Bitmob Tech Update

You might’ve noticed that we upgraded our blogging software recently. We had a few hiccups yesterday, but most of the major problems are gone now.

You still post stories to our Mobfeed the same way you did before (through your Profile tab). And while the blogging window is still slow to load (we’re working on that!), you should be able to save and publish your articles much faster now.

We’re now also listing more of your stories in the Mini-Mobfeed box in the right column, to accommodate the higher number of submissions we’ve been getting. And we’ve optimized a few things here and there to make the overall Bitmob experience a bit faster and smoother.

This is all still a work in progress, though. If you notice, we’re still “Alpha 1.0” and still have cool features planned for the future.

A few more quick notes...

1. Don’t forget about our HP Netbook contest! Submit good stories and you may win a free laptop.

2. Just so you understand our system better, when you’re in the blogging window, hitting “save” will post your article to the Mobfeed. If you just want to keep a draft and continue later, just mark it “unpublish” and save. The story will sit in your Profile dashboard until you’re ready for it, but note: You probably don't want to do this. The system will still list your story in the Mobfeed by when you first saved it, regardless of the publish date, so saving a story for later will probably cause it to be buried way down on the list. We're looking into ways around this.

3. If you want more people to see your goods, make sure to fill out the Meta Info (keywords as well as a short description for search engines) and Tags!

Don’t overdo it on the tags, though. Just pick out the most important words -- usually game titles -- from your story that other people may seek out. Make sure you spell everything correctly or else it won’t work!

And don't forget to hit the "+" button to actually add your tags.

4. If you’re having any problems with the site, send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and tell us what’s wrong, along with your operating system and browser version.

Comments (15)

way to go to all making this better behind the scenes.
Toby Davis , August 13, 2009
Thanks Shoe. Can't wait to see what else you guys have up your sleeves.
Eric King , August 13, 2009
I've posted since this and OH MY GOD do the articles save faster.

Opening the window is still a drag, but I'm sure you guys will get there.
James DeRosa , August 13, 2009
Question: what is the new preferences tab all about?
Lance Darnell , August 13, 2009
When I hit the unpublish button while working on your blog, then open it later and decide to publish the final draft, it's posted back to the date and time I first began writing it. Meaning that it won't appear in the mobfeed as a new post, i.e. at the top.
Just wondering if this is an issue, or it's simply meant to save a rough draft then copy and paste at a later time.
J. Cosmo Cohen , August 13, 2009
@Cohen You should be able to change the publish date and time.
Rich McGrath , August 13, 2009
Think of the new preferences tab as a sort of superfluous third nipple that will eventually disappear. Replaced by something much more beautiful.
Demian Linn , August 13, 2009
I will up date my dev notes "need to get rid of third nipple"
Rich McGrath , August 13, 2009
Oh, so *that's* what "unpublish" means! Now I can finally double-check my final formatting before actually posting to the Mobfeed. Cooooooooool.
Brian Petro-Roy , August 13, 2009
I've had the same problem as Cohen above. You can change the publish date and time, yes, but the Mobfeed doesn't know the difference. I published a review a day after "unpublishing" it, and it never saw the light of day on the Mobfeed.

You also can't preview your post when you unpublish it, which is kind of a head scratcher. I had originally intended to use it for that purpose, but since it's not actually published, Bitmob will say that the article doesn't exist.

This is, of course, unless you fixed these two things in the new update (I haven't checked since yesterday). At any rate, besides these two things that bug me a bit, great update and keep up the good work!
Garret Staus , August 13, 2009
@Rich maybe an edit button for the comments. I know many people have been asking for it. Not sure if it is in the plans.
Toby Davis , August 13, 2009
I've just noticed that the read-breaks work now. Thank you thank you thank you! I link my user page in quite a few places and I hated that the previews looked awkward because I couldn't put read breaks in (it'd just show up as an image).
Garret Staus , August 13, 2009
Ah, sorry guys... we'll look into the "placement in Mobfeed" thing. I'm not sure we can fix it, though, because otherwise, people can abuse the system and keep bumping their stories up. It looks like you probably don't want to save your story for later, then.... sorry! But we'll see if we can tweak how the posting time works.
Dan Hsu , August 13, 2009
@ Dan
Yeah, I mean, it's really not even a big deal. I like being able to save a blog to come back to at a later time (without doing so on my desktop), so that's mainly why I use it. It's also not a big deal to just save it for later, then when I'm ready for it to be published, copy and paste.
And I didn't say this above but THANK YOU for making everything faster. What a huge difference. Keep up the great work!
J. Cosmo Cohen , August 13, 2009
@J Cosmo: Thanks! But I didn't do shit. Rich McGrath and Ryan Rubis (our developers) did all the hard work.
Dan Hsu , August 13, 2009

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