The Flickspin Blog makes a Move

We have just launched our new blog under our new sign up site - Online Writing Community (onlinewritingcommunity.com).

Be sure to check it out. We'll still be covering updates to the site as well other news regarding writing for the web.

Hopefully we'll see you on the flip-side.

Fiction Explosion!

After the flood of requests we finally got our act into gear and made Flickspin a whole lot broader. We've now opened up a whole new fiction area for short stories, poetry and web-novels!

This expansion brings some big style changes for these new format types where we've kept things as clean as possible and done our best to make the published work the star of the show. Let us know what you think.

If the new fiction area wasn't enough we've also added in some more non-fiction sections: reviews, recipes and helpful how-tos. All new format types can be added to Flickspin by using the good old word processor you'll find in flickspin.com/central.

Changes to the revenue share system

With the new expansion of the site and our need to keep our marketing message clear we've made some changes to revenue share percentages for published works. Here are the percentages that go into the writer's pocket:

Non-fiction: 75% (this includes blogs!)

Fiction: 50%

(Log into Flickspin to find out more details.)

For those not interesting in making money we've also added the option to turn the ads off for their pages. This switch can be found within the settings area under flickspin.com/central. For those leaning the other way and want to make the most our of their published work, the settings area also has the option to increase ad exposure on their pages (where available). By catering to both ends of the spectrum we feel we can make writers happy for whatever reason they enjoy writing.

Have a happy Easter!

Introducing Flickspin Central & Spin Links

The My Desk area is no more. But say hello to Flickspin Central and Spin Links! Flickspin Central is the new portal for accessing your Flickspin tools as well as keeping up with what is going on with the site. And that's where Spin Links comes in; we're now piping a feed of what's going on around the site and making easier to see what the other writers are up to. Spin Links will also list new threads in the Writers' Forum as well as new blog posts from the Flickspin Blog.

That's about it for now, however, the new Flickspin Central page also has a little reminder that we love feedback. We really do. So if you have any thoughts or suggestions, we always here and we're always listening.

Peace!

Blog Via Email

The ability to blog via email is the latest feature on the site and coolest one we've had the pleasure to announce. This little doozy makes it just that much easier to keep on top of the art they call blogging. In fact, blogging doesn't get much easier. All our writers now need to do is fire off an email and that little message will make it on to the site within minutes. Pretty neat, hey?

The concept of blogging via email isn't new but it's never really taken off in any major form. One reason that things may be different now is that the mobile market is getting a hefty shake-up whereby email is becoming ubiquitous, and connectivity is becoming a non-issue.

It must be understood that blogging via email isn't just for those with fancy little gadgets. Email clients such as Gmail, Outlook and Thunderbird all offer quality editing tools and a familiar interface that makes it just that much easier to keep the words flowing. Not only that but blogging via email also means you don't have to login and load up another application to post your work. It just makes things easy.

We've added a couple of little extras with the blog via email functionality that allows writers to select a category if they wish to do so as well as add any keywords they see fit. Details of the specifics are available once you login.

We really like the feature (as you can probably tell) and we hope our writers love it too.

Peace!

Luke

Little by Little...

Today saw the release of some new code to the site. Most of it revolves around little fix-ups and style changes around the site - nothing too major. The main pages adjusted were the about us page, the homepage, the search page and the login page.

This release actually leads on from one a few weeks ago that saw the stylised toolbar added to the profile areas. Looks pretty spiffy too and does a great job of tidying up the profile and blog pages.

One other area that was recently updated was the join the web writing community page where we are campaigning to grow the community with some more members. We've made it easier for people to sign up as well as find out what we are about.

Now that we've done a bit of a tidy of house to the public areas of the site, we've got our eyes on revamping the beloved "my desk" area. But before we get stuck in there is one really cool feature that will be built, launched, and mentioned here real soon.

Stay tuned.

Peace! Luke

Images, Images, Images (+ other stuff)

As mentioned previously, today is the day to introduce the latest changes to the Flickspin writing community.

Images - Bigger and Brighter:
With some help from some open source code (slimbox + mootools), images on articles, etc. are now displayed in a very user friendly viewer. Readers only need to click on an image to pop-up the viewer where they can then browse through all of the included images in a much larger size.

Images - Uploading and Including:
Here is where a lot of work went into the latest release; images can now be uploaded without being taken to a new page. This feature was frequently requested and we are happy to have come through with the goods. Not only have we improved the upload process, writers can now place their images exactly where they want them displayed within a post.


Including images in a post has been made easy by the use of drag-and-drop technology to move images from the shared image gallery or a writer's own image gallery into the post. Once the images are included it's then easy to add captions.

Images - Profile + Blog Stylings:
Not only did we make it easy to add images to posts we also made it easy add/change portrait and header images for your profile and blog by utilising the drag-and-drop technology. We think it's pretty cool too.

Fact File Spruce:
Fact files have had a bit of a polish whereby we've reduced the size of the ads and made the display area of the text a fair amount wider. This gives the page a better overall feel and leaves layout of the page performing it's intended purpose; conveying short sharp tips to readers that mostly come from search engines while aiming for a high ad click rate by having the ad in the webpage visual hostspot.

Here's an example

Improved Related Article Algorithm:
The relation of some of the items in the related articles list was a bit unusual at times. We've taken a few extra steps to help keep things more inline and make it more appealing to readers and more meaningful to search engines.

Peace!

All comments and feedback welcome. Also, if you haven't signed up with the site be sure to get a wriggle on.

New Changes are Live!

The new changes have now taken hold on the site and all writers can now log in freely. Tomorrow we will announce the details in full but let's just say it has a lot to do with the way the images work on the site.

Until then.

Peace!