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!
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
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
i love the feeds – very useful and looks nice
well done work !
Mel Brackstone
I’m loving the activity changes!
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
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
Awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love RB!!!!!
janeymac
the new activity will be fantastic !
Glenn Alderson
Excellent work :) Can’t to sell calenders, what about Coffee table books?
MissMena
i like the new activity changes as well! =) love all the new add ons. =)
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
I love the new activity feeds, and definitely like the sound of drag and drop!
Keegan Wong
Love it!
Elaine Harriott
Fantastic work, great to hear about all the exciting upcoming things you have happening.
jerry alcantara
great job!
David Iori
Great Job
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
Well done, loving it all!
sjem ©
I didn’t get any lunch today.
blondiegirl
you guys are the greatest!!
Paul Louis Vil...
As always, great work guys! :D
Ben Ryan
We have biscuits sjem – though I reckon you knew that already.
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
Thanks for all the work you do to make the RB experience awsome.
Hayley Cafarella
Any chance of getting ‘sent items’ in bubblemail? I can never remember what I’ve already told people….
Ben Ryan
Yes
cherokee
Love the feed thingy,well done you all….thanks for everything….:)
PJ Ryan
you guys all do such a fabulous job .. thank you very much.
Alisa Gonzalez
this is exciting
DBALehane
Can I ask for a feed that filters out all the vomit inducing sychophantic ass licking comments? ;)
braidy
brilliant
WayneD
brilliant
PixelProtest
excellent new menu rb
Charles Wong
cool man. very nice.
Darren Post
Very cool, love how you guys keep tinkering to make our rb experience better. :-)
Macky
Fantastic, thank you!!
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
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
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
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
Good stuff. The icons are a bit lame though.
(I’m using that word heaps recently)
Karin Taylor
it all sounds terrif…thx for all your hard work, it’s much appreciated!
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
Always on the ball – don’t know how you do it – but keep it up. Great work. Thanks.
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
good stuff rb, calendar design looks class.
Keep it up :)
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
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
Wow, you guys have been really going all out. Can’t wait for the finished product.
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
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
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
Well done guys, love the feed thingy too and like adgray’s idea of a chatroom in RB, that could be fun!! :)
Missy Miss
keep up the great work! i’m excited!!
xx
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
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
Fave feeds is awesome! Thankyou guys, you have made my life easier.
Bizin
Great work! Love it!!!
janeymac
love it , working great!
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
Activity Monitor- brilliant idea…great to see how this place is evolving daily…love it
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
Thanks to ALL of you….love all the new things!! :)
ChrissyB
Yayyyyyy to 2009 calenders… :)
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
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
AWESOME :))
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
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
It’s sound good! Good job!
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
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 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~Ju...
Awesome work you guys!!! Thanks so much for keeping this site running smoothly!!
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
great work… love the feeds… :)
mingtees
i’d love to be a volunteer to test the galley displays beta :)
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
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
Wow brilliants, lots of very useful new tool, This site is great, honest, I love it! :)
Tom Vaughan
I love the fact that you keep improving things incrementally, rather than in huge releases.
Sensiworld
Great work ! Tools are very appreciated.
Sharon Ulrich
I wish I could make my own calendar of work from my favorites list…..
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
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
Thank you for your nervous update about “sets” or something? -:)))) This is very encouraging news to learn its closer to a reality.
Rosina lamberti
love the new activity feeds,great idea about featured work,bring on the calenders yeah
Leslie Wood
These changes are wonderful and the new activity feed is awesome to use!!!!
Thankyou Redbubble :D
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
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
Fantastic upgrade RB Geeks! Well done!
JulieMahony
I like the feeds and the calendar looks great
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
2009 calendars hurrah!
Philip Rogan
2009 calendars hurrah!
Virginia McGowan
love the feeds :-)
Jen Whyte
This site just keeps getting better!
Karri Klawiter
I love the new activity monitor!
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
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 Elizabet...
Love the new feeds they are quite helpful, thank You for the hard work
Amber Elizabeth
Kirsten Edwards
Love the activinty monitor, makes it so much easier to find things! :)
Globalphotos
Looking good, can’t wait for the calendars to be made public, any chance before Xmas ????
Kosan
The calendar is awsome!! Great shots John – the cover is my favorite!
Elba Parra
Great… it looks good!
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
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
the new add ons are great watch this site grow and proper is a real treat
Teresa Schultz
I can’t wait to sell calendars to the public!
Ciska
I also can’t wait to sell calendars to the public.