January 2006 Release (New Look)'s topics - tribe.net

customizing home page

2007-02-12T18:15:38Z

i want to customize my tribenet home page but i only know a little html and not foaf. does anyone know of a simple editor with a tutorial that would allow me more freedom of choice on the design of my page?

thx,
bewildered, bi and beautiful in the bay area

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 1 reply

Bon voyage 2006 Look

2007-01-17T06:47:33Z

I just wanted to say good bye and good riddance to the 2006 look, and im glad tribe is getting back to the way it was. Its hard to believe how long it lasted.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

HTML & smileys

2007-01-05T18:35:13Z

Is it possible that every stupid forum in the World has HTML and smileys only Tribe - biggest community on the net - doesen`t ??

Without possibility to change font colour, format and size everything very soon becomes boring and every topic looks empty without different colours and different design.
Not to mention smileys which exist in every mail system every forum anywhere. Without smileys all our conversation is more dynamic and emotional. In one word - RICH

Hello - anybody listening? - old tribe stuff promissed to begin with HTML and smileys in groups but it never happened. Aren`t you better then them. Proof it!!

here comes *smiley* and *mad* and off course *swaering* !!!

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 1 reply

I still have a problem???

2006-09-28T01:41:42Z

when I click to view all of my friends blogs right in the way is the block of my messages and other lists, why is this blocking my blogs. I am not sure how to stop this???

Does anyone else have this problem???

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 4 replies

I'm outta here!

2006-09-26T22:15:22Z

Since this tribe is no longer monitored, I'm-a bailin' out! See you all on da brainstorming tribe!

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

i like it

2006-09-23T16:17:05Z

I know you're going to get negative feedback - it seems that every change that is made there is overwhelmingly negative feedback. I really hated the last change and thought it was extremely dorkish with little navigation ability and the color was horendous. I especially hated the fact that all the tribe worker bees that i've come to really like were suddenly 'gone', 'fired', or 'laid off'. But mutany is a wonderful thing. The tribe worker bees i like the most got their jobs back (yeah, WENDY!), the CEO was canned, and now, we're back to the old feel with better navigation.

I tried it out today to see where I would be irritated the most. I'm not happy with the homepage but i'm seeing what i can do with that. I want to JUST see my tribes listed- nothing else... so maybe i'm not sure how to edit that yet. Anywho, the fact that I can now easily navigate at the top is a great feature.

glad to have the old look back that is now easier to handle.

now, when are we going to be able to add music?
and when do I get my porn tribes back?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 5 replies

Important announcement: Official Meta-tribe consolidation...

2006-09-20T05:53:16Z

As you may already know, we will be making a few changes to the site within the next few days. At the same time, we will by tidying up the official communication channels between our members and our employees. Over the years there has been a proliferation of tribes about Tribe, the result being that it is confusing for members to know where to go to find information, and it is next to impossible for employees to keep up with all of the different Tribe tribes. This is one of those tribes. As of September 21, 2006, this tribe will be made private and employees will no longer be monitoring it for new posts.

In its place we will have four new publicly accessible tribes that will serve as our official communication channels with users. These tribes will be monitored and actively moderated by employees of Tribe.net. These tribes will not be live until after our system upgrade. They are:

http://brainstorm.tribe.net - Tribe.net Brainstorm - much like tribeideas today, but with a fresh start.
http://bugs.tribe.net - Tribe.net Bug Reports - for reporting bugs that you find. As the bugs are fixed the threads may be culled (time and resource permitting on our side). Bugs that are actually more points of confusion will be entered into the FAQ if there is a workaround of better explanation.
http://faq.tribe.net - Tribe.net FAQ - this is not a place to ask questions, but rather a place where the posts will be "Jeopardy!" style, with the subject being a Question and the message being the answer. Members may post their own FAQ's or add more detail or workarounds to other people's FAQ's.
http://blog.tribe.net - Tribe.net Company Blog - This will be a moderated tribe that is mostly just to allow the employees to post announcements about the product, the industry, or anything pertinent to the business side of the house. For the time being we will not be allowing people to join, but are making it moderated so that its content may be syndicated.

You are free to join all of these new tribes after the upgrade is complete (except the Blog, of course). At this point, we are scheduling the upgrade for the morning of September 21. Each of the new tribes contains a description of what sort of postings are appropriate for that forum. We would like to thank all who have participated here. We do actually read and value the feedback, both good and bad. We try to do our best to keep up with it, even with the few employees we have, and we would encourage your continued constructive participation in the new Tribe tribes.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

OK..

2006-09-19T21:40:52Z

So what is up with the Google-esque pirate theme..

..was there finally a mutiny @ tribe.net?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Wow, this crap is still here...

2006-08-17T04:12:56Z

Just logged in after like months thinking I would see the new look gone, but I guess not, man what I downgrade from the old tribe I knew... Welp see you guys in another couple of months.

Thanks tribe for imposing a new look on the community without giving us any say in the matter, nor have any intention of listening to what the community is saying about it.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

Have you noticed a decline in use?

2006-07-23T21:40:40Z

Funny. Seems like 99% of the people I know really hated the re-design. Many said, I'm gonna leave tribe or find another alternative. Most have found a few things but I still notice most everyones profile. However, what I have noticed since the re-design is a dramatic decline in postings to the 80 some tribes I'm in. Seriously dramatic. Many have become ghost towns. No one posting anything. I also tend to notice that most have said they are happy that Tribe was re-designed because now they don't come here as frequently as before. I know I personally don't.

I guess there's nothing quite as important as chasing away users.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 47 replies

How are bookmarks organized?

2006-05-01T17:48:16Z

My bookmarked tribes seem to be random. They're not ordered alphabetically, or oldest to newest, or by number or members or new posts. Also, it's one long list instead of columns. There's plenty of whitespace to form columns. Can this be cleaned up?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 2 replies

A new release, and a new tribe for feedback.

2006-04-24T20:50:11Z

We're live with a new release. What's changed? Here's the overview:

HOMEPAGE PREVIEW
Based on feedback that has come to be known as "serendipity & sidewalk," we've reorganized the way that the member homepage works, and you'll be able to compare two versions of the page and see how they stack up against the current one. We're trying to strike a balance for people who like to see posts, and people who like to track tribes, so please let us know which layout you prefer, and why.

SEARCH
Thanks to major work by half the engineering team, we're happy to release "one-box search," which will make it much easier to find interesting items on Tribe. Version 2.0 of our search is fast, global, and features a tabbed interface that lets you pick between seeing all the results at once, or filtering to a single item type. You can even save your searches to your favorite RSS reader.

VIDEO
Video is coming to Tribe. We're taking baby steps with this one, and trying it out on member profiles first. We've added a Revver module, so you can add your favorite videos to your profile. And you'll be in control -- video files won't start unless you press the Play button. We'll be watching to see how people use this, so let us know how you like it, and if you want more multimedia modules.

READABILITY
We're continuing to apply your feedback to the look and feel of the site, with adjustments to the grey page background, and the font combinations that are displayed.

We've set up a new April 2006 Release tribe to discuss this release and collect feedback:

http://tribes.tribe.net/april2006/

Head on over to find out more about the release, and check out the survey we're running too.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 9 replies

brand new secondhand

2006-04-24T20:43:38Z

just logged on for the first time in a while and it actually looks a lot like 'old tribe' in here again.

now if we can just fix the usability issues and then we can call 'new tribe' a success, just as it starts to work like old tribe did.

life is funny.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Tribe Re-sort doesn't stick

2006-04-24T20:42:25Z

I don't want my tribes sorted by count of unread posts; I want it sorted alphabetically by name. Now after months of it working correctly it won't hold the sort paramter anymore. i go back to the front page and it defaults to sorting by count of unread posts.

It gets really annoying to have to deal with interface changes and then broken things that weren't broken before.

Another broken thing is that when you view as tribe's pictures, should you select an individual picture and then go back to the thumbnails and decide to view the whole list of thumbnails, the next click bring me back to the last photo I saw, not the thumbnails. This bug has persisted for at least the past month, maybe two.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 7 replies

About the "members" icon on top...

2006-04-17T20:31:45Z

Weren't they gonna get rid of this stupid 2 headed thing? Looks like people tossing their cookies... or, as someone called them, "the blowjob kids"... (And now every time I log on... )

You would think... eh?

At keast the fuzzfont is gone (YAY!! I HATED that - screwed with my eyes!) and the grey is greyer...

Search is pretty good... and the visited is more upto date.

It's slowly getting... dare I say it... better? But please... retire the "kids", OK?

bb

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 4 replies

BIG Glitch!

2006-04-17T17:29:23Z

When I go back to my homepage after looking at a tribe, my tribes list doesn't reset. It's still listed with the same number of posts. At first I thought, wow, that many just got post, but then nothing was different... uh oh. This is gonna cause a lot of confusion for me.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 22 replies

new beta?

2006-04-15T18:46:56Z

when does the new Beta go live? I'm beyond interested to see if it is delivers at least some of what I hope it will do. Namely return tribe to its former glory.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 4 replies

It's not letting me log into the beta...

2006-04-14T19:21:56Z

Umm... I want to check out the new beta, but it won't let me log in. It just sit's there endlessly spinning, spinning..... Is it because I'm on a Mac machine? I've tried both Firefox and Safari browsers, neither worked.... Surely the beta is not PC specific, right? I mean, surely you're aware that tribe has a large mac user group..... Feeling frustrated....

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 4 replies

My wish list.

2006-04-13T00:44:43Z

Sure, some of these may be addressed in the upcoming release... but I won't know for sure which wishes get granted until the release actually gets implemented. So, my wish list...

I wish I could delete invitations to events. None of them are ever in my area, and I'm tired of seeing that red asterisk when I know it's meaningless. I mean it never goes away until after the event has passed, even if I've already read the invite. Persistent bugger.

I wish when I clicked on the main picture of a tribe I'd actually be taken to that picture. Instead, I'm taken to the photo album and if I want to see that picture, I have to search for it.

I wish when I clicked on the photo tab, I was taken directly to the photo album, instead of that useless thumbnail page. Actually, I wish I saw thumbnails size adjusted to fit the thumbnail window, and on the main tribe page instead.

I wish when I hid the member info in the tribe header it would stay hidden every time I revisited Tribe.

I wish I had my 'daily' hit counter back already.

I wish I could flag spam threads, and email abuse@tribe.net from within the Tribe interface without having to use my own seperate email account.

I wish the Burningman Tribe wasn't displayed to all new users as being the biggest and most active tribe, encouraging newbies to join when they have no clue what Burningman is. Thanks Tribe, but I don't think we don't need your PR. People should find tribes they are interested in, and join them. Not join just because it's a big tribe.

I wish there was peace on earth. If you can't do anything about my other wishes, maybe you can at least help a little with this one.

:-)

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 5 replies

Bug!

2006-04-12T00:04:41Z

Hey; A friend sent me an inviation to join Tribe but I am already a member, now I have this banner acroos the top of the page telling me to join tribe. I want to get rid of it but cannot seem to do so without rejoing, no thanks.....strange.
Input?
Jason

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 11 replies

Allow me to translate!

2006-04-09T16:55:16Z

Darian P
Internet Marketing
Mission District
Here for: getting the word out to join Tribe.net!!!
Darian is a Tribe employee. View all Tribe staff.
Date Mon, April 3, 2006 - 6:01 PM
Subject Exciting Changes on Tribe

Message

We want to take this opportunity to tell you about some exciting changes that you'll see and experience on Tribe in the coming weeks. As always we want and need your feedback, suggestions, and ideas. Feel free to mail me directly or send an email to feedback@tribe.net.

----- Keep in mind that anything you suggest will be ignored!

These changes are scheduled to go into affect the week of April 11th but we wanted to give you a "head's up".

----- We're hoping that you can see things from our viewpoint, namely, where our head is up at.

The New Tribe Homepage
You've sent us a lot of valuable feedback on the member homepage, and we want even more! When you login to Tribe, you'll see a link at the top of the page that will allow you to test drive a few of our new designs for the member homepage.

----- We've now lost so many users to MySpace and Free-Ass that we're now in panic mode trying to pander up to you to show what good friends we are. We've even fired the two messengers we hire dto give the bad news, and now, I'm the next one on the chopping block. PLEASE LOVE THESE CHANGES, otherwis eit's my ass. They killed Wade, They axed Warren, now I'm next in line. Love the changes, and save my job.

The new designs will allow you to:
- view all of your tribes at once

----- Something most users already figure dout how to do, we'll make it easier for the stupid people out there

- see more "sidewalk" content (view listings, events, and reviews posted by your friends, or others in your network

----- Make it more like the old tribe everyone actually LIKED

- customize what kind of content you see on your homepage

----- We've only been dangleing this carrot for over a year, so we figure we better put out or shut up.

Add Video to your Profile
You'll be able to display video on your profile. Upload your video to Revver.com (a video content site), and then add a "My Revver Video Module" to your profile.

----- We're just not enough like MySpace. This should help us be more acceptabel to video spammers. Nobody wante dthis featire, and all teh users complained about video on profiles, so we'r ehoping this drives that last of you away. Maybe this will get us the VC that Jan is desperate for, but somehow I doubt it. 14yo's don't have VC.

Site-wide Search
We've had many requests in the past to be able to search the entire site (all of our different areas—people, tribes, jobs, reviews, events and more) at the same time.

----- Tribe is difficult for Stalkers and Date-Rapists to use. This should change that making it more friendly to them.

With site-wide search, located in the upper right-hand corner of the masthead, you'll be able to type in a term and get search results that cover the entire site all viewable by category so you can get to the right content lickety-split.

----- We don't want stalkers to have to look for the search, so we'll spam it on every page. We're pretty sure you can make this go away with RIP for firefox.

Bug fixes
Yes, were always out to find a bugs and squash them.

----- What you call a working feature, we call a bug.

As always, you're our best exterminators.

----- We're cheap fuckers blowing the VC on stupid interface changes. We prefer that you work for free and give us lot of ad clicks and do the work for us.

If you run into a bug don't hesitate to post it in the Tribe.net Bugs tribe at tribebugs.tribe.net.

----- So that we can promptly ignore it.

To see what we're fixing in detail go to the Release Notes tribe at releasenotes.tribe.net.

----- Please post things that are working perfectly so we can "Fix" those as well.

Best wishes to Wade!

----- They'll never find his body. NEVER! We buried it real good.

We want to wish Wade a fond farewell and a deeply felt thank you for his efforts over the last two years. He graciously took on some difficult tasks and handled them with aplomb. Good luck in your next venture!

----- Tribe 25, Outrageous Jobs, Image flagging, 2257 panic, Tribe Sanitation for the peopel of Godwin Texas, and let's not forget, a big proponet of this asstastic interface monstrosity that is giving everyone migraines and Grand Mal Seizures.

Member Icon Contest – Bragging Rights and $100!

----- Because at the rate we pay our designers, they can afford to spring $100 cash on you to do their job for them.

Please don't forget that we need your help with our redesign of the member icon in the masthead. To participate check out the contest guidelines at tribes.tribe.net/membersicon and follow Elliot's instructions. The winner gets a $100 Amazon gift certificate and the bragging rights

----- The gift certificates we get for free from amazon, so it's not liek we're actually out anything at all.

Thanks again for your commitment to Tribe and the Tribe community. Our service is built on the foundation that you are the most important feature.

----- This is just lip service, our actions and practice have shown we don't give two shits about you or anyone else, and I'm nothing more than the new cheerleading mouthpiece of tribe. How do you know I'm spewing forth the party line bullshit? My lips are moving!

Please continue to actively participate in our community and let us know what we can do to make your experience better.

----- Let's try to get the traffic and postings on the tribes back to what they were pre-interface change. OUr hits are dropping faster than the user base. Between low posted, increased flagging of all content, we're losing ground fast. Start posting and putting some content here because we don't want to go look for jobs.

Cheers,

Darian Patchin
Darian@tribe.net

----- Next one in line to get fired if you peopel don't get happy!

--S

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 44 replies

TRIBE brand suicide

2006-04-06T01:57:00Z

Tribe had a very strong, distict brand. "Tribe" meant an active, potent, stimulating high-quality social netowrk experience.

A community of the most inspired and unique people walking the planet.,

It could have been all things to a profitable niche segment of the population - well educated, innovative, early adopters. A way to market to the trend setters, and tastemakers.

If you listened to your customers, rather than angering and blatantly offending their tastes and sensibilites - you could have gone far.

"Tribe" doesn't mean anything specific any more. It looks, smells, tastes and acts like a generic corporate ad farm. Usage has dropped, and people no longer trust you - but think of you as "the man."

I and many, many others who used to secretly rave about Tribeno longer advocates of your brand.

I am ready to jump ship at a moments notice - and watch this place die a slow death like Prodigy, AltaVista, Napster

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 46 replies

Flagged Photos, Redux

2006-04-05T23:17:33Z

I'm still waiting to hear back from Tribe about why the barfing twins photos is still flagged. I figure I'm at least owed a note as to why it violates TOU instead of this dead silence. I have clicked on the disagree link about ten times now, and nothing back from tribe. And that photo was flagged maybe three weeks ago.

Domina

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 1 reply

looks empty

2006-04-02T23:13:41Z

Posting seems to have dried up in the last 2 days. Did everyone go on vacation or is there something else going on?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 5 replies

um, hello!!!

2006-04-01T03:57:31Z

spent hours trying to find out how to get to the homepage

how can there be no direct link?

still hate new jan 2006 tribe design ...almost as much as the tou guy

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 1 reply

i like the new tribe design

2006-04-01T03:49:23Z

honestly, the whole drama over the new tribe design has been laughable and silly and immature. i haven't participated in the discussion up to this point because i thought it was so immature and ridiculous. i actually like the new design overall. yeah, the members icon looks like two people puking their guts out, and the tribe font is not as cool as it was in the previous version, and the grey is GREY (which = boring in my book) - yeah, i would love to see new colors that don't make the tribe experience so monochrome - overall, i couldn't really complain about the new site modifications. i like the email inbox page, i like the way the friends blogs are posted, i like the profile pages.. overall, i think tribe is one of the best services on the internet and the change in its design doesn't affect its usability and my interest in using it at all. i love tribe. i stand behind it regardless.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Tribe: A Bridge Between Worlds

2006-03-28T14:30:23Z

One day in February, I sat down at an internet café in Cambodia. I’d been there for several weeks when the homesickness bug bit me. Having emailed everyone I know another tedious account of my misadventures, my inbox was still pathetically empty and I was craving news from home. Naturally, being a 2 year tribe addict, my fingers tapped out “t-r-i-b-e-.-n-e-t-[enter]” without thinking.

And naturally as an old school triber, I was jarred by the new layout that filled my screen upon log-in. [proceed past the dotted line if you’ve heard all this before…] The narcissist in me noticed that my profile picture had now been reduced to a miniscule speck in the upper right corner of the screen and there was no more counter to tell me how many voyeurs had peeked at my profile… the hideous new orangey red icons and glaring white background were beginning to fatigue my eyeballs… the friends and tribes were still there, but now a truncated version that now required another click to see the whole list (grumble, grumble). If I had the time and my index finger had the energy, I could probably figure out where in this new maze Tribe.net had hidden everything else.

Yet something else was off and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Right then, a banana shake began calling my name, so I logged off and didn’t think again about tribe again til I got home.

I’ve since read all the complaints on the Tribe Ideas and Tribe’s New Look tribes and know I’m not alone, that there are many things the older tribers are not happy with, but this particular thread hit the nail on the head for me:

http://tribes.tribe.net/newlook/thread/f7a67f15-a76c-4d5f-9037-0cd6f469a8c9#15fa3bff-3dfa-4366-9088-46e8c35d4238

it’s about the loss of “sidewalk traffic” on the homepage. If you were a tribe user pre Jan 18th, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about. Logging onto the old tribe felt like going for a walk through the town square of your online neighborhood, where you could people-watch and have serendipitous encounters with people outside of your friendlist. Not quite “strangers”, but people with whom you share a loose connection with, whether thru mutual tribes, or friends displayed in the “degrees of separation” info near their icon (that has sadly disappeared and now requires an extra (conscious) click on their profile to reveal.)

This fun feature of the old tribe.net plays a much larger function of effective social networking (online and offline) than we realize. Research and social experiments have shown that we benefit most not from our close friends (with whom we share the most in common and do not expose us to as many new ideas), but from our “looser connections”, our acquaintances, who tend to have different interests and social circles from our own.

**********
An excerpt from “Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks”

If you send out feelers for a job, are you more likely to succeed if you talk to your good friends, or would you do better with weaker acquaintances? …. One might naively suppose that the strong contacts would be more important. After all, your friends know you better, see you more frequently, and care more about helping you.

Even so, Granovetter (a social scientist/researcher) found that only 16% of people he interviewed got their jobs through a contact they saw “often”, whereas 84% got their jobs through contacts they saw “occasionally” or “rarely”. The information these people put out into their network – “I am looking for a job” – seems to have spread more effectively and to a greater number of people by moving thru weak links rather than strongs ones.

The explanation seems fairly obvious. Sending out feelers to good friends is certainly easy to do, but the news does not spread very far…. Your friends share common friends, and many will soon hear the news a second and third time. But if you broadcast your needs to loose acquaintances, distant relatives you never see (basically people with more exposure to different worlds), and so on, your news at least has a chance… TO ESCAPE THE CONFINING TIES OF YOUR OWN SOCIAL GROUP AND GET INTO THE MINDS OF A GREAT MANY PEOPLE.

From an individual’s point of view, Granovetter concluded, weak ties are an important resource.”
**********

I have to admit that on my old homepage, I had changed the default view on Listings to show only listings from my 1st degree friends. Naturally I wanted to help those I knew more than people I didn’t know. However, I rarely read of anybody asking for something that I had. I can’t explain why, but when I changed it back to 2nd and 3rd degree friends, I was always finding someone with a need that I could help with.

And vice versa. I have not attempted to list anything on the new tribe, but I have a feeling only my 1st degree friends will be alerted. Whenever I posted something on the old tribe, the responses were mostly from friends I didn’t know that well, or a friend of a friend.

Look closely and you’ll notice the new homepage doesn’t allow for much “people-watching” anymore. It’s all MY tribes, MY friends, MY friends’ listings, MY friend’s blogs, MY MY MY MY. There’s no more automatic exposure to 2nd or 3rd degree listings, and I’m finding that even if as I make a conscious effort to root them out, there is no central place to go to peruse random listings from 2nd and 3rd degree friends. I suppose I could click on random people’s profiles and see what they need and how I know them, but you get the point. Who has the time and energy to do that unless they’re some kind of saint? On the other hand, when it’s right there on the homepage, most people jump at the chance to be someone else’s hero for a day.

This was the edge that Tribe.net had over all the other mainstream networking sites. This was why a tribe called “How Tribe changed my life” never felt like marketing hype to me, it felt true.

Tribe DID change my life when I joined, as hokey as that sounds, and continued to expand my world as long as I felt compelled to log on and explore all its online worlds. through the exposure it gave me to people I would never have met otherwise, who in turn exposed me to communities and worlds and experiences I would never have sought out on my own.

I don’t need another platform to communicate with people I already know. I have gmail for that. There will always be people who don’t like your new logos, your design scheme, the colors, the details of your new interface design. I do hope however, that the points I bring up in my post sound off an alarm with the powers that be that with somewhere in all the UI changes, you have severely handicapped your most valuable asset - the ability to be a bridge between our separate worlds.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post.

a former die-hard tribe addict.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Contact Information Options

2006-03-26T16:07:22Z

One of the reasons I use Tribe and Myspace for is to keep in touch with people I know but haven't seen or talked to in a long time and would like to have the option to have my contact info displayed for my friends, or even better, the friends i choose. Someone just sent me an invite for some site that only does contact info sharing, but I wasn't interested in joining another site just for that purpose.

What does anyone think about this

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

Miscellaneous Thoughts -- Branding, Icons, Readability and Competition

2006-03-25T21:40:22Z

Just thought I would share a few thoughts here:

First I have asked Elliot to focus near term attention on improving our member icon, increasing the readability of our fonts and considering background color behind fonts. This effort is based on feedback from our users. These have been on our to do list but now are front and center.

Second, I wanted to say that we welcome competition and hope it will makes us better. Obviously a number of folks have been stirring up dissent on tribe for the purpose of promoting other communties. We welcome the competition. But we do not feel our mission requires endorsement or response to disruption that has the purpose of promoting other communites.

We are happy to have dissent and discussion as well as alternate points of view to the extent that the community is built, dialogue established and freedom expressed.

We are all diligently focused on listening to our community and responding to needs and requests. Unfortunately because of the relatively small size of our employee base relative to the large size of the community, do do not do this as well as we would like.

I wanted to say again that we have not changed the target audience for our product and seek to serve adults rather than high school for instance. We should be able to develop a better member icon to reflect that. Unfortuantely, to the extent that it is seen as a self image, any member icon image may well be controversial given the size and diversity of our community.

In summary we will continue efforts to build positive community and protect the interests of our community. Thanks for your help in building this community.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 20 replies

Announcing the Members Icon Design Contest!

2006-03-25T16:02:38Z

Alright, people: you asked for it, and now we're going to let you have it -- I'm proud to announce the first-ever Members Icon Design Contest. That's right -- nobody really liked that members icon you see up there, and plenty of people downright hated it, so we're opening the door for anyone interested in making their mark on Tribe in a very real way. Show us your best designs, and you could win a spot for your icon in the masthead. More importantly, you could win yourself a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate. Tribe fame and Amazon fortune. What more could you ask for?

The full details are at the Members Icon Design Contest tribe, but here are the basics:

- Enter your design by Friday, April 7th, 2006
- Enter by uploading one image per design to the Members Icon Design tribe
- Enter as many times as you like
- You must be a member of Tribe to enter

Go here to find out more:

http://tribes.tribe.net/membersicon/

We'll also be sending out a personal message about this, but if you've got your Message Center set up with the iron fist of Ignore, then you can see the full text here:

http://tribes.tribe.net/membersicon/thread/7a89e3c1-2561-4c91-a04a-97d59d0c31e3

*Note: Amazon.com is not affiliated with this contest in any way. We just like their gift certificates.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 8 replies

All ya'll quit bitching and think !

2006-03-24T22:03:03Z

Servers = cost money

Badwidth = cost money

People designing = cost money

People managing people doing Tribe = cost money

Do you have cash to fork over so we make a NEW TRIBE YOUR WAY ?

Any takers ?

*even the crickets are silent...

I rest my case.

qb

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 14 replies

Another bitch...

2006-03-24T18:33:57Z

It's been well over a month.
I've been trying to work with the new tribe, waiting to get over the loss of the old one and see if it isn't all the same in the end...

It ain't.

Tribe used to feel like a great outdoor market with lots of hustle and bustle and friendly faces....

Now I kinda feel like I'm a sheep being herded through Ikea.
It's a drag...

And I know folks are sick of the bitching (and trust me, this will be my last one)... This new tribe sucks and no amount of time passing or cheerleading for Tribe is going to change that.

Congratulations Tribe. You're about as warm and friendly now as fluorescent lighting. Well done.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 21 replies

Maybe this is the wrong tribe to post this query

2006-03-23T16:45:09Z

But I remember under the old GUI we could determine whose messages got sent to our Inbox and Other mailboxes. Now people I don't even know send messages that show up in my Inbox when I'd rather see that they pop up in my Other mailbox.

How do I fix this mail direction problem? I get mail in my Other mailbox, also from non-friends, and that's fine. I'd just prefer that ALL non-friends get sent there.

Thanks.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Real Name and Tribe Handle

2006-03-23T02:58:21Z

I would like to see a private real name search. Our tribe handle would be visible to the public but a friend could search by our real name and our tribe page could be found. This would be helpful to reconnect with old friends.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 12 replies

Zaadz & Tribe

2006-03-23T01:07:37Z

It's odd:

Brian -CEO of Zaadz- seems to have unsubscribed from Tribe and taking not only a Tribe he moderated in his flight, but his thread topics as well...interesting.

I thought it was just me that he took off my friend's list but then I noticed my lover had one fewer friend and then I noticed that I had a message from an unsubscribed person.

I thought it was because I was questioning some things I had concerns about...

Apparently - by inference- I'm supposed to not question, but rather conform to a vision.

Brian was interestingly firm in his public statements about the vision of Zaadz and that if one didn't agree with it, they weren't really welcome. Of course it was all phrased really well: polished and polite...and ultimately to some degree, not very inclusive or open-minded.

Maybe this has been some sort of different marketing campaign strategy I'm not aware of.

It seems to lack some integrity, openness and honesty that I don't feel comfortable in supporting.

At least on Tribe, we have the freedom to dissent, question and discuss, in whatever myriad ways we do it.

That might be something worth thinking about when we're all bitching and moaning about Tribe...

Now, if they'd just work on the color scheme here ...

Or maybe Tribe pressured him out.

Hmm

regards,

~MTS

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 92 replies

Ain't this the shit... MySpace spam on Tribe.

2006-03-21T08:03:32Z

http://bm.tribe.net/thread/bd92ff1a-7d99-4e2f-be67-fa407c7bb169

I wonder if there's Tribe spam on MySpace too?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Reset Profile View Counter?

2006-03-21T01:37:08Z

I'm hoping I'll be able to do this sometime in the near future. I don't necessarily need to know which needy people are viewing my profile, but I think it would be nice to be able to reset it so I can find out how many during a certain time period.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 8 replies

This is so frickin' ridiculous

2006-03-20T08:06:11Z

I am so tired of not getting peoples postings on my home page. Was tribe not meant to be a networking society? I have no connection, to the world outside of my friends. And even my friend's listings get lost. This is a pain... fix this please! Fine you have you pretty bubble look, your icons, now can you please focus on what's actually important?Give us the ease to network, please.......!!!!!!!!!!!

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 1 reply

What we have here . . .

2006-03-19T07:37:00Z

. . . is a failure to see the big picture. I've taken a step back to see what I could see and even though I've been a member just less than a year what is actually going on becomes pretty obvious. Now it's time for a bedtime story kids;

Once upon a time there was a group of highly intelligent, very computer savy folks who had enough equipment to host a website. These folks got together and thought " Maybe we can do something like MySpace (?) but do it better ! " So they did. And on that day they created Tribe! And it was good. They worked very hard to attract those who eventually joined and became members. They worked very hard to create and give these folks what they asked for. The people lauded their efforts sang their praises . . . " AH, GLORY !!!"

Then reality set in. They needed income for various reasons ( maybe to pay bills ?) So they sold adspace. Some people grumbled. Some people didn't appreciate the cookies and adware/spyware that they felt was here or on the way. Life on tribe seemed to absorb this developement relatively well in spite of that omen.

Then, the dark cloud of gonzales came into view. The dark cloud was angry. Angry that the people on Tribe were having fun and frolic. The dark cloud bellowed " How DARE you have fun like that. Showing your little boobies and butts and cocks at each other!! I AM GONZALES, AND I WILL FORCE MORALITY DOWN YOUR NECKS. AND I WILL USE THE POWER OF 2257 TO DO IT WITH !!!! "

The creaters of Tribe trembled ! No . . . wait. They aren't trembling. They are meeting . . . what are they saying? Can't make it out . . . 2257 . . .doesn't affect us? bail? Time to bail? make the people think that . . . 2257 DOES affect us ! Let's clean it up, sanitize it and make it attractive to some corporate conglomerate who will offer up a lot of dough for it?

Then someone mentioned the people. That person was smashed.

Then it happened . . . The Change. The creaters decided to call this ; " New Look" . New Look took over and blinded the people. Those who were able to absorb the effects of "The Glare" still had to figure out navigation. Navigating became confusing. New Look took away the ease in which the people/Tribes used to navigate and find one another. New Look took away most of the fun and frolic the people were experiencing by way of censoring. New Look used the gonzales and the power of 2257 to justify what they were doing. But 2257 had no power. The images were being flagged. The fun and frolic slowed and eventually stopped. The people cried " Give us our old Tribe back !!! " The creaters are very calculating and sinister, though. They say " We're discusssing that." and " We'll get back to you on that" Sometimes they honor a small request or a small part of one, simply to mollify the crowds. It seems that if the creaters were sincere (and not selling out to Conglomerate Corporation) then they would have figured most of and worked out all of "The Bugs" . But that was never their original intention . . . from the very BEGINNING !!!!

You see, it is "The Bugs" that keep most of us busy from seeing "The Big Picture" . . .

And the big picture is simply that the creaters are nothing more that a group of dot com sellouts. This was the plan ALL ALONG !! gonzales and 2257 was just a convenient tool to used. Along with some "plants' posing as members posting hyperbole and they let the people run with it. F/U lessons learned from the 90's put into practice in this new millennium . . .

I'm actually impressed. That was a hell of a dope fiend move . . .

= D

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Upcoming Homepage Changes

2006-03-19T02:14:49Z

Well, we're in testing now on the features we promised back in February--and then some. Here are the main changes for your homepage that will be coming up shortly:

1) Your My Tribes module will be customizable
2) Your posts from friends module will be customizable
3) We're adding two more customizable modules as well

Details:

1) Your My Tribes module

a) number of tribes showable will probably go from 18 to at least 50 or so, and quite possibly unlimited.
b) you set the number of tribes you want to show here
c) sort controls on that module will be super flexible (what you have now plus things like most recent post)
d) you can pick exactly which tribes you want on your homepage
e) customizable module title

2) Your posts from friends module

a) delimit by type (for example, you could only show blog posts or reviews if you wanted to)
b) delimit by region (anywhere, or your geographic area)
c) delimit by social distance (1st, 2nd, 3rd, anybody)
d) customizeable title
e) a "titles only" setting that will collapse a lof the text (so you can get more on your page)

This is a lot of flexibility. For example, you could rename your "posts from friends" module to be "listings in the Bay Area" and show listings only from Anybody in SF Bay Area, or you could title it "recommendations in my network" and set it to show reviews only from people who are, say, 3 degrees away from you.

3) 2 more modules

a) a 2nd posts from friends module. We'll default the configuration on this one to be along the lines of "listings in my network", but you can change it to whatever you like. Many members told us they wanted the ability to separate things visually, so we're trying to respond to that.

b) an events module that lets you display events in your area by date happening and social distance. Also, a titles only setting here too.

I don't know that we're going to do a full beta on this but if anybody wants to come in and take a spin, I'm happy to arrange it, just ping me or Elliot. Sooner the better!

w

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 13 replies

Tribe snares itself in positioning traps!

2006-03-19T00:09:28Z

I was reading through "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind" by Al Ries and Jack Trout - a marketing classic. Here is what they warn, verbatim, about deadly mistakes a company can make:

"Trap 1: Positioning head on against an industry leader. It is very difficult to compete with an established product on its own territory. Instead, establish your own territory.

Trap 2: "Me too" positionings. The position should not be a weak image of another products position, offering some trivial differentiating feature or benefit. Again, carve out your own territory.

Trap 3: Factory-Driven Positionings. This trap arises when a firm produces a product to utilize manufacturing capacity or an available
technology. It is difficult to position a product successfully if no one really wanted it in the first place.

Trap 4: Being "something for everybody." If you try and be something for everyone, you usually end up being a nothing to anybody. An
undifferentiated marketing strategy suggests an unsegmented market - a difficult thing to find today.

Trap 5: Line extension positionings. A product that relies on a strong, pre-existing product for much of its image in the customer's mind
will obviously suffer if the original product declines in popularity.

Trap 6: F.W.M.T.S. This acronym stands for "forgot what made them successful. If it isin't broke, don't fix it!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take this list to your new CEO and have a serious talk with him, please.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 2 replies

lets just get over it

2006-03-18T13:30:22Z

ok...lets just get over it now...

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 28 replies

I can't believe my profile pic was censored!

2006-03-18T09:38:38Z

Ridiculous. So, Tribe wants to pretend that we're all just one big happy family by enforcing a "no satire" zone? God, Tribe wants to be my dysfunctional parent. All the more reason why I haven't been hanging out here at all anymore.

Last night I was out with friends at a concert. The topic of Tribe came up. No one's using it anymore. I heard comments like, "I NEVER thought I would ever use MySpace, but Tribe is a ghost town now." Nice work, Tribe.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 7 replies

McClatchy to acquire Knight Ridder... what's it mean for Tribe.net?

2006-03-14T14:09:46Z

So Knight Ridder has new owners. I wonder what this means for the future of Tribe.net. Any thoughts?

http://finanzen.net/news/news_detail.asp?NewsNr=380232

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 7 replies

My thoughts & ideas on Tribe's new look

2006-03-14T09:18:53Z

It’s been a while since the new look dawned.
Here are my thoughts:
1.) The screen is still too bright.
2.) It is remarkably harder to see and navigate around tribe especially as it effects the tribes to which one does not belong. This has produced the following consequences:
(i) joining new tribes is more of a challenge
(ii) advertising new tribes has become a substantially greater challenge
(iii) Recruiting new members to tribes is substantially harder than before
(iv) It has become difficult over all to explore the tribe community.
3.) Posting a listing feels more constrained. The sense is that there is a lessened ability to post to the listings sections and have confidence that the listings will reach very far at all.
4.) The logo looks silly and is still red.

Suggestions:

1.) Darken the screen.
2.) Do something to make it easier to navigate tribe. The former approach wasn’t too bad at all by comparison. The New Tribes listing was quite nice.
3.) Create an intra listing option where a tribe specific can be promoted in a more robust way than can a listing advertising something for sale.
(i) currently the ability to have only the listings or posts etc displayed is nice. However, listings that specifically relate to Tribe events such as new tribes etc., tribe news, Tribe announcements etc., could be handled better.
(ii) Do something to assist the presentation of new tribes.
4.) Develop and publish a TOU on MLM marketing scams.
5.) Develop a better TOU process for handling complaints spam etc.,
6.) Fix the logo.

I posted a suggestion for boolean operators in the search protocol.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

i wonder what investors have thought of the dramatic decrease in tribe activity

2006-03-12T20:05:54Z

just a thought. i don't know how to find out what the actual decrease in site traffic is or what the investors have thought of the decrease in the site with the "new look" and 2257's impact, but it seems to me that no investor can be terribly pleased by the decrease in activity, can they?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 11 replies

Please make reporting abuse easier.

2006-03-11T13:19:57Z

If I want to report a thread to abuse@tribe.net, I should be able to do it without having to go to my own personal email account. I have a few emails, and one in particular I use for Tribe. I don't stay logged into it because I prefer to get my Tribe mail in my Tribe mailbox.

So, I should be able to also contact Tribe staff from within my Tribe mailbox somewhere. I can send my Tribe friends a message from within Tribe, but I can't contact abuse@tribe.net. And I searched for the member Abuse, hoping I could make them my friend, but alas, they don't exist.

Tribe staff is constantly asking us to let them know if we get pop ups, or encounter spam, or abusive behavior, but they give us no easy method of contacting them. I just don't understand why there are flags for offensive pictures, but the issue of reporting abusive (a.k.a. spam) threads goes unaddressed.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 20 replies

Don't like the new Tribe UI? Wanna help make one that Tribe would envy?

2006-03-10T18:59:31Z

Go here ( http://free-association.net/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&&func=view&id=2507&catid=15 ) to make your desire to volunteer for our ongoing development effort known. Let us know what your skill set is (e.g. would you be more of a "back end" or "front end" coder) in your post. We really need the volunteers and it's a great way to channel that passion against the abominable new Tribe UI.

Thank you for your interest!

-The Free-Association Steering Committee

PS: You would have to join http://free-association.net and our FA-Development Association to volunteer.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

I thought this feature was going to be implemented

2006-03-10T16:56:22Z

But it hasn't. And that's being able to view the folk who've clicked on our profiles.

Will it still? Or has the idea been scrapped?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 10 replies

I'm pulling my hair out on this one.

2006-03-10T00:21:38Z

There's tribes I requent, the navigation to bounce between tribes has got me at WITS end. What the heck happened to the navigation, why do I have to constantly click my tribe just to get to my homepage then my tribes to get a full list of my tribes, just to get back to a tribe I want to.

for the love of god and all that makes sense please fix this.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

The User Interface isn't getting any less obnoxious. Is there any hope?

2006-03-09T00:11:48Z

Weeks and thousands of negative feedback posts later, the UI STILL SUCKS. WHY OH WHY MUST TRIBE ADMINISTRATORS RUIN A GOOD THING? Are you trying to torture us?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 4 replies

the new interface STILL sucks

2006-03-08T02:59:41Z

here's why:

i used to see the listings for things i wanted to go to really easily. now it's hard to track down things.

it's still red. the red is still ugly.

the members link is the largest bubble, but realistically, most people are here for the tribes, especially now that tribe has fucked up events, listings, and made so many pages SO SLOW to load.

i'm feeling more and more that the more clicking and scrolling required really is so we have to look at alot more ads.

tons of people have left or are no longer using tribe, making the quality of the content much less valuable and the amount of participation in many of my tribes much much lower.

i went from having 85 public tribes to having 41 public tribes. they drove all those tribes into hiding that didn't feel the need to be before.

my homepage used to say which listings i had posted and which events i had posted. now neither appear on my homepage. i have to hunt around to find my listings and my events. i am no longer using tribe for these kinds of things. tribe has driven me to evite and yahoo. i'm sure your competitors thank you.

several of my friends have moved over to Friendster and MySpace, places i haven't really wanted to spend time. now i'm kinda forced to do so, since i want to reach my friends with bulletins about listings and events.

the members girl reminds me of pinoccio every time i see her nose. she either looks snobby or like a liar. neither makes me think positive things about the members. and they really do look alienating because they are facing away from each other. they remind me of siblings (especially cause with that ponytail and nose) who fight so much they're not allowed to face each other.

there are no new styles for the profiles.

you can't reach abuse or help from inside tribe (you would think if they were actually FIXING the UI that would be something they would fix).

these are just a few things. long load times are a really big issue for me. when a page takes a long time to load i click to another tab, and often just forget about tribe.

the mess on my homepage is sterile and i get so many repeats because people find the new way listings and stuff are shown to be useless for alerting people to things, so they need to get the word out with every option to be sure to be seen.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 4 replies

Viewing 'newest first' initial post doesn't wrap around the ad on the right, again.

2006-03-08T02:56:31Z

Same bug that first appeared with the last update. View newest first. The first post falls below the ad, instead of wrapping to the left side. Annoying.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 2 replies

blog comments alert not showing?

2006-03-04T20:36:54Z

I have noticed over the last couple of days that the blog comment alert does not appear to be working.

I have logged into my homepage and then gone to my blog to discover comments added. The alert never showed up. This seems to have happened since the last update.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 9 replies

Still Pissed about the TOU?

2006-03-03T23:53:07Z

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11644084/

Its cases like these that probably prompt places like tribe to do what they can to not fall victims to usages like these. As a startup that isn't solvent yet, tribe would probably go under from court costs alone if it happened here.

I for one don't blame them for being protectionist of what they have. First Amendment is one thing, law is one thing, people's outrage is another. You can still get dragged into court, just as myspace probably will be at some point over this type thing. Lawyers costs can kill, I'm sure.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

Tribe and MySpace

2006-03-01T19:55:01Z

Let's examine the similarities of Tribe and MySpace.

First of all:
http://tribes.tribe.net/newlook/thread/53927f95-9022-466a-92c6-e398ba328d4e

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 5 replies

when commenting pics in an album

2006-02-27T18:30:59Z

I don't know if this happens with everyone.... but with the feature where you comment on photos in a tribe album... well that part works... but after I've replied and then click on 'next' to see the following picture... the order goes backwards and I end up seeing the 'previous' pic instead of the 'next' pic (and visa versa)... If I exit and come back to it... it corrects itself... but I thought you might want to know about this bug....

Has anyone else had this happen?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 1 reply

Long posts scrolling underneath the headers

2006-02-27T04:38:32Z

How come long topic posts get scrolled underneath the headers? I read funny, usually going back to the top to check the first sentence after hitting the bottom of a post--this is driving me crazy. To get the first line back, I have to select the text and drag up to the first line... what's the deal? Doesn't happen with short posts or with posts after the original. (The highlighting does make reading easier on my eyes, though.)

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

Good things about Tribe.

2006-02-24T18:48:02Z

All and all, I liked the old system better. It was more functional, I could see all my tribes at once, and it required fewer clicks to get to where I was going. Luckily I have high speed, or else I would be getting so frustrated with the loading pages I would probibly leave and not come back.

One thing I am happy about (So far), is that you have laid off some of the high volume advertising. For a week or so, I remember every time I opened a page there would be a full video plus sound comercial that required alot of bandwith for some peoples computers, was ugly, and distracting. I am pleased that I am not seeing so much of that.

Now that I have your attention, can we loose those ulgy Icons, get a choice of skins for our tribes and homepages, and implement some of these changes you promised?

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 3 replies

page loads slow as snot??

2006-02-24T03:16:10Z

Ok - is it just me or are pages taking FOREVER to load now???

My home page takes about 15-30 second to show up fully. Same thing happens when I go into a tribe. I get all the header stuff but then it takes 10-20 seconds for the content to show up.

This is ridiculous. It's almost unusable.

I don't get why you keep making updates that just cause more problems and more dissatisfaction?? I seriously have to wonder about continuing to use Tribe if it's just going to get worse and uglier.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 12 replies

Congratulations! It finally broke

2006-02-23T17:23:37Z

Woah!! the latest manifistation after this morning's maintenance is fantastic! reply to this post buttons in the middle of the preceding post, user information not lining up with their posts. Maybe it's just my computer acting up, but now tribe is totally unuseable! WTG!

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 14 replies

SO... when will there be new UI changes Elliot???

2006-02-23T10:23:52Z

I'm really about to give up... I've been getting very little feedback from my posts- in which my community is usually VERY active... I've not been able to utilize tribe in the same way since the "upgrade".

I'm really about to give up on it all. I don't even really need to log in- and I'm only on tribe a FRACTION of the time I have been in the past. Surely the usage has gone down...

Where's that link that someone posted on usage??

xo

astrogirl

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 38 replies

Disappearing topics and posts and threads... bug or new functionality?

2006-02-22T23:11:59Z

Is this something you're working on? I keep having to close my browser and come back in order to get topics or posts to show up.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 8 replies

new format stops people seeing listings and events

2006-02-22T20:08:38Z

i'm finding over and over that the new format has really decreased the number of people who look at my listings. by being on a separate tab way fewer people are seeing them. the way you had it layed out with listings in the column to the right of the topic text people actually saw the listing and clicked on it. and it was unobtrusive for those who were uninterested. the usefulness of tribe to me as an organizer of events has gone down substantially, whether or not people like the "look" of the "new look". the fuctionality has gone way down too.

just like craigslist isn't the best place to list yer listings, tribe has become that way too.

really sucks alot.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 7 replies

system maintenance tomorrow?

2006-02-22T00:59:33Z

What's this system maintenance for? I hope it addresses at least one of the things wrong with the new UI.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 2 replies

SOLUTION

2006-02-21T23:50:05Z

I just wear sunglasses when I Tribe now....bingo ...!! No more headaches...no more squinty eyes from lousy design... I swear, if they had done this design for my graphics class it would have been torn apart! I mean i thought it would grow on me and I would get used to it with time...but it just sucks all over....really...!

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 9 replies

Mark as read!!!!! Please.

2006-02-21T13:41:15Z

I would love to be able to select mutable tribes at one time and set them as read with out opening any of them. Many of the about (tribe) tribes have so many postings in such a short period of time. I will never read them all so I want to skip them and have them marked as read. Then when I have the time I can go back and view them later.

I would like to pick the order of the tribe, not just sort them

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 5 replies

When is Tribe fixing the WHITE screen ???

2006-02-20T09:05:26Z

It's still brilliant and not in a good way.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 18 replies

Interesting take on monetizing VC-backed social networking sites

2006-02-20T05:18:36Z

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/17/technology/tech_targets/index.htm?cnn=yes

------
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Technology mergers and acquisitions jumped in a big way last year, and that boom is expected to continue in 2006.

Two sub-sectors will prove to be particularly hot targets: software and Internet companies. So-called "Web 2.0" destinations, or sites that allow users to interact with each other and generate their own content, will look especially good to buyers, as will specialized e-commerce sites, experts say.
...
...
Social networking companies such as Linked In and Plaxo -- which help manage huge networks of people and allow users to keep their contacts current -- fit the bill, according to Brian Skiba, managing director at Arma Partners, an investment banking firm that focuses on technology companies. So do social communities such as video sharing Web site YouTube, which counts venture capital firm Sequoia Capital as an investor, as does Linked In.

"Historically, VCs would fund a company and exit within a five to eight-year window, and try to IPO a company like that," said Skiba. "I don't know whether there is an appetite today for an IPO of an Internet company other than Google, so literally every venture-backed company is for sale."

Rikk Carey, executive VP of engineering for Plaxo, insisted his company isn't for sale, despite the chatter. (Linked In did not return a call for comment by press time.)

"We don't think about getting acquired, we think about building our user base and going public," said Carey. "VC investors are not the guys who look to build small companies and flip them."

YouTube spokeswoman Julie Supan said the company can't comment on speculation, but she noted that its founders were early employees of PayPal -- which was eventually acquired by eBay.

"If you look at PayPal, that's a good indicator of their mind set," said Zupan, who noted that YouTube went from streaming three million videos per day in December to 20 million a day now. "The reality is we are building a long-term, viable company."
------

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

my letter with feedback

2006-02-19T19:42:36Z

I sent this into the feedback department but I thought I should post it here too.

Dear Tribe.net,

I have been a fan of Tribe.net since shortly after it started. I have always found it to be a refreshing break from places like friendster and myspace (which I left behind after a few short weeks on Tribe). So I started a few Tribes, the largest of which is my Asian Cinema Tribe and it has been a great way to exchange knowledge and have fun. I liked the first few interfaces and overall my Tribe.net experience was pleasing. I was even planning on running an advertisement on Tribe for my bay area based company, miniDOCS.net .

But now with the most recent style and format change I am reconsidering the ad and even my membership here. It’s not just a minor problem with a few things, it’s the whole new layout that makes my head hurt every time I login. I’m by far not the only one and many people I knew on Tribe have already left or just don’t post there much anymore.

I really don’t want to go but something's got to give. Why isn’t anyone doing something about the format? Surely you have received many complaints and noticed a drop in usage.

The specific problems I have are..

1. The difficulty of getting to and from all of the Tribes on my list. Not only do I have to click just to get to the full list but when I want to go back to the full list I have to click on the very upper part of the Tribe logo and then click on the view all button again. That is unless I hit the back button and then Tribe forgets what posts I have read or not.

2. Having to hit the upper part of the tribe logo to go home and accidentally hitting the area button from time to time is a pain.

3. The “My Tribe” is a turn off (it’s not myspace so lets not copy or confuse), just Tribe.net is better and remind people of the home address.

4. The colors are terrible, it’s hard to visually break things up and it just isn’t ascetically pleasing anymore.

The list goes on but those are the major concerns of me and most I have spoken with. I urge you to make some changes or change back to the last style before permanent damage is done and Tribe fades into obscurity.

Thank you for your time and service.

-Christopher Odell
Founder of miniDOCS.net and FractalVideo.com

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 15 replies

funniest google generated ad on new tribe

2006-02-19T15:33:42Z

so...

i'm on the healthy food for lazy people tribe

and the ad to the right of the newest post is:

"tripe processing"

how funny is that!!!!!!!!

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 2 replies

Please bring back Tribe's sidewalk traffic

2006-02-17T21:30:29Z

On nice weekend afternoons, I often sit in our front garden reading a book or sipping a good scotch and just enjoyng the sun, and watching the occasional, or occasionally busy, passerby traffic up the sidewalk. I notice the families, the occasional grandparent --perhaps?-- out for a walk with kids, neighbors from around the corner walking their dog, patients and visitors from the hospital around the corner, the old ladies up the corner out for a aily ramble, and dozens of people who have no purpose that I know, but catch my attention with their clothing, their fragments of overheard conversation, just their look and humanity as they walk by. I look up and nod, sometimes smile, sometimes say hi, sometimes just see them from the corner of my eye and make no overt acknowledgment. Most of them, I will never know any more about them than what I see as they walk by. But every once in a while, I find myself in a conversation with one of them, and l find a neighbor, or learn something I otherwise would not have known. And their presense makes the street human, it turns our block into a neighborhood. .

The old tribe interface had a lot of sidewalk traffic. The seeming-random rotation of listings on the front page, the frequent appearence of who-knows-who how-are-you-connected displays, the easy ability to stumble onto the ramblings of some unexpected person. Logging into tribe was like sitting out in the garden; I never knew who I was going to see passing by, or what I was going to learn about. Was I ever going to respond to 99% of those random listings? Nope. Was I going to contact most of the random people I stumbled over? 'Course not. Was my life made just a tiny bit richer by knowing that someone in the area thought something was important enough to list, by knowing that events I never knew about were happening even if I wasn't interested in going, by seeing fleetingly interesting fragments of peoples lives? Hell yes. It was a large part of what I looked forward to, every time I logged into Tribe.

A lot of people have complained about how lifeless the new Tribe interface seems. Some of it IS the design, the sterility of all the white space, the grating red color, the inane logos. But much more fundamental, IMO, is that Tribe has removed all the sidewalk traffic. We no longer have the chance of some random and serendipitous bit of silly, useless, interesting, disgusting, humorous, amazing, unexpected piece of information from and about one of our neighbors, catching our attention for just a moment as it passes by. And the lack of sidewalk traffic has stripped the **community** feel from Tribe, just like tearing out the sidewalks would do to my neighborhood.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 43 replies

Was it always this hard to create a new tribe?

2006-02-17T16:08:11Z

You guys must really not want us to create new tribes. Here's how it SHOULD work.

I'm in a thread, and we decide we have a new Tribe opportunity. I should be able to create a tribe and paste the link in the thread and say 'hey everyone... join this tribe!'. Simple, right?

But no, it doesn't appear to work that way. Here's what it seems I have to do.

I'm in a thread. We have a great new Tribe opportunity. I go to Tribes and 'create a new tribe'. In order for anyone to see the tribe, I have to invite 3 friends. But I'm already in the process of creating the tribe, so I don't want to hit my back button. So, I now need to open a new window with another tribe session and go back to the thread to see if any of the posters in that thread are my friends. Oops, darn. I don't have 3, only 2. So I can either 1) invite one of the posters to be my friend - and wait for them to accept - and then invite them to join the new tribe or 2) invite another friend who may not be interested in the new tribe and send them a seperate note asking to please accept it just so the tribe can go live. Now, I can go back and paste my link in the thread.

Note: I realize I can also invite people not already members of tribe, but I don't do that anymore.

Why does it have to be such a pain in the ass? If there is an easier way, the 'intuitive' interface sure doesn't make it very clear. So, it seems you don't want people creating new tribes. Got the message.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 9 replies

Another minor but annoying bug

2006-02-15T17:55:43Z

The first message in a topic does not show the "new" "date" or "in reponse to" fields.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 0 replies

The spam is really pissing me off! Where is my flag button for topics, huh?

2006-02-15T16:48:59Z

What's with the spam in topics and how do we stop it? Where's MY flag button? It's the same MO... new user, no friends, irrelevant post... either promoting something totally not related to the tribe, repeat posts, looking to hook up from overseas, or tryin to make a buck.

Elliot and Wade and friends... are you even aware these posts are on the rise? Is this the new market you're after? We're thrilled to have new people on board, but please, help us help you would ya? Give us a flag button for threads already and don't make the moderators have to do all your dirty work.

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 5 replies

Get OVER it!!!

2006-02-15T06:14:24Z

If you REALLY care about what's happening here, join the tribe I and others joined a week or more ago! C'mon, you're mostlyt just whiners--admit it AND get over it!

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 29 replies

using less??? why?

2006-02-15T01:53:42Z

anyone else using tribe less??? I'm down to like 10% of my normal daily usage... I'm hardly getting any action from my friends.i

It's just so static. I use to enjoy seeing my friends listings and blogs. Now I log on and see all this static info... why would I want to see a list of my tribes at the top- and then my 8 friends?? What's the reasoning here?? It's just not interesting anymore. It seems that the way I use to use it no longer exists. I don't even know if it can be fixed. If it takes to long to get the ui up to speed- a lot of the fabulous lovelies will have left...

posted in January 2006 Release (New Look) - 30 replies