Due to some feedback, we’ve made some changes to karma point allocation. Your current karma score won’t go up or down from these changes, but how many points you earn for specific behavior (voting, submitting, etc.) has been tweaked. 

As we try to better the Mixx experience, we will be making small alterations and enhancements to features such as the karma points. We’ll always announce our upgrades here in the blog.

Remember, we make the changes with YOU in mind, so please keep the feedback (feedback@mixx.com) coming. 

In Hollywood being too popular might mean having your sartorial mishaps and/or omissions picked apart and ridiculed for all the world to see. On Mixx it often means email overload, you know, since you’re collecting Followers like an old lady collects cats. It’s good to be popular. But when overly enthusiastic Friends start filling your mailbox with too many cool links to handle in one day, what’s a poor Mixxer to do?

If this sounds like you, you’ll be happy to know that we’re working on a “digest” version of emails, a once-a-day delivery for all of the links your Friends send, and for all Follower announcements. Keep checking back; we’ll announce it here when it’s ready to go.

In the meantime, you do have a couple of options to control the amount of email from other Mixxers:

• Decline to have any links shared with you from Mixx. If someone knows your email address, they can still share with you, but they can’t share directly via your MixxID. To set this up, go to Your Account, select Account Settings and look for the “Allow other users to share Mixx items with me” switch. Turn it off and click “Submit.”
• Turn off individual alerts, like notifications when someone Friends you or when you win an award. Just go to Your Account, Account Settings and scroll down for these switches.
• If it’s just one friend that keeps cluttering the inbox, you can take the drastic step of blocking them. Just go to your profile, and select “View All” on your Followers to see the icons of everyone who is Following you. Next to each icon, you’ll see a little “x.” Click on this to break the connection; they won’t be able to share links with you, or invite you to a group or call you a Friend anymore. If you block someone and then start to feel horribly guilty for doing it, it’s easy to become friends again. Just go to their profile and Follow them again—no need for apologies, flowers or groveling. We think.

So while we can only imagine how tough this level of popularity must be, we hope this will make it easier to manage. Now, before we go: May we have an autograph?

Late Friday afternoon, Alex and Jason rolled out a new look and feel for the Mixx Blog. What do you think?

Like that new pair of jeans you just picked up, we’re still breaking the new design in, so if you see any weirdness, let us know!

In the last week, we’ve been fielding a lot of questions in our Feedback mailbox about what happens when someone votes down a story, and when someone does something bad. We thought we’d address the answers to everyone, not just those intrepid enough to click “feedback.”

First, when a user votes a story down, the vote count moves down by one. That’s it. Nothing more. You can see if someone recently voted a story down in the “recent voters” area.

Second, we’d like to introduce you to our little friend the ‘Report this’ button. He’s a little guy you may have seen hanging out on the details page, below comments and on user profiles. He may seem like he’s a tattle-tale, only there to get you and your friends in trouble, but we assure you, he’s not.

‘Report this’ can (and should) be used to report things you find broken or offensive, but this guy is multi-talented and can be put to use in other ways as well. Submit something you regret? ‘Report this’ and ask us to take it down. Double post a comment? ‘Report this’ and we can remove your accidental seconds. Typo on your fantastic zinger? ‘Report this’ totally has your back. All you gotta do is click on him, give him a few details and he’ll get your request taken care of as soon as possible.

The moral of this blog post is, don’t be scared of the Mixx ‘Report this’ button. He really just wants to be there for you, as any friend should.

Dear Mixxers,

Before anything else, I want to say THANK YOU for being part of the Mixx and getting your friends, family and colleagues in the Mixx, too! You guys are awesome.

Mixx is officially one month old and we are stunned at how fast the site has grown, and by the amount of activity. The passion and energy you bring to the Mixx is downright inspirational.

Here’s what we’ve seen over the past month:

• More than 80% of users have set up YourMixx pages to keep up with the topics that matter to them.
• More than 10K tags have been entered into the system and people are actively participating in user-driven communities.
• The average YourMixx page contains more than 10 tags and categories–meaning you are liking the personalization aspect of Mixx.
• Private groups are springing up by the dozens, enabling people to share content with like-minded Mixxers. And we’ve heard that private Mixx groups have been helpful not only in personal circles but in professional circles, as well.
• A few of our most active Mixxers have set up a user-forum, which you’ll find at http://www.mixxingbowl.com/forums.

As ever, there’s been no shortage of great feedback on what you like and what you don’t like, along with plenty of ways to make a better Mixx. We know that we have a long way to go, so please, keep it coming!

What’s Next?
We’re working to improve the Groups functionality so that group administrators can choose to make content publicly viewable with various privacy controls. This will give the administrator the option of allowing non-group members to see what’s being Mixxed, but still control who can join the group.

A few other things you can look forward to include:

• A way to search for specific Mixxers
• Facebook application
• Mobile Mixx version (yes, an iPhone version, too!)
• An UltraLounge for you Karma-collecting fiends
• Customizable Mixx buttons
• Avatar improvements
• More UI improvements

Call For Volunteers
We think the new Private/Public group functionality will be a huge benefit to cause-oriented groups, so we’re looking for a few guinea pigs to help test our system. If you’re part of a cause-based group and want to sign up, drop us an email at feedback@mixx.com.

A Special Recognition
I’d like to call out some of our most active Mixxers. They know who they are, but I want everyone else to know them, too. In no particular order, they are: Bdog2g2, LizBlaze, TunisianGuy, FatLester, cGt2099 (the infamous Greg Davies), StandardsDT DiffeeOnline, Webaddict, Chris789, ivomortani, Edith01 and RoyalT. You can check out their profiles or just go to the MixxLounge; most of them seem to have taken up residence there!

Thank you to ALL Mixxers and I’ll see you in the Mixx!

Chris McGill
Founder, Mixx