Jun

4

2008

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Microsites for Niche Communities

11:27AM by Hoc

In theory, Mixr Media has the capabilities to launch any number of communities using our suite of social applications. So far, all the communities we’ve launched have been areas of passionate interest for members of our staff. It’s always been important for us to be a part of the communities we build and not just the host.

The goal we have with Ningin is the goal we have for every one of our communities – we want it to be the definitive resource for the niche that it serves. In Ningin’s case, it’s Asian media. Today, we took a big step towards that by partnering up with the Asian American Film Lab and their 72 Hour Shootout short film competition. We’ll be creating a special microsite for them where their members and our users can watch streaming videos of all the participants and read blog updates provided by our own Ningin bloggers. The microsite will be live on June 16th. There’s more to it than just that, so read the full press release for more details.

So far this is our first partnership and our first microsite. It’s been a lot of fun and something we would like to do more of in the future.

May

27

2008

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NobodyOpen—NFL Communities

09:23PM by Hoc

We’ve been quietly beta testing a new community for the past couple of weeks, NobodyOpen.com, a NFL football community. The goal with NobodyOpen is to provide a place for fans of every NFL team to meet other fans, discuss football and read the latest team news. Both Phil and I are avid sports fans and we know a lot of other people are as well. Registration has been invitation only, but we’ve open it up for everyone today.

In case you’re curious, the name came from irreverent commentary on the seemingly majority of NFL teams—very few receivers open when the quarterback wants to throw to them.

There are a couple things we’re doing that are different from our pre-existing communities. We’re looking to build sub-communities within a larger umbrella NFL community. The sub-communities are delineated by individual NFL teams. Also, instead of building out each site for each NFL team, we’re asking users to pre-register. When enough people pre-register, then we’ll create the team sites. This process also allows users to sign-up as potential bloggers, moderators, and administers saving us some time in finding these people anyway. Users can register from any of our communities or sub communities. Once registered, they can visit and interact with any of our sites—one account, multiple communities.

To start, each team site will just be Forums and we’ll layer in Blogs and a Community Page. The main NobodyOpen site will soon have Social News. However, our platform affords us the flexibility to add or remove apps depending on the demand of each site.

Overall this method allows for a very organic growth. Prior to this, we were able to grow communities in three ways: more apps, more bloggers, and more features. Now we’re able to build communities within communities, each with their own branching growth paths.

Our General Counsel wants to add the following disclaimer to this post: NobodyOpen.com is not affiliated with the National Football League. All views expressed on that website are our own or of our community members.

May

4

2008

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Sites Offline, Work in Progress

06:50AM by Hoc

All our sites are offline while we incorporate a new design and add feature enhancements. We expect this to take the majority of the day. Thanks for your patiences!

Beta testers can still access our sites during this process.

7:45am EST - Took sites offline, starting upgrades and changes.
1:10pm EST - Server is going offline for about 10 mins while we make updates.
4:50pm EST - Jetdrop and Ziggytek now online. There’s a good chance you need to refresh your browser. Beta testers, please focus on Ningin.
7:00pm EST - Ningin is online. Redesign done!

May

1

2008

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Network-Wide Design changes on Sunday 5/4

11:17PM by Hoc

All Mixr sites will be off-line on Sunday morning around 8am EST. We’ll be upgrading to a new layout for all three current communities, Ningin, Jetdrop, and Ziggytek. If all goes smoothly, we’ll have our sites back up by noon that day. For those of you keeping track, this is version #5 because we have a relentless pursuit of perfection.

This blog will be up and continually updated with near real-time progress (read, I’ll update when I can). Expect big design changes and a new application! Beta testers should still be able to login while we work. As always, we look forward to everyone’s feedback. 

Apr

25

2008

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Say Hello to Andrew Lim, the Newest Ningin Blogger

09:57PM by Hoc

Mixr Media is excited to add Andrew Lim as the newest blogger to our Ningin - Asian Media - community. He’ll cover everything from Hong Kong stars to food and restaurant reviews. Why don’t you welcome him to the community by adding him as friend.

Visit his blog:http://ningin.com/andrewlim/
Subscribe to his RSS feed: http://ningin.com/andrewlim/rss_2.0/

Andrew Lim Biography:

Andrew Lim currently lives in New York City. He was born in Malaysia and came to the States to pursue his college education when he was 18. An avid fan of travelling, Andrew has been to over 30 countries. He flies frequently for work and fun. Andrew has so much inflight experience that he can perform the inflight safety demonstration much better than any of the flight attendants. Just don’t ask him to blow into the tube of the life jacket or you will regret it.

In his spare time, Andrew loves to eat. He has a strong knowledge of great restaurants across many cities, especially those servings Asian food. Friends of Andrew have always trusted him with giving them advice on where to dine. They have also trusted him with ordering for the table whenever he is present at the dining party. The only problem is, he tends to over order.

Andrew is also the go to person for all the latest and greatest Asian celebrity news and gossips. His friends often turn to him for a quick fix of juicy Asian celebrity gossip. Andrew loves to talk. If he’s not talking, he’s eating. He even talks in his sleep.

With all these going on, you probably expect Andrew not to hold a full time job. He does have one. Andrew is a food trends researcher and has worked with major food and beverage manufacturers like PepsiCo as well as retailers like Wal*Mart. His recent work project includes researching prepared meals/snacks purchase trends of the Mainland Chinese.

Andrew is severely allergic to tree pollens, cats and dogs (thank god not to any food items!). His last allergy test also indicated that he was allergic to dust, roaches and rats. Boy, did he pick a wrong city to live in!