The MakeFive Blog

Doesn’t it suck to find out that someone’s been talking to you, and you didn’t even get the message? Well, that happens a lot on MakeFive, but I’m happy to say that a fix is on its way!

In the next couple of days, Topic Notification will come online. This means that when a topic you have created or commented on receives additional comments, the system will let you know. Not only is it a great way for you to track the success of your contribution, it also encourages dialog pertaining to topics you’re interested in!

Of course, the issue here is that we don’t want these notifications to become a burden. As such, if you ever want to stop receiving them, just click the link in the email you receive to modify the frequency of your notifications.

Do you like the idea of notifications? Please comment below.

October was a solid month on MakeFive. Lots of interesting topics and a few new members have become really active on the site. I think we can safely say that the site is starting to “connect”, and a few of you seem outright addicted! (It’s okay though… we like to see you online for hours at a time!)

So as for points, here’s how the “What do you know?” contest wrapped up…

1. webdesign (16,081 points)
2. aaronmalys (13,023 points)
3. mdudlik (10,570 points)
4. BnafetS (7,205 points)
5. DoeFromTO (6,371 points) (more…)

We get a little “evil” at MakeFive for this… an edition of MakeFive TV darker than Vincent Price’s skiffies. Sit back, relax, and pour yourself some fresh gruel. We’ll serve-up the top five costumes, pumpkin carvings, and horror films, all in the spirit of the season. And all of it comes with the cheese sandwich that the MakeFive crew is famous for. Boua-ha ha ha ha! Boua-ha ha ha ha!

Just a general “FYI” to the MakeFive Community: we do know that points are problematic. To be frank with you, it’s just a harder thing to remedy than it may appear from the outside. Additionally, we’re really concentrating on notifications/video, and as such points won’t be addressed for a little while yet.

As noted in the blog post earlier this month, we’ve known that there are problems with the point system, and I suppose that today’s dialogue confirms this. As a result, we’re doing a bit of a “system over-ride”. This month the top-five winners in the contest will all receive the coveted MakeFive t-shirts; however, we’re mixing things up this time, by giving the iPod to the person who creates the most interesting topic this month. (more…)

As some of you already know, we’ve become rather vigilant in monitoring MakeFive and ensuring that the community keeps growing in a positive way. Yesterday we were alerted of a topic that had been flagged as questionable. After a brief review we deleted the topic and sent a warning to the member. I may have been a little abrupt in my warning, and as a result, took a little time out at the end of the day to explain why we had acted as we had. (more…)

One thing you learn very quickly about software development is that you add far more to lists than you tend to cross off, and generally at an ever increasing rate. Our list of fixes keeps growing, and as daunting as that can be at times, it’s also really exciting to see how we can continue to improve this experience for all of you.

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Item #1
I’m nosey–how about you?

I pull-up www.makefive.com first thing in the morning on my iPhone (and regularly throughout the day) just to catch-up on the dialogue that people are having. The Community Activity area on the homepage is where I tend to start my scanning, but I’m always frustrated when I hit the fifth page of items and reach a dead-end. Sometimes a lot has happened overnight, and I want to get a feel for all of it. As such, we’re adding the “More” link as you see above, that will lead you to several (long) pages of activity. (I’ll be able to snoop for hours, and so will you!) (more…)

As you may know by now, we’ve started our own little podcast for MakeFive, and it’s probably the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life. Scratch that–it is the most awesome thing you’ve ever seen in your whole life. Well, today we’re looking to you to make it even better… Perhaps even “legendary”.

MakeFive is about your contributions, and so is the show. As such, we want you to take part in it. Here’s how:

• Have a band? Send us some music and we might feature it in the show.
• Have a video of you doing something wild and crazy in the MakeFive t-shirt? Send it to us and we’ll try to get it into the show.
• Have a question about the site and service? Email it and we’ll answer it in “podcast-land”.

BTW - You can always contact us at: hello@makefive.com

Additionally, if you have ideas on things that we can do on the show, just let us know and we’ll do our best to get it in there. In our minds, the more fun the better, so get to it. It’s your show! :-)

Recently I posted about things that we’re working to improve on MakeFive. I’m not sure if you read it, but you certainly should have. It was riveting… Truly. I think that a lot of people called their friends and neighbors and told them all about it.

Okay, enough silliness… These are all really little odds and ends, but I think it’s sometimes hard to understand just how much goes into making sites like this work well. As such, I’ll continue to share this stuff. Please feel free to tell me if it’s too boring for words.  ;-) (more…)

I still remember the arrival of all of those parental advisory stickers on tapes and CDs in the eighties. (I was twelve or thirteen at the time.) Tipper Gore and her buddies at the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) took arms against music they wanted to shelter children from. In time, the whole thing turned out to be a rather unsuccessful effort to legislate morality and limit freedom of speech. Not so nice.

My own perspectives are relatively liberal. I don’t much care what anyone does, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else. This is largely the perspective that we’ve taken in developing the MakeFive community. In fact, we’ve had some rather lengthy debates around what content we should limit here. (more…)

A couple of weeks back, it struck me that a little podcast might be a nice way to better connect all of us. So, Eric Shelkie and I met down over a REALLY strong espresso at Caffè Artigiano and I frothed at the mouth about the idea. (I do this a lot.) Later that week, we coerced Devin into bringing in his video-camera, and we started to cobble something together.

And here it is: the first MakeFive.tv podcast. It’s not quite as good as “Entourage” or “My Name is Earl“, but we think it has the potential to be sort of fun. In it we’ll give you a behind-the-scenes look at what we’re working on; we’ll get out on the street and talk to people about their top fives; and, we’ll be featuring your topics and contributions. So, add interesting stuff! We’ll start featuring the best topics in upcoming editions.

We’ll try to upload something new every couple of weeks, and if you have ideas on what you’d like to see, or questions you’d like to answer on the show, please make note of them here. As with everything at MakeFive, it’s about your community. Bookmark this: www.makefive.tv

In addition feel free to download the podcast file for your iPhone or iPod.