The new Infield Parking social network has launched. If you are reading this blog post, then you are subscribed to an old feed or an old widget. Please come join us on the new site and subscribe to the new blog.
-IP Team
I wanted to let everyone know that we are getting ready to put out a patch to fix some of the issues that people have been having.
Specifically, this patch helps with the following:
Several users reported problems with their friends page not showing any friends. If this issue persists please send an email to contactus[at]infieldparking[dot]com.
If you have a specific issue with your account, please use this email address to get help contactus[at]infieldparking[dot]com.
thanks
-Mike
Hey Guys,
I wanted to thank everyone for their patience tonight. I know the transition is difficult. We wanted to put the site out there to make up for the fact that the old one disappeared with out notice. It was not the optimal situation, but we are doing the best we can to work with it.
The issues with the login and the inability to edit the about me section made things even harder tonight. Thank you for your patience. Also, thanks to the engineering team who stayed very late to resolve those issues as they came up. My hope is that all of you can see the potential as we push forward to complete the functionality and add new sections. And that you can see we are listening to your ideas and acting upon them (which we never could before).
For all of the issues that need to be resolved, there are some things worth noting tonight which I hope give you hope. At no time did the site slow to a crawl or worse. There were three or four people from the development team here to answer your questions and the full engineering team working to solve your issues. We are not absentee landlords. We are here and we are listening.
A lot of you have been with the site for a long time. So have I. I was in the first meeting where IP was born and I have to say that I have a sense that this site will be everything the other one couldn’t. The new team here is dedicated to making it so and the new management is bringing those resources the old one never delivered.
OK, I am stepping off. Got a 6 am conference call coming my way.
later,
Mike
UPDATE: If you are a returning user and had trouble logging into the beta earlier this evening, the issue has been fixed. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask that you try again. Thanks.
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OK, test data is deleted out of the site and getting ready to flip the proverbial switch. The Infield Parking beta will be up and running in 10, 9, 8, 7….
Go to www.infieldparking.com to access the new beta site. We have put up a beta sign in page that will be up until the site officially launches. Once you sing in you will be taken to the home page.
Existing users of the previous site can use the box labeled “Existing Infield Parking Users” to sign up on the new site. You will be sent a verification email and asked to create a new password.
New Users can create an account by clicking the “New User Sign Up” button in the second box.
On your next visit to Infield Parking, you can use the third box to sign in to the site.
There is a forum called “Infield Parking Beta” which is dedicated to all beta questions and announcements. I will use this blog for a while to push out more information about updates.
Rock and Roll,
-m
Dear Friends,
I hope everyone had a great Valentines day and enjoyed Daytona weekend. Sorry, it has taken longer to get back to you than I had hoped. The Infield Team spent all of last week working with the front end team in NYC and meeting to discuss the issues raised because of the interruption of service caused by our hosting provider.
As the saying goes, I have good news and… other news.
First things first. We spent a long time reviewing the new site and going over it with the design and engineering teams. We feel that the main features of the site are ready for beta testing. We are going to do an open beta for all of you to participate in. Even as a beta, the new site has many more features than the old one and is superior in every way (the new hamsters are on the BALCO plan). The Infield Parking Beta will be up this week – Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. Sign for the beta will be at this address (www.infieldparking.com).
For those of you who joined during our first beta, you will recall this means that while the site will be up and running and ready for action, not all of the features are complete and you may encounter some funkiness (issues) here and there. We will have a special forum setup for discussing the features, any issues and general questions.
The main features that will be available at beta are:
We are planning to continue to insert features during the course of the beta. These include:
In the beta forum, I will post a full list of up coming features and announce each one as they are ready for use. Once we are ready to launch the beta site, I will post more about how to join the beta and use the site.
As for the other news. We have not been able to gain access to the old site. We have decided not to let this stop the transfer to the new site. This will have the following effects, some users may need to re-register, friends lists will need to be recreated and any archived photos, posts or comments will not be migrated to the new site. This was not our original plan, but we know in time that the new platform and the opportunity for a fresh start will make the short term pain completely worth it.
Several users have asked about their customizations or “code” for their parking space/profile. Profiles on the new site are not as customizable as the old ones. The new profile will have a multitude of new features and tools that the old one just did not have. To accommodate all of the features it had to be completely revamped. I will write more about this tomorrow, but I wanted to answer several users questions regarding the design of their old profiles. Trust me, the new profile will rock when it is finished and it has “awesome” features.
I am getting really excited about seeing everyone’s reactions to the new platform.
Fire up the comments,
-Mike
As most of you know by now, the Infield Parking site is down at the moment. This was caused by a disruption of service by our hosting provider. The outage has nothing to do with new platform being built. A holding page with the message below will be going up tonight.
Dear Friends of Infield Parking,
As you may know we have been working on overhauling our site and will soon be launching an entirely new platform chock full of new features, functionality and attractions, many of which were suggested by our members.
While we are within two weeks of launching the new site, we have been unexpectedly forced to shut down the old site due to a disruption caused by our hosting service.
We apologize in advance for the short notice and any inconvenience this may cause.
We will be using the Infield Parking blog to post updates about our progress with the new platform.
The Team at Infield Parking
I am heading to the airport and will be back online tomorrow morning. I will be able to approve comments and respond then.
-Mike
The new media upload function on Infield Parking will feature a number of enhancements over the current system. In the first place, it allows for the upload of photos, video and audio. The current site only allows for the upload of photos. Once uploaded, the files can be added to posts in the main forums. So, you won’t need to link to files stored at a third party site like Photo Bucket.
From the desktop, there is also a bulk upload that allows you to select multiple files at once to upload. During the upload process, you can add titles, descriptions or tags to each file or the whole set. This should prove to be a valuable time saver for managing your media.
Once uploaded, you can create a widget player of your files and share them with friends and post them on other websites or blogs.
You can also follow your other Infield Parking friends. Whether it is a driver or another user, you can receive an alert each time he/she uploads a new image, video or audio clip. This makes it very easy to follow your friends activities and stay up on all the current postings. You will also be able to comment on your friends media and vice versa.
The feature that I am most excited about is a new mobile media upload. You will be able to upload images or video from your phone directly to your own media gallery. Catch a great shot at the races or anywhere else, simply email it from your phone to your media gallery and the image is uploaded automatically. You can add a custom title by putting it in the subject line of the email.
Pretty sweet!
Let me know what you think.
-Mike
Before the holidays, I wrote about the groups feature that we are building in the new platform for Infield Parking. I have some screen shots to share with you. As I mentioned in that post,
The groups feature gives a user (you) control to setup his/her own area for chatting about topics of interest to you and like-minded other members. You are then responsible for managing this group. As the administrator, you can decide if a group is public - open to all users, or by invitation only, meaning participants in the Group must be approved by you before being admitted. You can also share the admin duties with other friends in the group.
From the overview page you can see the basic features of a group and their location in the layout.
Each group will have a:
Below the summary information are call outs for the group discussion board, group media (images, video and audio supported) uploads and the group members. Behind each call out on the group main page is a detail page. A couple of points on these features are:
There will be a main listing of all of the existing groups on the main navigation. You will be able to browse or search for different groups. There is also a groups tab on the user profile, so you will be able to manage your groups from your profile, as well as see what groups your friends have joined.
There was a lively conversation after my first post regarding the Groups feature and its use. As I mentioned then, I am very excited about the feature and hope that it has a really positive effect on the IP community. I also wanted to mention that the designers had a lot of fun with the comps. The sample images and text are very tongue-in-cheek.
-Mike
Hi my name is Mike and I am a lame blogger. It has been 36 days since my last blog post (only 22 if you count comment replies :-). Sorry for the long delay. The development schedule, the holidays and a family emergency have kept me from the blog. I hope that everyone enjoyed the holidays and is psyched about 2009. I know I am.
The development team is completing the new forum functionality. In today’s post, I want to share with you some screen shots and descriptions of how the new forums will work. Over the course of the next week, I will do the same with the Groups, Profiles and multi-media sections.
The Forums have been the heart and soul of Infield Parking since launch. So, we spent a good deal of time synthesizing your comments and building the functionality for them.
The New Forum is broken down into 5 basic Categories with forums and sub-forums.
The community managers will be able to add forums and sub-forums as they are needed.
Some other exciting features include a new search and sort feature. Yes, you can actually search for threads.., and get back meaningful results. The sort will allow you to limit your view to see only posts by your listed friends or by all IP users.
There will be a WYSIWYG editor for adding text styles to your posts. By popular demand, the edit button is back. You will be able to upload media (photo, graphic, video or audio) directly to your post, rather than having to link to it from another source. The media will also be added to your gallery when it is uploaded. In the “forum post” image above, you will also see a media quick view that gives you a way to scan all media uploaded to a post.
Let us know what you think.
And thanks for your patience.
-Mike
Infield Parking Team
One of the features that has been on my personal wish list is Groups. Anyone familiar with MySpace or Facebook will know immediately what I’m talking about. The groups feature gives a user (you) control to setup his/her own area for chatting about topics of interest to you and like-minded other members. You are then responsible for managing this group. As the administrator, you can decide if a group is public - open to all users, or by invitation only, meaning participants in the Group must be approved by you before being admitted. You can also share the admin duties with other friends in the group.
Each group has its own discussion board for its members. The group adminstrator can set the tone of that discussion and moderate it accordingly (within the boundaries of acceptable behavior as established by Infield Parking). Groups will also have a media gallery for members to share images and videos.
So, why am I so hot for this feature? There are several cool things. First, it lets individuals set the agenda for the group, allowing conversations to flourish around countless topics. Second, boundaries are created. Groups can be exclusive, so that populations can come together around topics without interference. Or if the group is not to your liking, you can vote with a mouse click and leave that group without it affecting your overall experience with the site.
Let me know what you think of the Groups feature, what Groups you might start and what other features you might like to see in Groups.
-m