Humble Voice - The best community for art, photography, music, video and writing

A brand new version of Humble Voice is coming...

10/17/2011 at 10:11 PM

Hey there, Humble Voice! First off, let me apologize for the long break since you last heard any updates from us. For quite some time now we've been working on a brand new version of Humble Voice. We wanted to wait to announce it because honestly we didn't know exactly how long it was going to take and didn't want to make promises we couldn't keep. With that being said, we are getting very close and launch is just a matter of time now. We realize though that from your end it looks a lot like we've abandoned you, but that's far from being the case.

I don't really have a list of what the new version will contain just yet, but that will be coming even sooner. I can say, however, that the new version is going to be greatly simplified and limited to just the features that matter for sharing great art. One of the things we hear more than anything (and is the reason for more than 90% of account removal requests) and that the site is just too complex. We're fixing that by simplifying both the interface and the feature set on the new version.

We also want your feedback on how the new site will work. To kick off the ongoing feedback process, we want to know how you want to rank art. Vote on our Facebook fan page and "Like" us so that you can help us with future feedback.

Check back soon for more updates on the new version!

1 comment

What's new in version 2 of Humble Voice

4/5/2010 at 10:18 PM

The new home page was designed to make a significant visual impact when you first land on the site. We will be putting a new feature on the home page every day to keep it fresh and exciting. So come back daily to see the newest daily feature... the next one could be you! We also removed the old landing pages for each media type to engage you in browsing the media on the site, in yet another view of art that changes daily and stays fresh.

You may also notice that the top navigation has been slimmed down a little. There's a new bar docked to the bottom of the screen that gives you quick access to all of the same pages and a few more. Use this bar to log in, edit your profile, see your friend's activity in a pop up window and more.

A second column has been added to the right of all pages throughout the site that adds new features throughout. On many pages it will show you the latest features, popular media and newest members. On profiles it gives you quick access to contact that user, see all of their uploads at a glance and browse their friends. While browsing the main categories of the site or when browsing an image gallery, it will also provide navigation for the next and previous items in the set. We will be continuously revising this column to add more features and improve your overall browsing experience.

We've also added hundreds of other improvements. Some are very apparent to you and many more improvements have been added under the hood that will make way for more major features to come. While browsing you now get larger thumbnails, full screen browsing, a preview button and a new media detail page. Clicking through to each piece of media lets you comment and rate on any uploaded content, which drives new browse views for best rated media. You'll also find new share buttons throughout that site that let's you tell your friends on other social networks or through email about the great stuff you find on Humble Voice. The more you explore, the more new features you'll find!

8 comments

New support website and knowledge base

2/20/2010 at 5:03 PM

We just launched a new support site at http://support.humblevoice.com where you can view FAQ, suggest new features and submit support ticket requests. We made the switch from Get Satisfaction to zendesk to give you the ability to create private support ticket requests and have more control over the support system in general. You can still use the Get Satisfaction site to help each other if you want but I suggest using the new support site to make sure we are able to see and respond to you in a timely manner.

If you have any questions, you should know where to go.
Jon

4 comments

Faster video conversion now in place

10/7/2009 at 12:17 AM

I made some updates to our video conversion procedure to compliment the new conversion software on the new server. Now most videos will be available on Humble Voice within seconds of upload. When testing I actually had some trouble finding videos that didn't work so that I could reproduce and properly handle errors. I downloaded many files from the old server that had previously failed and nearly all of them worked on the new server. I'm really excited to see what our videographers do with our improved video capabilities :)

Jon

2 comments

New features: Humble Talk, category page media previews, iPhone video support

9/30/2009 at 1:20 AM

• Humble Talk - The community chat meets forum. This live forum gives you both the ability to contribute to a live conversation (nearly identical to the old chat window on the Community page) and have a permanent history of what went down. You can also create new conversations with any topic, just like a traditional forum.


• Thumbnail previews for the newest and best rated media on the main category pages. Click these bad boys to get a large preview window just like the browse section where you can vote (and very soon tag and comment as well.)


• Video support for the iPhone - Visit the detail page for a video and you'll be able to launch the video player app by clicking on the preview image (coming soon to the video preview overlay as well.) We've converted all existing videos to an iPhone format and all future uploads will be converted automatically at the same time as it makes the Flash version.

A lot more really exciting stuff is to come.

1 comment

New browse section is online!

7/5/2009 at 3:41 PM

Today we launched the new browse section and are pretty excited about it. Using the check boxes at the top allows you to browse multiple media types at the same time and you still can browse them individually by clicking the name of the section. A new user browse is also in place (just click the users radio button on the top right) which also gives you a preview of the last 5 things they've uploaded. Lots of new sorting options were added (with more to come) and voting is now possible on profile images and songs in addition to gallery images and video. We are also introducing the concept of the average user rating. You will get one as soon as you have at least 5 votes on your media.

We have a few other major features slated to launch this summer so stay tuned!

Happy browsing,
Jon

2 comments

New server status site

5/17/2009 at 4:59 PM

In the unlikely event that Humble Voice goes down or you happen to show up when we are making some major updates, there's a new server status website that will provide you with some information. Just header over to humblevoicestatus.com to see if the server is responding. If there's a known issue that will take more than a few minutes to clear up or if we are performing scheduled maintenance we will post progress information there. This website is hosted on a different server so it's availability will be independent from that of Humble Voice.

Jon

0 comments

New widescreen video player with fullscreen support

3/15/2009 at 3:00 PM

We just added a new widescreen format video player to the video section of Humble Voice. It has a few other new features too such as fullscreen support and an image preview prior to playback. Just go to this featured video to check it out. We've also made some under-the-hood improvements for HV video recently and will be adding more in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Jon

4 comments