Hello friends!

How’s your summer been? We hope it’s been as good and busy as ours has been!  We’ve spent all summer writin’ and podcastin’ and workin’ and we’re not going to stop even though summer is over.  I thought now would be a good time to check in on a few things.

BUG FIX: International Users Registration Fixed!
If you live outside the United States, you’ve probably had a hard time registering for an account at Murmur.com.  We apologize for this as there was a bug that we had a hard time chasing down.  But we’ve fixed it!  So now anyone, anywhere can sign up and join the fun at Murmur - Register for an account today!

RECAPS!
One of the favorite things of most of the Murmur staff is TV shows, and with the fall season approaching, you can expect recaps of our favorite shows.  Paul Montgomery has already been on the Mad Men recap beat [check out the latest recap - episode 4], and this week I joined him with my recap of episode #1 of 90210.

PODCASTS!
If you haven’t been listening to the Murmur podcast, you’ve been missing out on some great discussion of movies, technology, music and more.  Be sure to listen to the latest episode where we discuss gadgets such as the Amazon Kindle, Flip Video Cameras and more.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes

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As you can see, we’ve been busy and we’re going to be working hard to keep up the momentum!  You can expect a lot of updates, fixes and changes to the site in future weeks.  If you spot any problems or bugs, as always, please let us know by emailing us at bugs AT murmur DOT com.  Thanks!

And of course, don’t forget that Murmur is also what you make of it! So register for an account, write an article, rate and comment on other folks’ articles!  Everyone’s content that they’ve written this summer has been awesome and I can’t wait to see what else you come up with!

Thanks.

- Ron Richards
murmur.com/ronxo

It’s been an exciting time over at Murmur HQ as yesterday marked the launch of the Murmur Podcast!  In the first episode, Conor Kilpatrick, Josh Flanagan and Paul Montgomery talk abou the Summer Movies of 2009, what they’ve seen so far and what’s yet to come out that they’re excited about.  If you’re a movies fan, you’ve got to take a listen and then chime in the comments on the site.

The Murmur Podcast is going to be released on a weekly basis (or as close to it as we can get) and talk about anything and everything in the world of Murmur, which is TV, Film Music, Technology, Literature and Lifestyle.  We’re super excited about producing this podcast for you to enjoy and hope that you add it to your weekly listening.  We also look forward to any and all feedback you may have, so please let us know what you think of the show.  We’re going to be evolving it over the next few weeks, so I’m sure it will grow and change primarily based on your comments, so let us know what you think!

You can subscribe to the podcast via RSS or iTunes

thanks.

- Ron Richards

We’re really excited to tell everyone about the changes to Murmur.com that went live today.  After launching Murmur into private beta last December, we’ve been lucky enough to have a bunch of users checking out the site, writing articles, commenting and giving the site a thorough test drive.  A lot of you even wrote to us with comments and feedback, which has been awesome.  We’ve taken your feedback, as well as our own in watching how everyone used the site and what was going on behind the scenes and have been working on this latest update for the past few months.   While we still have a lot of work ahead of us with the site, I think this update is a big improvement, and we hope you agree.

The biggest change to the site, and the one I’m most excited about is that we have opened the doors to the general public! Now anyone can register and use the site!  We’re still considering ourselves in “beta” as we’re still working on the site, but the more the merrier - so if you haven’t registered yet, go register!

Here’s a rundown of the other changes:

• Content Editor - We’ve upgraded the content editor that you use to write articles.  The new one is slick, fast and easy to use.
• Editing Articles - One of the biggest requests we got from users was the ability to edit articles after you’ve published them, so you can fix typos or links or what not.  Well now you can.  Just go to your Dashboard and under “My Articles” click “Manage” and then “unpublish” the published article you want edit.  That moves the article to draft and allows you to edit it and republish when ready.
• RSS Support - RSS has been enabled across the site, so by grabbing the feed url from the bottom of the page, you can add Murmur to your favorite RSS Reader - you can grab the main feed from the homepage, the feed from any section homepage (like TV/Film or Music), or you can grab the feed of a specific user!
• Watching Creators - Now it’s easy to add a creator to your watchlist, just go to their profile page and click “Watch This Creator” - it’s just that easy!
• Staff Articles - Murmur has a great team of dedicated staff writers adding content to the side, in addition to all the users - you can now identify someone from the Murmur staff by a little “staff” flag on their articles and profile.
• Sharing - Now it’s easy to share articles you like to Digg, Delicious or to your friends via e-mail, just click the little Bookmark button at the top of the article.
• Number of Votes for an Article - as you know, any article can be rated and it’s your votes that determine the popularity of an article.  Well now you can see how many people have voted on an specific article to see just how that rating came to be.
• Other Behind The Scenes Fixes - We’ve fixed a ton of other things that I won’t go into detail on.  All you need to know is that Murmur.com should now run faster and make for a more pleasant experience for you.

Now, unfortunately there was one cost to these fixes - we had to do some database upgrades that caused the previous articles loaded to Murmur had to have their votes reset back to zero, so be sure to browse through the site and read and vote on any and all articles to get them noticed!

We hope you enjoy these changes and it improves your experience with Murmur.com.  If you have any feedback, please let us know by emailing bugs@murmur.com with any bugs, suggestions or questions.

A big thanks to the Murmur development team who have been working hard on making the site better for all of us.

This is just the beginning, we’ve got a lot more planned for the site as well as some other cool things, so definitely stay tuned.  But right now, get over to Murmur, read some articles, write some articles and go tell your friends they can register!

thanks.
Ron Richards

Murmur.com is an online community focused around content about TV/FIlm, Music, Technology, Literature and Lifestyles.  An online magazine, if you need to distill it down to something as simple as that.  But Murmur isn’t just any typical magazine. It’s a magazine for YOU by YOU.

You see, a while back we got sick of what the “media” decided we should be interested in.  Tired of all the crap content available online and in print media, we decided we’d create our own.  But we didn’t stop there, we also wanted to involve all of you in the process.  And thus Murmur was born.

So in addition to our staff of writers who are writing and creating content daily, we invite you to heed the call and be heard.  Anyone who registers on Murmur.com has the ability to create content and have your articles be enjoyed by the audience, along side our staff.  You don’t have to create content if you don’t want, you’re welcome to come, read, follow your favorite creators and comment on articles.  We’re an open and welcoming community.

We’ll be posting here to this blog when we have new functionality and changes, as well to keep everyone aware of the general going ons at Murmur HQ.

So what are you waiting for - go to Murmur.com and get to it!

thanks.
Ron Richards - Murmur Profile >