RedBubble


RedBubble Thursday Release Notes

Hello hello, welcome to another RedBubble Thursday. Here’s an update on what’s been released, what’s coming up and what’s going on:

Activity Monitor

This is still very much a work in progress, so I probably should give you some background information. We think the Activity Monitor is really important to the future of RedBubble. As the site grows, we think it’s going to be more and more important that content comes to you instead of you having to find the content. This means more types of activity events will be sent to you, which also means you’ll probably want to customize your monitor, focusing on the information you want, and ignoring the stuff you don’t need.

So we’ve split the Activity Monitor into two groups:

  • “Favorite Feeds”, which will be shown by default
  • “Other Feeds”, for the stuff that you don’t care about too much, but might want to check out from time to time

You can move the feeds between the two groups to find the right balance of information for you.

Here’s a quick screen shot:

It might seem a little overkill right now, but as we add in more and more feeds, I think it’s going to make a huge difference. We’ll also make it easier to organize the feeds (soon-ish) with drag-n-drop, etc.

2009 Calendars

We’ve also rolled out a new 2009 Calendar design (all calendars have been automatically updated). Here’s a preview of the cover, February and the new back cover from one of John’s Calendars calendars :

They’re still self-purchase only at this stage (which means they can’t be purchased by the general public), but we’ll try and get to that really soon!

Pete says “if we sell more than a hundred in June, I’ll buy John a beer”. We think this should be extended to all staff and apply to each batch of 100 calendars, so please, go and buy lots of calendars to keep us all well-hydrated!

The Bubble Sites Beta Continues

We’ll be inviting a few more testers today, and we’ve made some improvements to the product menu design:

The Challenges Beta Continues

The Challenge Café Group have been helping us beta test the new challenges interface. It’s going really well, and we’ll probably open up the testing to a few more groups in a week or two after we polish some edges.

And… Sets Are Coming Soon!

I’m usually really nervous about pre-announcing features, but the #1 feature request right now is sets—the ability to organize or group your work into smaller ‘sets’ or ‘collections’ or ‘folders’ or something. This has been amplified even more now that we’re beta testing the new Bubblesites.

We’re still at least a month (or even two) away from releasing them, but I wanted to let you all know that we’re listening, working on it, and really want to get them out ASAP.

Etc

There’s also the usual swag of bug fixes, tweaks and little things that I’ll let you discover for yourselves!

Justin & all these wonderful people

  • DanielMartin

    DanielMartin

    Oh! The new feeds look darn right rubbish. RedBubble no offence, but dont make any more changes, the t-shirt deisgn is blury, this will mmake it more time consuming, go through each one. But the calendar is good

  • jemimalovesbigted

    jemimalovesbigted

    Wonderful! You guys are forever on top of it…. Can I make a suggestion…. how about being able to drag and drop your gallery…. very clunky moving objects around now… just a thought. Thanks again RB!

  • RedBubble replied

    yes, that’s the plan – dragndrop everything!

  • waitin' for rain

    waitin' for rain

    i love the feeds – very useful and looks nice
    well done work !

  • Mel Brackstone

    Mel Brackstone

    I’m loving the activity changes!

  • Eyeleen

    Eyeleen

    Wow, this is going to be an awesome site to stick with,not that I would think of leaving :-)
    So many great add-ons and improvements TWO THUMBS UP FOR REDBUBBLE.com!!!

  • Pat Lucas

    Pat Lucas

    I just love this site, two comments, completely opposite. lol.

    I think it will be brilliant, so much easier in the long run. Thanks RB

  • bamagirl38

    bamagirl38

    Awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love RB!!!!!

  • janeymac

    janeymac

    the new activity will be fantastic !

  • Glenn Alderson

    Glenn Alderson

    Excellent work :) Can’t to sell calenders, what about Coffee table books?

  • MissMena

    MissMena

    i like the new activity changes as well! =) love all the new add ons. =)

  • melbourne

    melbourne

    I agree, I think the calenders should be made for public sales, they make great pressies! I’m still amazed at the awesome work I see here every day. Great stuff!

  • aroha

    aroha

    I love the new activity feeds, and definitely like the sound of drag and drop!

  • Keegan Wong

    Keegan Wong

    Love it!

  • Elaine Harriott

    Elaine Harriott

    Fantastic work, great to hear about all the exciting upcoming things you have happening.

  • jerry  alcantara

    jerry alcantara

    great job!

  • David Iori

    David Iori

    Great Job

  • Roz McQuillan

    Roz McQuillan

    Thanks for the hard work guys! I agree with jemimalovesbigted, – how about being able to drag and drop your gallery…. very clunky moving objects around now – that, along with collections/folders, etc will be fantastic!

  • Denzil

    Denzil

    Well done, loving it all!

  • sjem ©

    sjem ©

    I didn’t get any lunch today.

  • blondiegirl

    blondiegirl

    you guys are the greatest!!

  • Paul Louis Villani

    Paul Louis Vil...

    As always, great work guys! :D

  • Ben Ryan

    Ben Ryan

    We have biscuits sjem – though I reckon you knew that already.

  • nofrillsart

    nofrillsart

    Just had a little look see. The feeds are good…not that pretty. But they function really well. Gets my Nod!
    Drag and drop sounds the bestest…that is probably my biggest gripe with the folios.
    Keep up the good work!

  • Alexandra Jack

    Alexandra Jack

    Thanks for all the work you do to make the RB experience awsome.

  • Hayley Cafarella

    Hayley Cafarella

    Any chance of getting ‘sent items’ in bubblemail? I can never remember what I’ve already told people….

  • Ben Ryan

    Ben Ryan

    Yes

  • cherokee

    cherokee

    Love the feed thingy,well done you all….thanks for everything….:)

  • PJ Ryan

    PJ Ryan

    you guys all do such a fabulous job .. thank you very much.

  • Alisa Gonzalez

    Alisa Gonzalez

    this is exciting

  • DBALehane

    DBALehane

    Can I ask for a feed that filters out all the vomit inducing sychophantic ass licking comments? ;)

  • braidy

    braidy

    brilliant

  • WayneD

    WayneD

    brilliant

  • PixelProtest

    PixelProtest

    excellent new menu rb

  • Charles Wong

    Charles Wong

    cool man. very nice.

  • Darren Post

    Darren Post

    Very cool, love how you guys keep tinkering to make our rb experience better.   :-)

  • Macky

    Macky

    Fantastic, thank you!!

  • Angela Harburn

    Angela Harburn

    Love the new feeds feature – great help – thank you! x
    May I also request a drag-and-drop option for organising work in the gallery – it takes ages to sort them by moving up and down – perhaps for the future?! x

  • Elana Bailey

    Elana Bailey

    Love all of the new add ons and can’t wait for the calendars to be available to the public too. Many thanks to the team.

  • Faizan Qureshi

    Faizan QureshiAll Rounder

    Great work guys! Love the new activity monitor!

    The only thing that I don’t like is the colour in the feed menu hehe…

  • Mark Moskvitch

    Mark Moskvitch

    Nice work and thanks RedBubbliers…...an additional suggestion, what about art cards….eg postcard size….these are a cheap but versatile form of art…..I buy them myself so I can change them on a regular basis.

    Thanks again for all the work….

  • Paul McClintock

    Paul McClintockZuul, the Gatekeeper

    Good stuff. The icons are a bit lame though.

    (I’m using that word heaps recently)

  • Karin  Taylor

    Karin Taylorcommunity helper

    it all sounds terrif…thx for all your hard work, it’s much appreciated!

  • Peter Horsman

    Peter Horsman

    All looks good but I’m still wondering why the old t-shirt display images (cool, boy and girl) were replaced by the new t-shirt display image (flat, bland, unrepresentative of how the tee will actually look on someone)?

    Was there a memo I missed?

  • BizziLizzy

    BizziLizzy

    Always on the ball – don’t know how you do it – but keep it up. Great work. Thanks.

  • Kristina K

    Kristina K

    great work guys, and i must say not many companies listen to the people who keep them going, so i give you credit and congratulations for not only listening but for doing.
    This is what makes a good company, great, and you are great..
    keep it up. &hearts

  • hikickry

    hikickry

    good stuff rb, calendar design looks class.
    Keep it up :)

  • Jacqueline Baker

    Jacqueline Baker

    great stuff…..please drag n drop it would make life so much easier. Love the collection idea but please could we display them in our portfolios, unlike one other site that allows you to choose this function only if you are purchasing them, whilst i would like a permanant view of them. Ok thanks…..by the way i don’t know what a feed is could anyone enlighten me?

  • picketty

    picketty

    all sounds really good, feeds a great idea and drag and drop a must…..... I cant wait for thursdays to see what you guys have come up with next. this site just gets better and better.

  • Sandra Chung

    Sandra Chung

    Wow, you guys have been really going all out. Can’t wait for the finished product.

  • Richard G Witham

    Richard G Witham

    Bravo; especially on the calendar roll out, except the beer deal. It’s common knowledge that beer actually dehydrates , so this could become a vicious circle very quickly … we buy calendars, you get a beer, you get more dehydrated, we rush to buy more calendars, you get more beer, more dehydrated, etc. etc. Sounds like a conspiracy :)

  • adgray

    adgray

    Well done guys I dunno how you did what you did but what you did looks good :o)
    It could help with wading through all the art of my fave bubblers …
    but then I like wading through the art of my fave bubblers …
    that’s why I favour them …. to watch them :o)
    But yes perhaps it would help when in a hurry to see if I have forgotten to say thank you to anyone who have watched me and taken the time to comment on my work :o)
    Thank you RB :o) ♥

  • adgray

    adgray

    Now do we get an interactive chat room?
    Faster than a BM
    more interactive than a forum
    and heaps more fun than the comment box :o)
    Well a girl can ask :o)

  • Tracey Mac

    Tracey Mac

    Well done guys, love the feed thingy too and like adgray’s idea of a chatroom in RB, that could be fun!! :)

  • Missy Miss

    Missy Miss

    keep up the great work! i’m excited!!

    xx

  • C J Lewis

    C J Lewis

    Great work RB staff and thanks for making it easier for us all :) Love the idea of calendars for sale to public but feel they need to be available before Christmas as make great presents for the new year.

  • jamingo

    jamingo

    Hello RB-ers,

    I discovered RedBubble last Monday, and it really made me happy.
    It was just what I was looking for actually.

    So, thanks and keep up the good work, grrrrrreetings from Holland/Utrecht, XJolanda

  • Craig Hender

    Craig Hender

    Fave feeds is awesome! Thankyou guys, you have made my life easier.

  • Bizin

    Bizin

    Great work! Love it!!!

  • janeymac

    janeymac

    love it , working great!

  • JanG

    JanG

    This all sounds great. I hope that the drag and drop option here means that it will sometime soon be possible to drag and drop to organize our galleries too! Thanks for your hard work at making this site better and better!

  • andygibb

    andygibb

    Activity Monitor- brilliant idea…great to see how this place is evolving daily…love it

  • Wildwings

    Wildwings

    Wonderful, continuous work. Thank you RedBubble. I am working on a 2009 calendar and I certainly would love the see it for sale to the public. I like your above calendar design. Well done. Everything else is working fine.

  • Farmncamera

    Farmncamera

    Thanks to ALL of you….love all the new things!! :)

  • ChrissyB

    ChrissyB

    Yayyyyyy to 2009 calenders… :)

  • LindaR

    LindaR

    Great job on the new improvements ~ I like the direction you’re going in and tho I wish sometimes it was NOW ~ I’m am still glad for the IT’S COMING SOON :)
    xx Linda

  • Travis Easton

    Travis Easton

    Well done guys, keep up the good work. I don’t know how feasable this would be but had an idea re calendars you might want to consider. Obviously at the moment the calendar layout for pics is fairly square so it looks allright for vertical or horizontal shots. Personally I think it could be really good if added to this design could be other designs which optimise either a vertical or horizontal format or maybe even a panorama format as most of the calendars you buy are all one or the other design and looks heaps better for that specialization. Cheers.

    Trav

  • Douzy

    Douzy

    AWESOME :))

  • Roland Pozo

    Roland Pozo

    Gee thanks! I was totally unaware of the Activity Monitor tab. Definitely, very helpful. Has anyone written a manual on all the features of RB?

  • noinvisiblehand

    noinvisiblehand

    Get on the planet savin boat, too. It’s worth it. Wot kinda cotton ya use? R u anti sweat shop? Localism, make ya curencies work harder. Profit for good, not for personal luxury….

  • Larissa Brea

    Larissa Brea

    It’s sound good! Good job!

  • Janis Zroback

    Janis Zroback

    Than you RedBubble for continually improving the site….

    It will make it easier for buyers to find us when we have the galleries if there are categories listed on the home page….ie painting, flowers, landscapes, etc etc….

    If we can organize our images in groups, by dragging and dropping, so that a buyer can easily find what they want and the Gallery would present a more attractive appearance…

    In Bubble mail, if we can see the sent mail while we’re replying, we will be able to answer more accurately…keeping the sent mail would be a big help as well…

    Thank you so much….

  • Ginny Schmidt

    Ginny Schmidt

    Well, thank you for answering one question I hadn’t asked yet but was bothered about. Although I said I was done with calendars, after the printing fiasco of the ‘08s and not getting my reprinted order until May (what’s the point then, really?) I broke down and put some pics together for an 09 calendar and, no matter how I tried, I could not get the cover image to show without these ugly black bars above and below it. I thought there was something horribly wrong with how I had uploaded my cover pic and I reworked it and reloaded it a couple more times, and still the damn bars showed up. Nice to know that they’re something you added, and I will just have to work with them. I don’t understand the logic of them—particularly since RB has always said don’t use borders but hey, I’m past looking for logic here. You might consider, however, that if someone wants black bars on their pictures they might add them themselves. Just a thought.

  • Darlene Marryatt-Ruhs

    Darlene Marrya...

    Thanks for the improvements! I love that things keep improving and you are listening to what people are asking for! On that note…..

    Would it be possible to set something up for us that allows us to see, at a glance, which work is in what group? When I add a new piece of work and want to put it in a group, but have already reached the limit of works allowed, then it is very tedious to go back through all of my work to see which ones I can take out to put in the new work. Also, some groups have sent out bubblemails asking everyone to remove work from the group and that also results in going back through and trying to find what we have put in the group. Now I don’t have that many pages but someone with a lot would really find this torturous I’m sure.

    Thanks for listening!

  • solareclips~Julie  Alexander

    solareclips~Ju...

    Awesome work you guys!!! Thanks so much for keeping this site running smoothly!!

  • Scott Ruhs

    Scott Ruhs

    I like the new activity monitor,but it would be really cool if the feeds in the activity monitor were dynamic. What I mean is when there is a change in one of the feeds a red bubble appears next to it to let you know about it. This would be better than going and checking each feed all the time. What do you think?

  • Louise LeGresley

    Louise LeGresley

    great work… love the feeds… :)

  • mingtees

    mingtees

    i’d love to be a volunteer to test the galley displays beta :)

  • Ann Rodriquez

    Ann Rodriquez

    These are brilliant changes! I, too, would love to see our artwork able to switch positions by dragging and dropping – using the arrows is extremely time-consuming and tedious. Great improvements, guys!

  • Leslie  Battjes

    Leslie Battjes

    okay, I saw a couple of comments mentioning ideas I had been thinking of as well…I’d love to see a sent mail option so that I can remember what I’ve sent, but more importantly, I’d like to have the message I’m replying to or the one someone is replying to me about included in the message that is new…that way when I open a bubblemail that says that’s a great idea, or whatever, I know what they are talking about and vice versa.
    Another idea was a way to view all of the images/clothing that you have in a particular group so that you know what has been added or what needs to be deleted to make room for more. This would be wonderful!
    As for folders, people can already do that on their pages by creating links to images with particular tags…for instance if someone wanted to look at all of my flower images, they would click on the flower link and they would be taken to all of the images I have tagged as flowers. It was easy to do and makes things so much more manageable, especially for people who have a ton of images on their site.

    Thanks!
    Leslie

  • Cvail73

    Cvail73

    Wow brilliants, lots of very useful new tool, This site is great, honest, I love it! :)

  • Tom Vaughan

    Tom Vaughan

    I love the fact that you keep improving things incrementally, rather than in huge releases.

  • Sensiworld

    Sensiworld

    Great work ! Tools are very appreciated.

  • Sharon Ulrich

    Sharon Ulrich

    I wish I could make my own calendar of work from my favorites list…..

  • Sarah McKoy

    Sarah McKoy

    I like the new upload, but is there a way of adding a new feed. I have often needed to know what submissions of mine are in any particular group. Often a group will teil me that I have reached my limit, then I have to wade through to find what submissions I’ve made and remove to older ones. It would be great if I could pull out all of my entries in a group and edit them from one screen. Let me know.

  • Bevsimages

    Bevsimages

    Such good news…
    Started using the features bit in activity today, saves loads time & means if you get interruoted its easier to find where youre upto…
    Like the idea of subsections for our work as when viewing other peoples work if more than 6 pages I get bored, so they must feel same with my profile…

    Keep up the fab stuff!! Bev x ;)) UK

  • everascot

    everascot

    Thank you for your nervous update about “sets” or something? -:)))) This is very encouraging news to learn its closer to a reality.

  • Rosina lamberti

    Rosina lamberti

    love the new activity feeds,great idea about featured work,bring on the calenders yeah

  • Leslie Wood

    Leslie Wood

    These changes are wonderful and the new activity feed is awesome to use!!!!
    Thankyou Redbubble :D

  • Crockpot

    Crockpot

    Egads… I’m not loving the new activity monitor. I think the new icons make the site look “cheaper” and less professional. I much preferred the tabs. I do like having the easy access to specific activities though – and would love the ability to choose which ones will go into “other”, as I don’t necessarily use some of the ones you have listed in the main category right now.

  • Ben Ryan

    Ben Ryan

    The current release of calendars is primarily to let people start ordering their copies for putting into stores. We’ll hopefully be revisiting them later in the year to give more options (including publicly sellable).

    We also have changes in mind for bubblemail that will make those asking to see prior messages very happy.

    Alas, I cannot give a timeline on when these will be released, but they are definitely in the works.

  • Lam Tran

    Lam Tran

    Fantastic upgrade RB Geeks! Well done!

  • JulieMahony

    JulieMahony

    I like the feeds and the calendar looks great

  • Dayonda

    Dayonda

    After considering for a day, and looking at my activity list, I’m tired of seeing myself all the way down the page. I’d like to be able to separate my comments out from incoming comments. I know—if I wrote less, I’d see myself less. But you asked for thoughts and requests, so I gave you one. This is an awesome Site, thanks so very much!

  • Philip Rogan

    Philip Rogan

    2009 calendars hurrah!

  • Philip Rogan

    Philip Rogan

    2009 calendars hurrah!

  • Virginia McGowan

    Virginia McGowan

    love the feeds :-)

  • Jen Whyte

    Jen Whyte

    This site just keeps getting better!

  • Karri Klawiter

    Karri Klawiter

    I love the new activity monitor!

  • KazM

    KazM

    I too love the activity monitor and would like to secon the ideas made by many respondents to this journal especially Leslie Battjes and Sarah McKoy. Thank you to all the RB staff for allowing us to have such a vibrant and positive community.

  • georgiegirl

    georgiegirl

    Thanks RB Elves, a brilliant job as always. Good luck with the calendar sales… only 3 and a bit weeks till the end of June! Have a great Drawing Day and weekend ;D

  • Amber Elizabeth Fromm Donais

    Amber Elizabet...

    Love the new feeds they are quite helpful, thank You for the hard work
    Amber Elizabeth

  • Kirsten Edwards

    Kirsten Edwards

    Love the activinty monitor, makes it so much easier to find things! :)

  • Globalphotos

    Globalphotos

    Looking good, can’t wait for the calendars to be made public, any chance before Xmas ????

  • Kosan

    Kosan

    The calendar is awsome!! Great shots John – the cover is my favorite!

  • Elba Parra

    Elba Parra

    Great… it looks good!

  • Jan Stead JEMproductions

    Jan Stead JEMp...

    I love the new activity feature, so much easier to navigate.
    And thanks for all the hard work you do for us.

    i look forward to being able to arrange items/work into categories on my page, and love the look of the 09 calendars!!

    : )

  • LostBoy

    LostBoy

    I have to agree with a couple of the others i don`t like the new set up..

    now i have to navigate to check things that were right in front of me before

    i (at least) want my group activities back on the same page as my activity monitor

    cheers

  • coolart

    coolart

    the new add ons are great watch this site grow and proper is a real treat

  • Teresa Schultz

    Teresa Schultz

    I can’t wait to sell calendars to the public!

  • Ciska

    Ciska

    I also can’t wait to sell calendars to the public.

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