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Google adds commenting capabilities to shared albums in Photos
Google is rolling out two new features for its Photos service: the ability to comment on shared images and albums, and a tool that suggests photos to add to specific albums. The commenting ability allows users to leave messages on albums and pictures that have been shared with them -- without leaving the app. Google Photos isn't a social networking service on its own, but the new functionality takes cues from sites like Facebook that allow commenting on images.
Google adds chat-like commenting to Sheets and Slides on your phone
Over the last year or so, Google has put a focus on making the phone and tablet versions of its productivity suite up to par with the web versions. The latest new feature Google's rolling out around that mission is a revamped commenting experience in Docs, Sheets and Slides for Android and iOS. For starters, Google is adding mobile commenting to the latter two apps -- it launched in Docs last year, but was absent from Sheets and Slides until today.
Hightail's new Spaces make it easy to annotate any kind of file
Remember YouSendIt? Late in the last decade, you probably send or received some big files through the service, perhaps of questionable legality. Regardless of how pirates may have used it, the company found success with businesses -- but as online storage became more and more of a commodity, the company rebranded as Hightail and started focusing on collaboration around those shared files. Today, the company is officially unveiling its new vision for collaborating on work projects, called Spaces. It's been available in Beta, but now everyone can give it a shot.
Ask Massively: Nick Burns edition
Today's Ask Massively letters come from David and Abionie, both of whom wrote us over the summer with comments about, well, our comments. This first one's from David: I'm probably not the only one who is generally displeased with the state of trolls on the internet today. You know them: doomsayers, hatespreaders, the "HAHA company X is failing, finally!" types, the kind of people for whom the hatred of a video game or company has become more addictive than playing the game that company made. Unfortunately, the internet gives soapboxes to people who probably don't have much of a relationship with soap. I would like to see more moderation towards keeping an articles comments on the topic of the article. It's becoming tiring to open up an article talking about something I am interested in, only to fear scrolling down too far and inadvertently opening up the comments to see "FAIL GAME IS FAIL COPYING X GAME IS LAZY" and the many hundreds of comments like that. We hear you, David, and not just about the soap. But also that.
YouTube teams up with Google+ to turn comments into conversations
Comments on the internet: often a haven for trolls and axe-grinders, but comment threads also give rise to some insightful and entertaining commentary. In an effort to encourage the latter and to provide users with an improved experience, YouTube's rolling out a new commenting system that integrates deeply with Google+. What does that mean, exactly? Much like that other social network's News Feed, comments in YouTube will be based on relevance, not how recently they were posted. So, comments from people you know, celebrities and video creators, plus positively rated comments will percolate to the top of comment threads according to Big G's ranking algorithms. Additionally, replies will be nested beneath original comments to better enable conversations. Like Facebook, should you find the idea of automated comment curation unsettling, you can always switch back to the old way of having the most recent comments show up first. The integration with Google+ also broadens your commenting boundaries; post a comment on YouTube, then share that video on on G+ and comments and replies made on either site will show up in both places. You can also control who gets to read comments you make by choosing which circles will see them, so you can even have private conversations. As for content owners, the system borrows features from many other commenting platforms. To deal with comments at scale, channel admins can build user whitelists and blacklisted words and phrases to make moderation easy. YouTube Product Manager Nundu Janakiram tells us that the comments system has been in the works for over a year, and that these features are only the beginning. His team plans to provide even better tools for users and content creators to let them filter out the noise and increase the quality of comments. Initially, folks will be able to test out the new comments in the discussion tab on any YouTube channel's home page, after which it'll roll out to individual videos in the coming months -- and we'd be shocked if these G+ enabled comments don't make their way into many other Google properties eventually, too.
The Soapbox: Community or comments
If there's one thing gamers love doing, it's insult games they don't play. Any news item, editorial, hands-on, review, or general pile of text dedicated to a few key games -- normally those with high profiles -- receives an instant and visceral response from a collection of commenters who seem to exist only to insult a particular game and berate its fans. Much of the time, these commenters have no actual experience with the game in question. Here on Massively, EVE Online and World of Warcraft seem to be the biggest magnets for such tomfoolery. Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic attract these behaviors as well, and WildStar is well on its way to becoming the next troll-favorite comment piñata. There's nothing wrong with not liking a game, of course. And a little conflict is good; why allow comments if everyone's going to have the same opinion? There's just one problem: If your opinion of a game is based on preconceived notions and not actual experience, that opinion is adding nothing to the dialogue. In short, you are trolling.
Ask Massively: Everything in moderation
Happy Fourth of July, Americans, and happy new columnist day to Massively! Yes, it's official: Anatoli Ingram will be joining the Massively staff this month as our new Guild Wars 2 columnist. Those of you who dwell in the land of comments and trolls might recognize him from his erudite posts as Ring Bonefield. We're thrilled to have him on board to lend a pen and a critical eye to such a popular game, and we were equally thrilled at the impressive pool of applicants. Thank you all for applying! Speaking of commenters, we have comments on the brain today in Ask Massively. Let's review how -- or more specifically, when -- we moderate the comment section.
Ask Massively: No one loves blog comment systems
Welcome back to Ask Massively! Today, let's beat our heads against some totally valid emails relating to Massively's adorable comment system, which we lovingly call "Hey, Livefyre is down again!" Chris wrote, "Is there some way to create an ignore list? I'm irritated by a few people in certain articles who try to make the comments entirely about themselves. I primarily read this site at work, and the work network is garbage, which means that the browser freezes up when I try to load more comments. Is there some way to filter out certain users' posts?" This is a good idea!
Facebook Replies offers threaded commenting for businesses and popular profiles
Starting today, Facebook is launching a new threaded Replies commenting system for users with more than 10,000 followers as well as Pages linked to brands and businesses. By placing the most "liked" conversation logs at the top of its related post, the social network hopes this new addition will improve interactions between groups and their readers. Qualified profiles should be able to opt-in to the feature today, but the company advises that it will be activated for all Pages and profiles with more than 10,000 followers on July 10th. As of now Replies is only supported on the site's desktop version, but Facebook plans to add this feature to its Graph API and mobile applications. While it's great to see the popular social network finally pulling its commenting system out of the Dark Ages, we can only imagine the flame wars that will ensue between followers. Moderators, start your engines.
Massively's comment system gets an upgrade: Yes, you can has edit button [Updated]
As several of you have noticed, the Joystiq network's tech team has just pushed through the latest version of the Livefyre comments system. The update comes with a comment edit option with a timeout, meaning that yes, you can finally edit your posts (if you're quick -- it's apparently six minutes). Woot! The new features also include formatting tools like bullet points, bolding, italics, and embeds for links, images, and videos. There's also a little floaty widget to help you stay on top of the busiest threads. We're still digging through the update and chronicling the cool stuff and the bugs ourselves. Let us know what you like and don't like so we can pass it on to the tech guys and gals! [Update 12/21/2012: Readers have alerted us to the fact that the comment system is not functioning for users of older versions of Internet Explorer -- specifically, 8 and 9. Chrome and Firefox appear to be working well. Upgrade to IE 10 if you can! Tech is aware of the problem and investigating a fix, but we have no ETA.]
Welcome to the new Engadget commenting system, Livefyre
Greetings readers and commenters. We here at Engadget are always working hard to provide you with the best reading experience we possibly can. To do this, we're making a clean break from our old commenting system -- starting anew in the interests of elevating the discourse that occurs in our comments. Yes, we know that change can be inconvenient at best and scary at worst, but fear not, dear readers, for Livefyre is here to improve your Engadget commenting experience. All you have to do is create a Livefyre account or login using your existing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or OpenID credentials. And before you ask, no, your Disqus account cannot be ported to the new system. Everyone needs a fresh start sometimes, okay? This is one of those times. Eager to learn more? Want to help make our comments better? The answers you seek are after the break.
The Daily Grind: Do you buy in to the MMO hype and hate cycle?
If you listened only to the more heated debates in Massively's comments and around the blogosphere, it'd be easy to get lost amid polarizing hyperbole and scathing vitriol about MMOs and the drama enveloping them. The way some people tell it, a game like Guild Wars 2 is either the second coming or a complete failure even before it's launched. World of Warcraft is tanking with "only" nine million subscriptions. Star Wars: The Old Republic's path to free-to-play is the last gasp of a dying game, never mind that it surpassed expectations for profitability long ago. It's a challenge indeed to find a nuanced middle ground and understand how real players (not just vocal commenters) perceive the games. So does a game have to be the best or worst ever to be worthy of discussion? Can't a game just be decent or good enough? How do you avoid being swept away by the latest MMO storm surge of hype and hate? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Ask Massively: Bribes are just particularly motivated gifts edition
Once again, World of Warcraft has made itself the forefront of the gaming blogosphere by unrepentantly bribing tanks to run more dungeons. It does seem kind of inevitable that you'd have a shortage of one role when it can only be filled by four specs out of 30, truth be told. So is this a good move? A bad one? A good idea with poor execution? It's not for me to say. This column isn't The Soapbox; that runs on Tuesdays. But it's Thursday, which means that it's time for another edition of Ask Massively, featuring a grand total of zero questions about bribery. Instead, we're fielding questions about years of content and console versions, which should be a fun ride. As always, you can leave questions for the next edition in the comment field or mail them along to ask@massively.com. (I guess you could see having your question put into a column as a sort of bribery.)
Ask Massively: The face of hatred edition
Wii Fit Plus is the devil. It is a devil that I fight with on a daily basis, and I fight it by running for a long stretch at a time, and yet for some paradoxical reason I have never defeated it. The only reason there are no screaming obscenities in this opening paragraph is that I'm not allowed to dip into blatant cursing. Also, I've dropped about 20 pounds over the past four months, so I can't say that it's not having an effect. But seriously, balance board, no one cares if my center of balance is 0.1% to the right. Shut up. This week's Ask Massively is a fairly meta edition of the column, as our questions concern the other major face of hatred on display: the comment system. We're also fielding questions about the plethora of online games that aren't quite MMOs but aren't quite anything else either. As always, you can leave your questions in the comment field or mail them to ask@massively.com.
Letter from the Editor: Of contests, comments and columnists
Hello. Your friendly neighborhood editor-in-chief here to fill you in on what is happening on various parts of WoW Insider. We get a lot of emails on our tip line, and often they are asking the same question: Where's Mankrik's wife? No, I kid. Kind of. Instead of spam answering those emails every day or cluttering up The Queue, I thought I'd clear up a few things by using the magic of posting on the site. Contests Notification emails to the 12 Days of Winter Veil winners are still going out, and if we don't hear back, we have to pick new ones and start the process over again. With over 100 prizes given away last month, it's taking some time. We will be posting the names of the winners when all those winners have been confirmed. Commenting and profile system We have have received quite a few complaints about readers not being able to comment or change their profile password, etc. Unfortunately, the current commenting system has some well-known, long-standing bugs. The good news is that we will be migrating to an entirely new commenting system soon and that will solve many of those problems. Your current profile information will be transferred over into the new system. We will post new information when we get closer to that transition.
Update to the Massively makeover
Hello, readers! It's been a few weeks since our massive Massively site overhaul landed, and our web gurus have been scurrying in the background fixing bugs and responding to your reports. Not all of the bugs have been vaporized just yet, but we'd like to update you on the status of some of the problems that most affect you. RSS -- Our most-reported problem over the last few weeks revolved around our RSS feeds. Many users reported a doubling-up of posts as the site spewed out two copies of every post. Others reported an inability to subscribe to specific categories and bloggers, and still others were finding that every RSS feed was producing copies of the podcast (great news for podcast fans, I guess!). Our techs currently report that all of our RSS feeds should be functioning now, but they note that many RSS readers do not well tolerate the kind of switcheroo we had to do. If you're still having problems, unsubscribe again from all of your Massively feeds and try resubbing one more time. I can tell you that I am using Google Reader and stopped having problems a few days ago. If you need to resub to specific feeds, this will help: for the writers, visit the individual pages on our team portal; for columns and features, hop over to our columns list; and for specific games, click on your chosen game in the games list for a category with a feed button. There's more behind the cut... follow along!
The new Massively.com Code of Conduct
Well hey there readers! Today I come to you with a brief but important announcement -- we have a new code of conduct! What does that mean for you? Well, in short, we want to take care of our comment section a little more closely than we have in the past. You're going to see us more frequently in the comments, discussing the news with you guys, and you're also going to see us moderating the comment section from time to time. What does this not mean for you? Well, we're certainly not going to squelch your opinions. We're doing this to make our comments section a great place to discuss games, news, and MMOs at large, no matter your opinion. We just want to put a few ground rules into place, and let you all know what is and what is not acceptable to write down in our comments section. For most of you, you're already abiding by the new code of conduct, so don't go worrying yourself. However, we certainly invite you all to go check out the new home of the Code of Conduct and familiarize yourself with the five basic rules of commenting. Plus, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns about any of this, you can always contact me personally at seraphina AT massively DOT com. So no worries! Comment away, dear readers! We can't wait to see what opinions you have to share with us!
Enter to win a Creative WoW headset of your own
Yes, it's time once again to award one of you with the soon-to-be coolest gaming headset around just for performing the not-so-arduous task of... leaving a comment on this post. Commenting on a blog probably isn't your job (though most of you probably do it at your job -- no comment about that), but it could score you some nice swag anyway today, in the form of the beautiful Creative World of Warcraft wireless gaming headset. As usual, the contest is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), and everyone who enters must be 13 or older. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Wednesday, November 11th, at midnight eastern, and please be sure to use a real email that you check often to enter, so we can contact the winners when we choose them. One winner will be chosen. You may enter only once, and each winner will get a Creative World of Warcraft Wireless Gaming Headset, with a retail value of $150. Please note: winners will not receive the headset until it is released later this year. Click here to read the official contest rules. Good luck as always! And don't forget, whatever you do, to stay tuned, as next week we'll be giving away yet another headset. So even if you don't win this week, you've still got a few chances left.
How to comment on WoW Insider
A lot of readers have been asking lately about the new commenting system, and so here's a short guide to setting yourself up in our comments section here on WoW Insider.Our new comments section will not only remember all of your personal information, but they'll also let you use an avatar of your choosing, and even reply to and moderate others' comments. First things first, you've got to get set up with a password. To get one, you simply leave a comment as a new user, putting your name and email in the comments form (under "New Users" below). Then, you'll get sent a message to that email address, with a password (usually random letters and numbers) to sign back in. Come back to the site, and now leave another comment with your email, and the new password (under the "Current Users" title in the comments section), and you're good to go.The next thing you'll want to do is set up your profile, and you can do that by clicking on your name in the comment that you posted.Update: Hopefully this is working for everybody. Lots of people are asking why we do it this way, and I've got a short answer and a long answer. Short answer is "because this is how Blogsmith does it, and we're run with Blogsmith." Longer answer is that the system was designed, I believe, to be quick and easy-- enter your info as a new user, and you get your password and account set up for you. Enter your info as a "current user," and you never have to click another email again. We are listening to your feedback, so if you have ideas, we're all ears (and of course whatever we come up with has to be implemented by our coders, so thanks for being patient). But for now, this is how it works, and hopefully everyone has their situation figured out. Thanks again for reading!
Review: iWeb's enhancements are exactly what it needed
In the most recent iLife '06 software update that Damien mentioned, iWeb understandably received the largest bump of new features and bug fixes; after all, it is the latest to arrive at the iLife party. Considering that I've been pretty vocal about my gripes with this otherwise fantastic addition to both iLife and .Mac, you can imagine my enthusiasm for Software Update to work its magic asap.After tinkering with the new features in iWeb 1.1 like blog comments and drop-dead simple photo album page creation, I thought I'd post a quick review of what's new, as I think iWeb is finally starting to fit into its role of a strong, WYSIWYG 1.0 application from Apple.
