Social media news and TV – Current.com Blog – Your guide to Current

This week’s product feature release is so big, we had to crack our blog announcement in half just to do it justice. Part II covers RSS feed enhancements, email notification tweaks, and a brand new way to browse recommendations on Current.com items. But first, we tackle  the elusive beast that is the Current.com group:

Way back in May we posted a callout for top secret testers to play around with some curation tools we built in preparation for launching groups. We received a pretty positive response to the test from a little under forty curators, and now the time has come to unleash our new groups functionality for the rest of the Current.com community to enjoy.

Starting now, every single member of our community will be able to create and customize a group on Current.com tailored to their own specific interests. This is a monumental change to the site, and there is a lot to cover. So, here goes.

Start a group!

It’s simple, click the “Start a Group” button in the green navigation bar on Current.com. You’ll need a name, description, and some tags for your group. For example:

Setting tags for your group is essential, because these will be used to recommend Current.com submissions to consider for your group. These recommendations will appear below you group, like this:

The items and submissions listed as potential “quick adds” are determined by two things: the tags you use to define your group, and the tags people use to define their story submissions to Current.com.

So for example, if you’re trying to set up your group to contain up-to-the-minute Nintendo gaming news, you will want to add tags related to video games, gaming, and of course Nintendo. A healthy set of tags for a Nintendo group might include: “Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo Wii, Super Mario Bros, Shigeru Miyamoto, Video Games, and Gaming.”

Not only will you be able to handpick stories to add to your group, you’ll also be able to curate your group by featuring stories, or removing submissions that don’t truly belong to your group. You can use our curation tools to feature an item, and once it’s been featured you can then use the up/down buttons to position it on the page in the order of your choice. Featured items will have a star icon appear next to them.

If you feel that an item that someone added doesn’t fit with your group, simply check the red X button and it will be removed.

Your default view for your group will be a list view, but you can change it to a playlist template in your groups admin page.

The curation tools for featuring work the same in both templates, so the choice is really up to you. If you prefer the playlist layout, head over to the admin section of your group and select a different template.

Once you’ve finished setting up your group, all you’ll need are members! Share your group with others on Current.com, or reach out into your various social networks like facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to let your contacts know about your group!

Sometimes groups grow quickly, and you may find that you need more than one set of hands manning the ship. Once you’ve built up a following, you can even grant some members moderator status to help curate the group with you. Keep in mind, giving moderator powers to another group member can be easy to do, but it will also give them full access to curating your group. Choose your moderators wisely, and if things get out of hand, you can always revoke this status by using the ban function.

If you happen to find that some of your members get out of line in your group, you can even ban them from your group altogether. This will prevent them from adding content to your group. Remember, if you believe that a member is violating our community guidelines, make sure to flag them after you ban them and our community team will take a look at their profile.

Join a group!

Maybe creating a group is not your speed, but you can still join and participate in a group on Current.com. Who knows, someone might even make you a moderator!

You can find new groups to join on our newly added “Groups” tab — conveniently located in the Current.com header. On the groups page you’ll find some of our featured groups, as well as listings for other groups on Current.com. Browse around, see what you find, and if you don’t see a group that fits your needs that could be an indicator that you should make one yourself!

On every groups page you’ll find a “related groups” section that includes exactly what it sounds like — other groups related to that group. And as if that wasn’t enough, you can also find groups via search on Current.com. Search for keywords that interest you, and potential related groups will appear in the search results.

Contribute to a group!

There are couple different ways to contribute to groups:

1) When you submit a story to Current.com

2) When you read a story on Current.com

When you submit stories, you’ll now find a new “groups” section in the clipper. This section has a dropdown menu that comprises of all the groups you are a member of. Remember, you have to be a member of a group in order to add a story to that group.

A similar drop down menu can be found on Current.com item pages. So, when you read a Current.com story, you can easily access a dropdown menu of all your groups, and select one of them to add that story to.

If you are not a member of a group, you can still help recommend stories to different groups on Current.com with tags. We recommend stories to group moderators based on the tags on individual items, so if you see a story with very few tags, consider adding a few to help it find a new home.

Our team has been working very hard on groups, and we have plans to expand this functionality by make groups more customizable in coming releases. In the meantime, create and join some groups. Play around with the new features, and test out some of the other Easter Eggs we’ve rolled out in this new release.

So that’s it for groups. Steph is following this post up with Part II to our feature release announcement, and she’ll be laying out the latest updates to our RSS feeds, email notifications, and highlighting a brand new way to browse content on item pages. Check that out after the jump.

Otherwise, please keep in mind that your feedback helps us shape things to come, so be sure to take some time to shoot us your thoughts, make some suggestions, and let us know if you see any quirky behavior on the site. You can send us feedback by clicking on the feedback tab on the blog, head directly over to our Get Satisfaction page for groups, or by sending us ol’ fashioned email at feedback [at] current.com.

You’ve probably seen our previous blog post introducing our community curators. If you’ve liked seeing what’s happening on those channels, look out–we’ve got a whole new crop of curated channels up and running. So, if you’re looking for new topics to explore, take a few minutes to check these out.

Languages,curated by Nuclear Lullaby

Otaku, curated by Nettle

“A veritable bento box of movies, comics, anime, TV shows, science, tech and culture all hailing from the Land of the Rising Sun. Pantsu!”

Soccer, curated by nkeg87

“To some, soccer is an obsession and a way of life. To me, its joy, passion, and fun. I can never get enough time on the pitch but since I don’t play too often, I read and watch it a lot.”

Cultural Film, curated by disembedded

“The cultural film channel includes short films, short documentaries, art/experimental cinema and animations. The films focus on a wide range of subjects, which include social/ethnic issues and minorities.”

Pop Culture, curated by kid_amy

“Pop Culture is a collection of ideas, perspectives, and attitudes that permeate the everyday lives of society.”

Book of the Week, curated by middle_east

Crafts, curated by crazykatlady

Space, curated by pjacobs51

“Space is the boundless regions of the infinite, the unlimited expanse in which everything is located.”

Media Perspectives, curated by yonie

Design, curated by whitespacecarpet

“Design comes from man’s ability and desire to mould his environment to better suit his needs.”

Psychology, curated by singrrr

“Tireless pursuit of understanding the human condition”

Still Life, curated by denica_cassandra

International Relations, curated by cztheday

Alternative Medicine, curated by SoundBigFoot

Entertainment News, curated by AwesomeJosh

“Entertainment News is the latest 411 on movies, TV, music, celebrities, etc. It’s the less serious and, well, more entertaining kind of news.”

Deadicated, curated by Paul_L

“Deadicated is a forum for discussing music and culture of Grateful Dead. I hope you’ll add items to this page, and comment on the ones you find here.”

Gadgets, curated by Get_Cape

“A technological object that has a particular function, but is often thought of as a novelty.”

Architecture, curated by Slovelett

“Architecture is the process of understanding and designing the built environment.”

Holistic Health, curated by Crazyotto

Humanism, curated by Unimatrix0

“Humanism is an optimistic stance that entails self determination and the dignity and worth of all people.  More than a negation of the supernatural, Humanism is a process by which truth and morality is sought through human investigation.”

Of course, if you haven’t already, you might also want to take a peek at our first batch of curated channels: US Politics, Science, Random, LGBT, Live Music, Indie Film, Culture, WTF, YouWebRadio, and Underground Music.

If you think we’re missing something, and you’d like to curate a channel, leave a comment and let us know! And if you don’t make it into the test group don’t worry–we’ll be opening the doors wide and letting everyone create a group in the not-so-distant future, so stay tuned.

Steph

As some of you may remember, we mentioned that we’re on the look out for some community members to help us out with an alpha-test for our upcoming channels feature. We’re calling these folks our Current community channel curators, and we’re happy to announce the first batch to the rest of the community:

US Politics channel, curated by current89

From current89:

“So what can you post on the US Politics Channel? It’s simple, post anything that has to do with politics in the United States, that’s a lot of stuff. In order to contribute to the channel you’ll have to tag it with US Politics. If you have any questions about me and my curating feel free to post them here or if necessary current-mail me.”

Science channel, curated by DeliaTheArtist

From DeliaTheArtist:

“Science is the effort to discover and increase human understanding of how reality works.”

Random channel, curated by TravG73

From TravG73:

“Random is having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.”

LGBT channel, curated by uroborus8

Live Music channel, curated by bansheewail

Culture channel, curated by St_Alia_10191

Indie Film channel, curated by Pericles_Lewnes

From Pericles_Lewnes:

“Here on the Current Indie Film Channel together we will explore the mighty and the mini of Independent Film. You will learn about Mumblecore, Schlock, Homebrew, Guerrilla and DIY filmmaking. You will get the skinny on the latest gear, the latest gossip and experience art and entertainment beyond the bounds of visual viral hyperbole.”

Underground Music channel, curated by Mike_Johnston

From Mike_Johnston:

“Interviews, reviews and videos produced by and about indie music acts”

WTF channel, curated by LindsayBoo

From LindsayBoo:

“no explanations, no excuses, nothing more, nothing less. seriously! WTF!!”

YouWebRadio channel, curated by StopNoise

So how do you participate in these channels? Simple! Submit your stories and tag them to each relevant channel. Our channel curators are able to feature relevant submissions on their channel. They also have the ability to remove stories that are inappropriately tagged to their channel, which means you should be mindful of whether or not your story really belongs in that channel before applying the tag.

It’s also important to note that these powers are limited to individual channels only, which means our curators can’t apply their featuring or untagging abilities in other areas of Current.com. Additionally, the community guidelines still apply to our community channel curators.

We are still accepting slots to participate in our alpha-test of our new channels features, so if you’re interested, make sure to head over to our Get Satisfaction “alpha-test” thread and add your Current.com username to the list. If you’ve already responded but have yet to hear from us, don’t worry! We’re still getting the second group of testers ready to go. We’ll be in touch shortly!

In the meantime, tag some of your latest relevant submissions to these channels and help our curators out. You never know, your story might get featured! In addition, follow our new channels by clicking on the “”Follow this Topic” button in the channel header.

When you do this, and you have email notifications set to receive updates, you will get a weekly email with the latest additions to the channel. It’s an easy way to keep track of what is going on in a curated channel.

- mario

Hey Currenteers,

Welcome to April! We have some new features to cover, but first I’d like to welcome you to our new digs…say hello to the brand new Current.com Blog! Each one of our new channels and our TV shows will be setting up blogs in the coming weeks. So far Current Music, Current Movies, and Current Comedy are all up and running, but keep an eye on our main Current blogs page for new additions.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

//  Email verification  //

In our never ending quest to thwart spam on Current, we’ve turned on email verification for newly registered members of the community. Until validated, these new members are not able to contribute items, comment, or vote. Requiring that new community members validate their email address is pretty standard for social sites, and we feel that although it isn’t the sole answer to battling spam, it is certainly a step in the right direction.

Those of you who are already members of the Current community will not be required to validate your email to participate, but I still highly encourage it. We occasionally like to send out swag and inform our community about special ways to contribute to Current, and we can’t do that without a valid email. So, take a minute to update your account preferences and request verification for your email address. Thanks!

//  Channel Curators  //

In one of our recent Town Hall chats I mentioned that the team is working on building group creation functionality into Current.com — which we are calling channels. We’re still a long way away from launching this new feature, but we are making some headway. In the next few weeks we’ll be opening up a set of tools related to our channels project to a handful alpha testers, and we’d like to invite some of you to join in on the test. If you’re interested in testing out our new tools head over to our alpha test page on Get Satisfaction page and put your username on the list. If you don’t make it into the alpha this time around, don’t fret. We will open this up to a wider group of testers in the near future, and we already have a target date for a full release. Stay tuned!

//  Improvements to Search  //

Our search functionality on Current.com has been improved in the last few releases. This time around, we’ve added a new “highlights section” at the top of the search results page. The “highlights section” is used to surface some of our TV show content for certain search queries. For example, someone searching for comedy will now find the latest clips from infoMania in the highlights section. Try it out and let us know what you think.

//  Questions about Channel Staleness  //

We’ve been receiving frequent questions about the staleness of content on the channels, and we totally agree. When we made the switch to our channel structure, we knew it was only a layout change for the time being, and we still have some heavy lifting to do with regards to channel specific algorithms, scoring, freshness, and decay. The good news is, we have a brand new addition to our team, and figuring this out just happens to be on his project to-do list! So, ladies and gentlemen of the Current.com community, I’d like you to meet Gary:

Thanks Gary! We’re all looking forward to some of the coming improvements, but in the meantime if you have suggestions or wish to shoot us feedback, feel free to start a thread on our Get Satisfaction support page, or as always you can shoot us your thoughts at feedback@current.com.

//  Increased File Size for Video Comments  //

If you’ve ever tried uploading a video file as a comment, you’ve probably bumped your head on our 200mb file size limitation. NO MORE! We’ve upped the total file size for video uploads in our comments to a full 1GB. So what are you waiting for, fire up that camera and record some video comments. My suggestion? Upload video reviews for this week’s movie releases for a chance to get on The Rotten Tomatoes Show. Check out Current Movies this Friday for the updated list of eligible films to review via video for the next episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show!

(Note: this update to file size does not pertain to webcam comments.)

Well, that’s it for this release. As always, let us know what you think!

Mario