmp (Bitmap image)
- .flv (Flash film)
Links:
Downtime announcement

Category:

announcements

by

teamUK

@

17. Apr 2009 - 08:00:00

Dear bloggers,

Due to scheduled maintenance, blog.co.uk will be unavailable from approximately 02:00am and 03:00am on Tuesday, April 21st.

Apologies for the inconvenience,

Your BCUK Team
Links:
Changes on RSS Feeds and Statistics

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

16. Apr 2009 - 11:00:13

Dear Users

As well as some changes to the RSS Feeds, we have modified the way bots (e.g. from search engines) are identified on blog.co.uk.

This will have an effect on your statistics - some of you will probably observe fewer page impressions within the blog stats. But don't worry! This does not mean that fewer people are reading your blog. We are simply filtering the search engine bots and removing the misleading page impressions that they cause. This will improve our statistics so that they will be in better accordance with external tools like Google Analytics.

Feel free to post your questions regarding the new statistics or RSS Feed on the help blog.

Your BCUK Team
Links:
Small changes on BCUK

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

25. Mar 2009 - 01:15:16

Dear Users,

We have implemented another couple of small changes here on BCUK.

As of now, it's not possible for a visitor to comment on a blog using a name that is already registered on BCUK. As well as this, your username can't be used as part of a visitor's name on your blog, and neither can any of your friend's usernames.

For example: As a visitor, you can't use the name Vasco or Florian. Vasco2, or FlorianXYZ would be fine though.

On Vasco's blog, as a visitor you can't use 'Vasco' in any part of your name - ie Mr.Vasco or Vasco2009 are not allowed. Also, Mr.Florian isn't allowed either, as Florian is on Vasco's friends list.

Also, you can now edit the default view for the new tag pages - just click on the icon of the spanner on the 'tag' widget in the Design Wizard.

We hope this further improves your blogging experience.
Your BCUK team.
Links:
The new tag pages

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

18. Mar 2009 - 14:27:10

Dear bloggers,

As we have already announced, there have been a few changes to the tag pages. These changes, both on BCUK and on your blog, will give you three different views for your chosen tag.

Clicking on a tag on your blog now leads you to a page which shows you a short preview of all the posts with your chosen tag. Depending upon whether the tag appears in the text of the post or not, you will either see the first few words of the post or a section of the post where the tag appears as a normal word. This page is called 'recent'.

As well as this, there's an option to view the 'most read' posts with your tag. They appear in a short preview form and are sorted by the number of pageviews, starting with the most viewed. You can also have a look at the full post - this is shows all of the posts with your tag, sorted chronologically. This view will be familiar to you - it's the way posts were displayed before these changes took place.

We expect to shortly modify the tag and tag cloud widgets to allow you to set which view is the one you see first when clicking on a tag.

As always, feedback is most welcome.

Your BCUK team.
Links:
BCUK merchandise

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

13. Mar 2009 - 13:52:50

It's been a long time coming, but finally we are almost ready to make some BCUK merchandise available in the shape of t-shirts, sweaters, mugs and much more.

Blog.de merchandise has been available for the last few weeks, you can have a look at it here. It's in German, but at least it can give you an idea of what will be available.

You will be able to personalise your own BCUK t-shirt, but we would also like to have a few standard BCUK designs made.

And this is where we need your help.

If you have any suggestions for what you would like to have on a BCUK t-shirt, let us know in a comment. We'll collect the most popular ones and we'll see what we can do.

Thanks for your help!
Links:
Changes to the tag pages

Category:

announcements

by

teamUK

@

04. Mar 2009 - 14:44:13

Dear bloggers,

As of next week, you will notice some changes to the tag pages. These changes will affect the tag pages both on your blogs and on the BCUK tag pages.

At the moment, clicking on a post tag on your blog (be it the ones under the post or the ones in the tag widget) brings you to a page which displays all the posts with that tag. This page will still be available, but will not be the first one that you see after clicking on a tag.

Due to large demand from the community, a preview page of all the posts with the chosen tag will be the first displayed. This preview page will show you a small section of the text in the tagged post. In addition, you will also be able to view the 'old' complete version, as well as a page that sorts the tags by pageviews, giving you an overview of the most popular posts with your chosen tag.

For those of you who wish to have the complete version as the first page you see after clicking on a tag, you can easily set up a bloglist linking to that page.

We expect to have the new pages finished by next week, and we will show you clearer examples as soon as they are completed.

As always, we would love to hear your feedback on this new development.

Your BCUK team.
Links:
The Bloscars 2009

Category:

other

by

teamUK

@

26. Jan 2009 - 13:07:59

It just seems to come around quicker each year - it's The Bloscars time again!

All the old classic categories are back (as well as one new one), and competition will be stiff for the honour of being declared BCUK's finest.

Can last year's big winners, rowtheboat, Old-Nick and ajnspencer hold on to their crowns? Will subville continue her ruthless domination of the Best Profile Picture category? Or will someone new come in and sweep the board?

Well, it is up to you. Yes, YOU! You can find voting instructions and forms here - hurry though, you only have until midnight on January 31st to get your votes in. That's just over five days. Do it, do it now!
Links:
Less commercial ads

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

08. Jan 2009 - 16:42:31

Dear Users,

In future, you will probably notice some changes regarding the commercial ads on the blogs in our network. Our goal is to show less ads on blogs, especially if you visit a blog when you are logged in. This will be a longer process and needs some testing first, but we hope you will be pleasantly surprised.

Your BCUK team
Links:
Happy Christmas from BCUK!

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

16. Dec 2008 - 15:01:12

Dear Users,

We have a small Christmas present for all of you. The best ones are always the small ones...

We have expanded the blog statistics to include the top 30 searches that linked to your blog over the last thirty days.

Simply go to your stats page, as normal, and you will see the searches at the bottom.

Enjoy!

Your BCUK team.
Links:
Spam update

Category:

other

by

teamUK

@

01. Dec 2008 - 16:32:15

Dear Users,

As you have hopefully noticed, there has been a significant decrease in the amount of comment spam over the last few days.

We have ironed out a bug with the captcha and this has greatly helped in keeping spam out.

We would like to apologise for the irritation these spam attacks caused, and to thank you for your patience and reports.

Kind regards,
Your BCUK team.
Links:
We have restructured

Category:

announcements

by

teamUK

@

31. Oct 2008 - 18:45:35

This week was one of the toughest for us at mokono.

We´ve decided to cut staff significantly today in anticipation of a long-lasting decline in advertising revenues due to the financial crisis at hand. 2009 and 2010 are highly likely to push ad revenues down across the board and in order to ride mokono safely through the hard times to come, we have decided on making one big and painful cut. Now. Not later. And no more before we start hiring again.

This was and still is very hard on all of us. But it is a necessary move to ensure that BCUK will not only be giving people a voice in the future as well, but that BCUK will also see further development and the regular service and support.

We´ve decided to share this with you because we feel you should have an idea of significant developments behind and within BCUK. We´ll do our best to ensure that the differences you will notice with BCUK in the future are improvements.

Very best wishes to you all,

Florian Wilken & Vasco Sommer-Nunes
Managing Directors
Links:
New features!

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

15. Oct 2008 - 18:18:23

Dear Users,

We'll be going online with a few new features over the next few days and would like to take this opportunity to give you all a sneak preview.

1. Public Designs

You will be able to make you own personal designs public, and share them with other users. When you make your design public, it will enter the pool of public designs and will be available for all users. You will also be able to tag you design, enter it into specific categories, enter a design description, and, if necessary, to duplicate the design.

Of course, it will be possible to 'unpublish' your design, and you will also be able to make changes to the design after it has been published (e.g. updating the tags or design description). You will find this new features under 'Design Manager'

2. Blog Tags

Soon it will be possible to tag your blog. This will mean that your blog will be easier to find for users who are looking for content on a specific theme. You can already see the tag box in your blog settings, however the blog tag search is not yet online.

3. New Editor

We have completely revamped and improved the 'new' editor. The old editor will still be available, and clicking on 'Switch to new editor' button will lead you to the all-new writing page.

Please note: The new editor is still in Beta version. This mean that it is not yet completely bug-free, and that we would really appreciate your feedback.
If you do notice a bug, please report it in the BugsBlog. Your ideas and suggestions for improvement are more than welcome in the IdeasBlog, and if you need help using the new editor, let us know in the HelpBlog

4. Converting to the New Design Wizard

All accounts that currently use the old Design Wizard are being gradually changed over to the new one. For performance reasons, we cannot change all accounts immediately so we would like to ask all users that are currently using the old Wizard to change to the new one.

We hope you enjoy the new features!

Your BCUK team
Links:
Notice for BCUK university/college students

Category:

announcements

by

teamUK

@

01. Oct 2008 - 13:10:25

Dear bloggers,

It has recently come to our attention that a number of users have accidentally been blocked from BCUK. This happened because they were all using our platform from the same IP (i.e. logging in from a university, college or large school). This caused our automatic spam-detecting measures to identify them as spam, and subsequently block them.

We request that if this has happened to you, i.e. if you cannot log in from your university, to please send a mail to support(at)blog.co.uk stating the name of your university/school (and of course the IP, if you know it) so we can unblock your IP.

Many thanks,

your BCUK Team
Links:
Returning to old Design Wizard

Category:

announcements

by

teamUK

@

05. Sep 2008 - 13:35:28

Dear BCUK users,

Just a quick message to let you know that it is no longer possible to return to the old Design Wizard from the new one.

Users who have been using the old Wizard can still change to the new one, but will NOT be able to return to the old one again.

As of now, new users will automatically use the new Wizard.

We are still planning more improvements to the new Wizard, for example the ability to use other user's designs.

Don't forget that the Design Wizard group is still active for you to report any issues or suggest improvements.

Many thanks,
your BCUK
Links:
Blog Action Day 2008

Category:

blogosphere

by

teamUK

@

02. Sep 2008 - 11:46:11

On October 15th it will be Blog Action Day again. Just like last year, bloggers all over the world will unite to attempt to raise global awareness of a pressing topic - this year the theme is poverty.

Bloggers are encouraged to interpret this topic in whatever way they see fit - it is wide-ranging and important enough to give almost unlimited scope to bloggers to air their views, provoke discussion and, hopefully, to make a difference. And remember - no blog is too small to take part in Blog Action Day:

From the smallest online journals, to huge online magazines, to EU ministers, to professionals and amateurs, Blog Action Day is about mass participation. Anyone is free to join in on Blog Action Day and there is no limit on the number of posts, the type of posts or the direction of thoughts and opinions.

Take a look at the Blog Action Day Website, where you can register your blog for participation. You can also find banners for your blog, to show your participation and help spread the word.

So remember: October 15th, 2008. Interpret it as you see fit, but please try to find time to write a post on 'poverty'.

Let's change the conversation.
Links:
General Terms of Service and Privacy Note

Category:

announcements

by

teamUK

@

21. Aug 2008 - 17:37:26

Dear bloggers,

We would like to inform you that there will be new Terms of Service and a new Privacy Note.
We are planning to publish them on 1st September 2008.

We've uploaded the TOS and the Privacy Notice (and also special terms and conditions for fee-based service packages for pro-user) here, so please feel free to read them.

Of course, we will inform all of you separately via email about this before September 1st.

- Privacy Notice
- General Terms of Service
- Special Terms and Conditions for Fee-based Service Packages

Important:
In order to continue blogging on blog.co.uk, you have to accept the new Terms of Service and the Privacy Notice.

Best regards,

your teamUK
Links:
Changes to 'The Buzz'

Category:

other

by

teamUK

@

14. Aug 2008 - 14:50:21

There have been a few small changes made to 'The Buzz', they are as follows:

- Now there can be more than one entry per blogger, but only if they are in different blogs. There can only be one entry per blog.
- Entries can stay in The Buzz for up to ten days.
- There are now only five pages in The Buzz.
- If you have a post with 30 comments but only 5 different comment authors and a post with 25 comments but 10 different authors, the post with more authors will appear, even though it has fewer comments.

Hope this clears things up for everyone.
Links:
Group messaging now possible!

Category:

new

by

teamUK

@

15. Jul 2008 - 16:43:48

Dear bloggers,

We're pleased to let you know that, as of now, you can send group messages. As the owner of a group, you'll see the new option on the left hand side of the 'Messages' tab:

You can also set who may send messages - (owner only, moderators or all members):

Questions, bug reports and suggestions for improvement are, as you know, more than welcome.

Thanks,
your BCUK team.
Links: