BLAST FEATURE

There's been recent clamor about Multiply incorporating a blast, both in MUDS and in Refugees here. While the one on 360 is nice, I'd like to offer a potential counter-point.

First, I suggest you open up my Multiply page --> zebaron.multiply.com

Second, I'm going to give you some knowladge if you don't know what I'm going to talk about. A blast on 360 looked something like this... go HERE to my 360 page. At the top, the the brownish rectangle where I have information about my leaving 360 for Multiply, is the blast. This could be used for displaying your favorite quotes, telling visitors to your page a quick notice ("I'm leaving 360," "I'll be out of town," etc) or it could be used for directing people to an outside link. If a link to an Mp3 file were put in the link section a "Play" icon was displayed there. There is also a feature to reply to the user via a PM, though this could be turned off.

Blast updates were fed into your friend's "Home" page, an equivalent of Multiply's "My Multiply" area. While this was nice, in some cases, for receiving updates, it was usually bothersome because it forced blog content down. Some users only used their blast to advertise their page, which was very annoying.

Here on Multiply, we don't have a explict feature like that. However, if you go to my Multiply page (HERE), look where I have the American proverb. That is called the site title. Initially, I used the site title I used on 360, but I later abandoned that in leiu of this idea... using that area as a blast of sorts. To change it, you go to "Customize this page" below your welcome message, hit "edit" in that module, and then change it. I've found that it takes about the same amount of time to change that here as it did to change a blast there.

Some users have suggested using the "Welcome" area as a blast. On my page, that area is titled with "Willkommen" and lists the "About Me" that I moved from 360. This feature would be good for a blast as well, though I chose the above option because the site title is in a much larger font.

If Multiply wishes to accomadate the cries of the 360 users who want a blast, they could do that very easily. Instead of adding an entire new module to clog people's blogs (that rhymes!), simple changes to the site title could fix that. The easiest way to do that would be to add a box to user’s “My Multiply” page similar to the one on 360, shown to the right.

[This feature would enable you to edit your blast from your 'home' page, the equivalent of your 'My Multiply' page.]

That way, Multiply would not need to change any modules on our pages, saving the integrity and the streamlined look, while giving us a more accessible way to change our “blast,” per se.

I personally do not want Multiply to bend to everything requested. This is Multiply, not 360. We left 360 for a reason… if we try to mold our new home to look like our old one, what have we truly done?

I am ashamed that people would demand this and that and this on MUDS and Multiply Customer Service. A friend has told me about the goings-on in the posts of MCS. I implore you to please be decent and please, please, do not post another blog on the same topic at any of these groups if there is not a new one.

While we may be citizens of this community, we don’t have the right to charge in here and pretend we’re calling the shots. For now, try and implement my suggestions above, and if Multiply deems a blast a good thing, they’ll add it.

Personally, I don’t want a blast. While I liked having one, the way that the site title is set up works better, in my opinion. And, on the bright side, the site title accepts HTML, something 360’s blast did not.

If you’ve got any questions about my suggestions here, you can send me a PM or leave it in the comments. Please, though, don’t trash Multiply’s official groups.

The poll that has been posted at MUDS can be found HERE.

-Ze Baron