Rolling Out to a Dashboard Near You!

We previously announced that we were beta testing a New and Improved Dashboard, which includes new quickpost features and feature improvements.

With options for quickposting text, photo, video, and links, the Dashboard update is rocking brand new ways for you to publish a variety of content to your blog.

As the new Dashboard continues to be rolled out to all, you'll be able to:

• use the improved "Find People to Follow" tool, which pulls in previously featured blogs;
• and experience better stability and presentation of the Recent Activity stream, where recent posts, comments, and favorites from those you follow will appear.

Eager to get started but don't have the new Dashboard yet? Kill some time by reviewing the Knowledge Base article about the Dashboard, and finding some new friends to follow on Featured Typepad, so that you're ready to jump in, fingers first, when it shows up in your account!

Comments

[Elaine]

Please remove the recent activity back to the right hand side of the screen. I do not want to scroll down to see my latest activity which I have to do now!

Thank you

[Dick]

Please remove the sample blogs from Dashboard. It's a functional space that should be clean and clear, enabling one to access all areas of the blog simply and directly.

[Max]

I hate it! You folks honestly believe that I'm going to keep paying you to clutter up my space with ads for irrelevant blogs? If this stays put, I'm migrating to another platform. In all probability, I'm not alone.

[Account Deleted]

I agree with Dick and Max. If we're paying for the service we should not be subjected to all the ads! Making better use of space is always the best policy!

[Account Deleted]

I used to use the "manage" feature on comments from the dashboard page to edit, delete or copy blog & email info. This feature seems to be missing from the new dashboard. If this is so, I'm not happy about that. If it's still there, how do you access it?

[Account Deleted]

I agree with Dick, Max and Karlyn. I'm not averse to change but the changes being made do not help me in any way. An example of SayMedia's misalignment with what I need resides with the clunky photo album structure which to my knowledge, has NEVER been changed. Why even offer it? I'm afraid after nearly ten years, TypePad no longer serves my needs. I'll be migrating to WordPress where I've managed my 2 other blogs for years, over summer break.

[Brook Andreoli]

I would prefer not to have advertised blogs in my space. I am very disappointed. When I got to write--I have clear thoughts--I don't appreciate being distracted by other blogs that have been chosen for me to read.

[nicki's central west end guide]

How do I remove this new feature!!! I find it very distracting. Don't have time to read blogs you think I may be interested in.

[Bri]

Hi Elaine!

The Recent Activity on the dashboard has been on the left side for quite a long time. Are you saying that it used to load on the right for you?

[Bri]

Hi Dick, thanks so much for reaching out to us.

There isn't a "sample blog" space on the blog. It contains the same information as the old dashboard, but now includes new posting options.

Are you referring to the promo spot that appears at the very bottom of the blogs list on the right? If so, that is an internal promotion of blogs we have featured, and is a way for all users to find new blogs to follow!

[Bri]

Hi Max! Could you let us know what you don't like about the dashboard? It's not that much different than the previous dashboard; it has a few new quickposting options, and a slightly different layout for the Recent Activity stream. If you can detail for us what it is you hate, that'd be more helpful than simply saying you hate it. :)

[Bri]

Karlyn, where are you seeing ads on the dashboard? The dashboard didn't change in layout at all, and the only content changes we made were to improve the "find people to follow" section and to the quickpost section. If you can tell us where you're seeing ads, that'll be helpful. :)

[Bri]

Hi Julie,

From what I can tell, the options to moderate comments directly from the dashboard is not currently available. We'll need to ask the rest of the Typepad team to find out if that was intentional or if it's a feature that will return in the future. In the meantime, you can still manage comments at Blog > Comments!

[Bri]

Hi Cyn! We're aware that the Photo Albums feature needs improvement and we've got it on our list of things to discuss in the near future.

In the meantime, the recent changes may not be of use to you now, but that doesn't they won't be in the future. You may also want to take into account that we have new features that we're working on that could be of great use to you! We've got a lot of things in the works, so we hope you'll stick around to try them out as they become available. :)

[Bri]

Brook, are you referring to the promo spot of featured blogs at the very bottom of the blog list and on the compose page? That is a spot where blogs we have featured can be shared with the entire Typepad community. If, for example, your blog were to be featured (you can submit it for consideration at http://featured.typepad.com/suggest.html), then your blog would appear there as well! It's not advertising, just another way to help the Typepad community come closer together and find new blogs/friends to follow.

[Bri]

Hi Nicki! Are you referring to the promo spot on the dashboard or the dashboard itself? Neither can be removed at this time. You can simply choose to ignore the promo spot of a recently featured blog. You don't have to read the blog that appears in the promo spot, but it's a great way to join the Typepad community, find new blogs and/or friends!

[Max]

Sure, Briana -

You folks posted ads for absolutely irrelevant blogs above the recent comments. Fact: I pay you, you don't pay me. Fact: I can find blogs of interest without your push. Fact: as Elaine mentioned, the format forced us to scroll past the garbage to get to what we need - which is the recent activity for our blogs.

As Dick mentioned, you stuffed sample blogs ahead of our information. Subsequently, you moved the samples below our recent activity data, but it's condescending for you folks to now write back and pretend that nothing had changed except for "improvements". I told you what I hated: cluttering up my space with ads for irrelevant blogs. You did it, so don't play coy; since the complaints, you've moved our activity records back to the top, where they need to be, and the junk is still there - you just reversed the order of appearance. Even that's inappropriate; I neither need nor want your "helpful suggestions" and "features" of blogs devoted to flower arrangements or creative ways to use the hairballs your cat coughs up.

It's not what you're being paid for, and there are plenty of alternatives if you wish to continue this sort of unprovoked assault on your paying clients.

[Max]

Brianna - You maybe picking up on the fact that you're about to lose long time paying clients? Pleas stop with the "are you referring to the promo spot, blah blah" - if you don't understand what we're talking about, it's just that much more incentive for paying clients to quit paying you.

[Elaine]

Brianna - sorry I was not clear - it was the featured blogs which used to be on the right hand side suddenly appeared above my recent activity and I had to scroll down. However, this was only there for 24hours and then they shot back to the right hand side again so now we seem to be OK!

Thanks for responding

[Account Deleted]

I appreciate your response, Brianna. Still, I'm not too confident about how soon you'll actually address the photo albums needs. I've been asking for _years_.
Problem is I have to send my readers to outside avenues to view any extended photo set and therefore I lose the time they would have spent on my blog. Since I do some paid writing I'm very concerned not only with page views but length of time spent on my blog. Being able to keep my photos 'in-house' is to my benefit--sending people away is potentially costly. Using WordPress, I can embed numerous photos easily in many formats AND I keep people on my blog to view them. I feel like TypePad is out of touch with what those of us who still blog need and want.

[Tony Tea]

I'm with Max.

Preferred the previous "recent activity" format.

The ads are rubbish.

The featured blogs are crud.

And get rid of the Quick Post stuff while you're at it.

[TPL Staff]

you can't go to the comments to take an action directly, you just go to the blog post, that seems like an error, i would see a comment and then have a link to go that specific comment. Thx.

[Bri]

Oh, that's really good to know, Elaine! I never saw the Featured Blog section anywhere other than on the right hand side, so it was difficult to understand what a few people were referring to. We're looking into whether it was a glitch, where it was serving from the incorrect area, or not. Thanks for reporting your experience! :D

[Bri]

Max, I don't believe I was being condescending at all, but I'm sorry if you felt that I was.

From an earlier report, it seems the Featured Blog spot was being served in the incorrect spot, above the Recent Activity rather than below the Blog list on the right. This isn't something that I, myself, saw at all, so was unable to get an idea of what you and a few others were experiencing. We're looking into why the Featured Blog spot was loading in an unexpected place, but if you log out and log back in that may have already been fixed for you.

[Bri]

Hi Cyn! While we hash out what's going to happen with Photo Albums, have you considered creating a custom Page as a gallery for your images? It will allow you to use the compose editor to insert images at a size larger than the albums allow. That will allow you to control where your readers go to visit your images, keeping them on your blog, rather than sending them to a third-party. You could even create another blog in your account with a different layout/design that fit your needs for larger images. That would let you use categories as galleries, too, where you publish posts to that category, then link to it/them from your real blog. Would something like that work for now?

[Bri]

We're looking into adding back the ability to manage comments from the Recent Activity stream. In the meantime, you can click the "Comments" link/tab from your blog in the dashboard. You can read more about managing comments here: http://help.typepad.com/managing_comments.html

[Eric Alvarez]

Are you always so rude or it's just a bad day?

[Max]

Are you always such a dork, or do you manage to cover it sometimes?

[Eric Alvarez]

Well... you answered my question :)

[Max]

Briana,

You did appear condescending; I told you I hated the "improved" dashboard, and I told you why - and you came back with "could you tell us what you don't like?" That was irritating.

As you may have noticed, with the exception of the guy from Canada, most people commenting here don't like the "improved" dashboard that was suddenly foisted upon us - I've been paying you folks $100+/year for many years, and at least one commenter here says she's been paying for a decade. This approach is alienating to long-term clients.

It'd be one thing if we were given a choice between retaining the perfectly functional dashboard or migrating to the dysfunctional new one, but apparently long-term clients aren't considered deserving of that modicum of respect.

It angered me to find that, suddenly, I had to scroll down through ads or "featured blogs" to get to the comments. Granted, within a day or so, that ordering was reversed, and the comments come up first (as they should). However, the Recent Activity stream has been modified in such a way that management is now more difficult than it was.

Frankly, I fail to see any "improvement", but I do see a whole lot of negatives - and it appears that I'm not alone in that regard.

In the "unimproved" dashboard, you folks stuffed in a "featured blog" on the right-hand side - which although unnecessary and unwanted, was tolerable. Easy enough to ignore (as I mentioned previously, I really don't care about blogs that look cool and give you tips on how to creatively re-use any hairballs that your cat may cough up).

Stuffing two more "features" ahead of the comments was an intrusive move, and completely unacceptable to long-term, paying clients.

If you folks want to do stuff like that, then the blogging platform should be free (Blogger, Wordpress, etc.). If people aren't paying for your service, it's entirely justifiable to do whatever you want. When people ARE paying for your service, it's entirely different.

[Max]

If you're happy with the "improvements" you're in a minority.

Now when you come in and shoot from the lip, are you all that surprised to get winged right back?

I don't recall seeking your "opinion" in the first place. Apparently, trolling is your thing.

[Elaine]

Sorry getting confused again. There is a featured blog on the LEFT hand side just above my 'recent activity'. I dont want it there - it clutters up my space. I can easily see featured blogs back on the right hand side where it was originally. You said you were looking to see if this was a glitch. Well it is back so....

[Bri]

Elaine, I've opened a ticket for you so that I can ask you some account-related questions. We can continue our conversation there. :)

[Vicious Babushka]

Dear Typepad:

"Recent activity" contains posts from random blogs, not from my blog! It's very annoying, especially when I log in to the Dashboard to view activity on MY OWN BLOG not on some other random blog. Why is that so difficult for you to understand? I am already paying a premium for a Typepad blog, are these "random featured blogs" on the "Recent Activity" another annoyance that I have to pay to get rid of, by upgrading to yet a more premium level?

[Elaine]

Max - I have been with Typepad for six years now and have always found the staff very helpful with my queries and complaint and I honestly don't think they have ever been condescending.

However, I am a very straightforward user of Typepad and probably don't use it in as much detail as others. BUT though I think you might be coming across as crosser than you might be, I am in agreement with you over the Featured Blogs appearing on the left hand side of my screen before my recent activity. It is acutely irritating. I have left a comment to Brianna above as she had said this was a glitch. Well having just logged on I now find the featured blog is back so can we please get this sorted out.

You make the point that other Blogs are free and I would be reluctant to move but this thought has been going through my mind in recent months and this may just tip the balance.

I hope this can be sorted quickly.

[Elaine]

Brianna - have read ticket and responded so go check it out!!

[Max]

Hi Elaine,

I've rarely had occasion to request help over the years, but on those occasions, they have been responsive. I did feel that this event has been met with a certain degree of condescension, however, as in "It's a great way to join the typepad community" as justification for the ads for "featured blogs". To me, that's just a step away from "we know what's best; keep sending your money and shut up".

It does tend to make me cross; I do have presence on Wordpress and have not encountered these sorts of issues.

Typepad is about to lose a long-term paying client; I've already been looking into porting my blog material to different sites because I really don't like having a rep explain how the "improvements" that I neither like nor asked for are somehow "better" for me.

As paying clients, when we clearly state that we don't like the "improvement", the proper move is to fix it - not tell us how really spiffy it is.

That seems to be what I'm getting at this point.

[Elaine]

I have had a response re my complaint about the featured blogs appearing in my recent activity.

"Since your account follows the Everything Typepad profile, it also sees when we publish a new Featured Blog post to our Featured blog (e.g. the
"Picture my Realia" post).

Good news, though! You can unfollow the Everything Typepad profile, so that you don't see our updates there, by hovering your mouse over the profile icon to the left. A little window will appear, where you will
see an "unfollow" link in the bottom right. Click that to unfollow Everything Typepad and you won't see any new posts or activity from us"

I was totally unaware that I was following Everything Typepad but why this should suddenly happen I dont know. I pass this on for info in case you would like to do the same as I.

I have made the point that I do wish Typepad would leave well alone and not faff around making changes which I dont think are necessary.

Greetings from the UK where the sun is shining. Allelluia!

[Max]

I'll give that a try, as well. Thanks!

Sunny here, too!

[Hazel]

I couldn't figure out how to leave a comment here, so I'm using the reply button.

While I appreciate the idea of trying to improve, I don't like the new look. I have "unfollowed" Typepad, so that I won't have unwanted blogs taking up such a big space front and center on my recent activity, also I really don't like the bigger photo for recent posts of people I follow. It takes up too much space, visually bothers me & doesn't allow for a quick glance at the rest of my recent activity. I visit the blogs to see the big photos, and do not need that feature here. In addition the recent activity comments are now smaller, bunched together & harder to read, and there is no longer the feature of being able to "reply, manage, etc." under each comment. Please go back to the former format, I was happy with it.

[Hazel]

continuing....I just realized it also does not say the name of the blog that each comment was made on, just the title of the post. Really, really don't like the changes.

[Franck Wilson Katakra]

HELLO, IT'S COOL.

[Account Deleted]

Everyone should get an email informing as to how to UNFOLLOW the Everything Typepad bc this is terrible!
Many thanks to Elaine for the info on how to escape this obnoxious intrusion! Typepad is quite expensive- don't give us more reasons to leave.

[Vance Jochim]

I agree with you - whose stupid idea at typepad thought I wanted to see their lists of other typepads in my recent activity section in the left column? REMOVE IT TYPEPAD!!!

[Vance Jochim]

I agree with you Max.

[Vance Jochim]

Why are you using twitter to post these? You have cluttered up my dashpad by inserting all these "people to follow" inserts in the left side of my dashboard. Please remove them. There isn't even an "X" that lets ME remove them. Your idea of "people to follow" is like Facebook hitting me with new ads without permission. Remove them, or provide this service for free. I am not paying to see your ads.

[Vance Jochim]

Brianna - are you a real person? All your answers sound like they came out of a public relations "managing a crisis" book - lots of gobbledegook answers.

[Max]

FiscalRangers - It's interesting, isn't it? they ask for feedback, it's overwhelmingly negative (one guy says it's "cool", one guy snipes, everybody else seems in agreement that the "improved" dashboard bites), and if you get anything back, it's either a canned answer or PR blarney.

They just keep telling you how great it is.

By the way - that stuff on your shoe is just rain.

[Max]

Brianna,

I'm not sure that it's occurred to you folks, but in point of fact, most of us are perfectly capable of finding blogs without your "help". Moreover, many of us find your "help" unnecessarily intrusive and wasteful of our time and bandwidth.

Speaking for myself, I don't pay you folks in order to be part of a "Typepad community" - that's what forums and Facebook are for. I'm not part of a "community", and I have no desire to "come closer together and find new blogs/friends to follow".

Is there something about fundamental business arrangements that you folks don't comprehend?

I pay you for blog tools, not for social engineering.

Do you folks understand the concept, or do you not?

[Account Deleted]

Brianna,

I appreciate the suggestion(s). When I have some spare time I'll give them a spin.

Cyn

[Dick]

Hi Brianna
Well, it looks as though Typepad has been presented with a pretty much universal rejection of the presentation of sample blogs in the new Dashboard format. Hopefully we the consumers who part with substantial sums of money for your product will call the shots here. The blog share hasn't worked: please abandon it forthwith.
Cheers
Dick

[Account Deleted]

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[Linda Bartolucci]

I love the quick post, photo, video and share idea -but it would be great to upload an audio file quickly as well:)