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Also see the soup kitchen, where we ponder future
features and
micropublishing
in general.
Also see the soup kitchen, where we ponder future
features and
micropublishing
in general.
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December 08 2009
Facebook integration: Auto-posting & login/signup
You prefer Soup, but some of your friends mainly use Facebook? Not a problem: We can now automatically publish everything you post on Soup to your Facebook wall (including reposts, but excluding imports and reactions – why?). Video clips and audio files will be playable directly on Facebook, all other kinds of posts link back to your Soup.
You'll find the setting in the new "Automatic exports" section of your Soup's options panel.
You may also choose to sign in or register via Facebook Connect, which makes it even easier for new users to start a Soup: Entering an email address, picking a password and uploading an avatar image are no longer necessary!
Maybe you can convince your Facebook friends to give it a try now... ;)
You prefer Soup, but some of your friends mainly use Facebook? Not a problem: We can now automatically publish everything you post on Soup to your Facebook wall (including reposts, but excluding imports and reactions – why?). Video clips and audio files will be playable directly on Facebook, all other kinds of posts link back to your Soup.
You'll find the setting in the new "Automatic exports" section of your Soup's options panel.
You may also choose to sign in or register via Facebook Connect, which makes it even easier for new users to start a Soup: Entering an email address, picking a password and uploading an avatar image are no longer necessary!
Maybe you can convince your Facebook friends to give it a try now... ;)
Reposted by
November 21 2009
→ soup.tv
Soup TV: Endless scrolling for videos
We're excited to announce the launch of the alpha version of Soup TV: You can now watch the video content of your friends, their friends or any particular Soup in (almost) full screen mode with seamless playback – and your own Soup now also comes with your own personal "TV station": Just add
As with Soup in general, we've tried to keep this feature as simple as possible: A big "next" button is all navigation there is (even just hitting the space bar works as well). The next time you want something interesting to watch without having to do much searching, selecting or navigating, lean back and give Soup TV a try!
Some notes: In this first version only videos hosted on YouTube are shown due to technical reasons, but we plan to include other sources later. Video resolution will vary depending on the particular clip – and of course, a fast connection is highly recommended.
We think this is a great way to enjoy video content, and are pretty addicted to it ourselves. Please let us know how you like this feature!
Here are some channel recommendations to get you started:
- WTF will astound and confuse you
- Advertime shows outstanding advertisements
- Songsung has a great collection of music cover versions
Find any other great TV streams? Tell us in a reaction!
We're excited to announce the launch of the alpha version of Soup TV: You can now watch the video content of your friends, their friends or any particular Soup in (almost) full screen mode with seamless playback – and your own Soup now also comes with your own personal "TV station": Just add
/tv to the end of your address, or go to (and send your friends to!) username.soup.tv.As with Soup in general, we've tried to keep this feature as simple as possible: A big "next" button is all navigation there is (even just hitting the space bar works as well). The next time you want something interesting to watch without having to do much searching, selecting or navigating, lean back and give Soup TV a try!
Some notes: In this first version only videos hosted on YouTube are shown due to technical reasons, but we plan to include other sources later. Video resolution will vary depending on the particular clip – and of course, a fast connection is highly recommended.
We think this is a great way to enjoy video content, and are pretty addicted to it ourselves. Please let us know how you like this feature!
Here are some channel recommendations to get you started:
- WTF will astound and confuse you
- Advertime shows outstanding advertisements
- Songsung has a great collection of music cover versions
Find any other great TV streams? Tell us in a reaction!
Reposted by
November 03 2009
Tagging
Last week, we implemented basic support for tagging so you can categorize your posts and improve findability. Just click the "+ TAGS" button at the bottom of a post editing form to start adding some tags.
You can separate individual tags either by commas or spaces, and when using spaces you may use quotes to enclose phrases – so these two inputs are equivalent:
tag1 "another tag" tag3
tag1, another tag, tag3
Tags are also imported from some feeds, notably Flickr, Delicious and Vimeo. Unfortunately, most other services do not include tags in their RSS feeds.
This feature is still in an early testing phase, and we'll be making further improvements: Tag clouds and global tag pages are on the todo list, and we're happy to hear your suggestions for further improvements.
You can separate individual tags either by commas or spaces, and when using spaces you may use quotes to enclose phrases – so these two inputs are equivalent:
tag1 "another tag" tag3
tag1, another tag, tag3
Tags are also imported from some feeds, notably Flickr, Delicious and Vimeo. Unfortunately, most other services do not include tags in their RSS feeds.
This feature is still in an early testing phase, and we'll be making further improvements: Tag clouds and global tag pages are on the todo list, and we're happy to hear your suggestions for further improvements.
Reposted by
October 20 2009
Announcing status.soup.io – also, an apology
As you noticed, a week ago we had serious performance issues that lasted multiple days after a database upgrade had myriad unintended consequences. Just as bad, we neglected to communicate timely and openly about the situation. Sorry.
The good news is: The graph above demonstrates that we've managed to fix the issues. Response times have been back to normal for a while now.
As a first step towards improving communication in the future, we're launching status.soup.io today, a page hosted on a different network showing the current status and loading time of the Soup servers.
As you noticed, a week ago we had serious performance issues that lasted multiple days after a database upgrade had myriad unintended consequences. Just as bad, we neglected to communicate timely and openly about the situation. Sorry.
The good news is: The graph above demonstrates that we've managed to fix the issues. Response times have been back to normal for a while now.
As a first step towards improving communication in the future, we're launching status.soup.io today, a page hosted on a different network showing the current status and loading time of the Soup servers.
Reposted by
September 30 2009
The bookmarklet now supports video embeds
Previously, you could only use the bookmarklet to post clips from video hosting sites directly – now it's able to detect embeds on third-party sites as well. If several videos are found, the arrow buttons to the left and right cycle through the different options.
If you come across video embeds that the bookmarklet doesn't detect, please let us know in a reaction – we have filters set up to prevent Flash ads from showing up as videos, and there might be some false positives.
We've also launched feed imports for Google Blogsearch and Google News, and group admins can now finally not kick themselves out of their own groups anymore :)
Previously, you could only use the bookmarklet to post clips from video hosting sites directly – now it's able to detect embeds on third-party sites as well. If several videos are found, the arrow buttons to the left and right cycle through the different options.
If you come across video embeds that the bookmarklet doesn't detect, please let us know in a reaction – we have filters set up to prevent Flash ads from showing up as videos, and there might be some false positives.
We've also launched feed imports for Google Blogsearch and Google News, and group admins can now finally not kick themselves out of their own groups anymore :)
Reposted by
July 28 2009
A friendlier welcome & fewer fail whales
New users whose first action on Soup is to repost, react to something or to start following someone are now less likely to be utterly confused about what just happened and what to do next.
For you, our beautiful and kind-hearted existing users, this means no more creating accidental trial accounts when you interact with Soup without noticing you're not logged in.
We also fixed the delay problems we were having with Twitter imports: Tweets now come in in realtime again.
Because of copyright complaints, feeds from Flickr pools now only import photos to Soup that have explicitly been released under a Creative Commons license.
In response to requests, we've added an import for Polish microblogging service Blip.pl.
New users whose first action on Soup is to repost, react to something or to start following someone are now less likely to be utterly confused about what just happened and what to do next.
For you, our beautiful and kind-hearted existing users, this means no more creating accidental trial accounts when you interact with Soup without noticing you're not logged in.
We also fixed the delay problems we were having with Twitter imports: Tweets now come in in realtime again.
Because of copyright complaints, feeds from Flickr pools now only import photos to Soup that have explicitly been released under a Creative Commons license.
In response to requests, we've added an import for Polish microblogging service Blip.pl.
Reposted by
July 20 2009
New imports: SoundCloud & Flixster
SoundCloud, a service targeted at audio professionals, already announced this on their blog the other day. Since then we added the option to not only import your own tracks from there, but also your favorites.
In addition, you can now also import your reviews from movie social network Flixster.
In addition, you can now also import your reviews from movie social network Flixster.
Reposted by
May 03 2009
Secure login, UI improvements, Twitpic support and... advertising?
When logging in, your password is now sent over an encrypted SSL connection. This means you can log in to Soup on a public wi-fi network without having to fear eavesdroppers.
We've made some UI improvements here and there, including changes to the visual layout of the repost/react/share/edit/delete buttons and the addition of labels for some potentially confusing buttons (add to friend, join group) that appear when hovering over them. A much-requested login button is now always shown in the bottom left corner of your Soup when you're not logged in.
The bookmarklet can now send trackbacks to blogs: When we detect that trackbacks are supported by the site you're using it on, a checkbox to toggle sending one is shown in the bottom right corner of the bookmarklet. This will let people know you've linked to them or quoted from them on your Soup.
We've added Facebook (status & posted Items), MySpace (blog & events), and Google Reader (shared items) to the feed import list. Obtaining the right ID to enter for these services is not as straightforward as for others, so we added detailed explanations.
Twitter imports that contain Twitpic links are now shown as image posts, and Twitter Search imports contain the Twitter avatar of each respective author.
Last week, we started a very limited test with advertisements: Under certain circumstances, we show Google ads to users arriving to permalinks on Soup who aren't logged in. Read more about this over at the kitchen soup, and please tell us what you think of this.
We've made some UI improvements here and there, including changes to the visual layout of the repost/react/share/edit/delete buttons and the addition of labels for some potentially confusing buttons (add to friend, join group) that appear when hovering over them. A much-requested login button is now always shown in the bottom left corner of your Soup when you're not logged in.
The bookmarklet can now send trackbacks to blogs: When we detect that trackbacks are supported by the site you're using it on, a checkbox to toggle sending one is shown in the bottom right corner of the bookmarklet. This will let people know you've linked to them or quoted from them on your Soup.
We've added Facebook (status & posted Items), MySpace (blog & events), and Google Reader (shared items) to the feed import list. Obtaining the right ID to enter for these services is not as straightforward as for others, so we added detailed explanations.
Twitter imports that contain Twitpic links are now shown as image posts, and Twitter Search imports contain the Twitter avatar of each respective author.
Last week, we started a very limited test with advertisements: Under certain circumstances, we show Google ads to users arriving to permalinks on Soup who aren't logged in. Read more about this over at the kitchen soup, and please tell us what you think of this.
Reposted by
March 11 2009
Skin system changes
Along with yesterday's update, we've also upgraded the backend of our skin system. The overall goal was to speed up the slow parts and make room for future improvements.
Unfortunately, we had to break an old behaviour of the skin system in combination with Custom CSS. This Get Satisfaction thread explains how to fix your skin if the layout or colors are broken.
Reposted by
March 10 2009
Multiple images from the bookmarklet, inline document embeds, and more
In the bookmarklet, you can now select multiple images to post to Soup from a single page at once by holding down the Shift key (or Alt or Ctrl or Apple, if you prefer) as you select them. They will be shown as a gallery, if you have that feature enabled on your Soup.
This feature is dedicated to cygenb0ck, who has been relentlessly bugging us about this for months :)
Uploaded and linked-to documents (PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations etc) will now be shown inline as embeds powered by scribd.com, rather than merely as download links.
The groups overview page was improved. Head over there and join some groups!
There's a new option to import only the titles of an RSS feed. At the same time, we improved imports of full-length posts: Images and videos should now never exceed your Soup's column width.
In the bookmarklet, you can now select multiple images to post to Soup from a single page at once by holding down the Shift key (or Alt or Ctrl or Apple, if you prefer) as you select them. They will be shown as a gallery, if you have that feature enabled on your Soup.
This feature is dedicated to cygenb0ck, who has been relentlessly bugging us about this for months :)
Uploaded and linked-to documents (PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations etc) will now be shown inline as embeds powered by scribd.com, rather than merely as download links.
The groups overview page was improved. Head over there and join some groups!
There's a new option to import only the titles of an RSS feed. At the same time, we improved imports of full-length posts: Images and videos should now never exceed your Soup's column width.
Reposted by
le-dernier-bon-samaritain
le-dernier-bon-samaritain
February 26 2009
Find and invite friends
Feeling a bit lonely on Soup? The friend finder goes and looks for people you may know based on your webmail address book as well as your contacts on other sites (if you're importing any into Soup).
If you don't find anyone, don't despair: You can now easily
If email is too last-century for you, we can also help you tell people about your Soup through Facebook, MySpace or Twitter.
Our brand new tutorial (complete with cute mascot!) will hold their hand as they take the first few steps into the Soup.
Reposted by
February 05 2009
Flickr imports were temporarily broken (updated)
At approximately 4:00 CET today, flickr had a short outage in their photostream feeds, which made our feed importer's auto-discovery of feeds use the "everyone" photostream feed URL instead. Strange photos were strewn all across soup.
We should now have caught all offending photos, and fixed all affected feeds. The auto-discovery mechanism is now fixed, as well.
Flickr imports are now enabled again.
We should now have caught all offending photos, and fixed all affected feeds. The auto-discovery mechanism is now fixed, as well.
Flickr imports are now enabled again.
January 31 2009
Feed imports temporarily down (updated)
We're investigating the cause right now. Sorry, and thanks for your patience.
UPDATE: We found & fixed the cause; feeds should now get updated regularly again.
UPDATE: We found & fixed the cause; feeds should now get updated regularly again.
January 15 2009
Notifications by email
Today we finally started sending out the more important of the notifications (all but plain reposts: new stalkers, reactions, @replies, group invitations) by email. If you'd like to customize which events generate emails or unsubscribe from them altogether, please visit your notification page.
Two other things:
Two other things:
- Group admins may now also change the avatar images of their groups.
- We've upgraded our database server, bringing Soup's performance back to normal speeds.
Reposted by
ev
ev
January 08 2009
Full text search is up again
As mentioned in the previous post, we have been working on a text search solution that works and doesn't cause our systems to overload. That solution is now ready (it's based on sphinx search, for our technically-minded readers).
We know that all of you have been suffering from horrendous load times, especially in the last few days. We share your pain, which is why we're enormously happy to announce that a kind soul has donated a mighty powerful server to us. We're going to task it with hosting our database, something that the current server hasn't been able to do very well lately.
This machine will also let us use our existing capacity better, and in turn will allow us to make soup way faster than it has ever been. So, please bear with us, great improvements are coming very soon.
We know that all of you have been suffering from horrendous load times, especially in the last few days. We share your pain, which is why we're enormously happy to announce that a kind soul has donated a mighty powerful server to us. We're going to task it with hosting our database, something that the current server hasn't been able to do very well lately.
This machine will also let us use our existing capacity better, and in turn will allow us to make soup way faster than it has ever been. So, please bear with us, great improvements are coming very soon.
January 05 2009
Search temporarily disabled
As you might have noticed, Soup has been sometimes slow or not reachable in the last few days. One of the issues causing this is our fulltext search.
To make sure that a few simplistic search queries don't cause problems for everyone, we've decided to temporarily disable fulltext search.
A better solution is almost ready, it just needs a little bit more testing before we can bring it into production.
To make sure that a few simplistic search queries don't cause problems for everyone, we've decided to temporarily disable fulltext search.
A better solution is almost ready, it just needs a little bit more testing before we can bring it into production.
Reposted by frederick
frederick
December 30 2008
Improved events, 5 new imports
A few small updates before the year is over:
- We've improved the user interface for posting events: it's now possible to specify an end date for multi-day events, and there's a calendar picker to make the selection easier.
- You can add an event you see on Soup to your calendar application of choice by clicking the new
button.
If you'd like to subscribe to all events posted to a particular Soup (like your own!) there's a feed for that atwebcal://soup-domain/ics - New imports: Blip.fm, Venteria (events), Goodreads (reviews), Seesmic and 12seconds.tv
- You can now also repost, react and share from your own Soup or your groups.
Reposted by
December 19 2008
Stalk your stalkers!
We've just added a "My stalkers" page, where you can check out what people who are following you are posting. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to turn followers into mutual friends, if you like what they're posting.
But wait, there's more!
But wait, there's more!
- We've improved post types review and event, especially how they appear in RSS. Events now also show start times and end dates.
If you're a geek like us, you'll be happy to hear that the HTML output now includes microformats (hReview and hCalendar). - Import some reviews and events: We've added Last.fm events, Upcoming and Qype to the supported services.
Tupalo, Yelp and Goodreads don't show up in the dropdown yet, but if you add RSS feeds from there manually, the items will be properly imported as reviews. - The Pownce migration tool now accepts their export files rather than accessing the API, which was recently shut down (RIP).
- We fixed some bugs, most notably the one affecting the "react" window in certain skins. Let us know if you still have problems creating a reaction!
Reposted by Charles_Liebert
Charles_Liebert
December 09 2008
Dec
9
Post type "Event", friends-only privacy mode
We're continuing to expand our selection of post types: you can now post events to notify your friends of what's going on. Birthdays, concerts, meetups, anniversaries – I'm sure you'll find creative uses for it!
There's a new privacy setting: "Friends only" means that only people you've previously added may access your Soup.
We've also re-styled the "reaction" dialog, added support for DeviantArt feeds, improved our RSS feeds according to user feedback and fixed dozens of bugs.
We'll now be spending some time polishing the features we recently launched: Review imports, multi-day events, iCal feeds for events – all that is coming soon.
There's a new privacy setting: "Friends only" means that only people you've previously added may access your Soup.
We've also re-styled the "reaction" dialog, added support for DeviantArt feeds, improved our RSS feeds according to user feedback and fixed dozens of bugs.
We'll now be spending some time polishing the features we recently launched: Review imports, multi-day events, iCal feeds for events – all that is coming soon.
Reposted by
Pownce migration tool
Last week, Pownce surprisingly gave their users two weeks notice – they're shutting down the service on December 15 after having being acquired by SixApart.
We've built this migration tool to offer abandoned Powncers a new home. We even added another post type to be able to properly import everything – see next post!
Reposted by
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