VloggerHeads Opens Up!

VH is ready to take the next step to opening up the site to the world. At first, new members were allowed in by invitation of the admins only. A few weeks ago, VH allowed all members to invite new members. This resulted in about 180 new members to the site.

Now, it has been announced that starting at 9 AM Eastern time on October 1st, anyone will be able to view videos posted on VH. But non-members will not be able to comment (or post videos or blogs) and will not be able to see videos marked as "Friends Only." They will only be able to see videos viewable by "Anyone." Non-members will be able to apply for membership and their application will be reviewed and acted upon by Paul or Tom, the VH owners.

Current members of VH are being asked to review their channel to be comfortable with this new policy. Members can mark their videos as viewable by Just Me, Just Friends, or Anyone. This will control access to a member's videos.

As always, VH members are encouraged to welcome any and all new members to the site. It has been suggested that new members may make the occasional mistake, or take action that is against "VH culture" and that members should gently educate new members if they make any errors.

Two new moderators are being added to help with the new step in Opening Up the site. We continue to wish VH all the best in their wonderful vlogging experiment!

Moderators and Open Invitation

Things are happening at VloggerHeads! There are now almost 1000 members and almost 4000 videos on the site. The front page / home page of the site has a new look. There is more on it but without appearing to be overwhelmingly crowded.

On September 8th, a set of five moderators were added to the team. They are there to encourage people and help everyone get the most out of the site. They also act as eyes and ears to help spot any potential problems. They may offer tech assistance and answer questions on community guidelines. They don't have the power to edit or delete content. Any issues can still be directed to the 6 site admins which include co-owners Paul and Tom, but the mods are now there to help as well.

There are now RSS feeds on each member's videos. This allows people to "subscribe" to the videos of others. View the RSS feeds with programs like Google Reader, My Yahoo or any other Aggregator.

There is a FAQ page now. It is not in the typical format. There is no list of Questions and Answers, it is in conversational form. The FAQ is where we find that VH now is allowing all members to invite others, as long as they are 18 or older. Here is a quote:

As of September 16, you may invite your friends who are 18 and over to join us on VloggerHeads. We urge you to invite people who will continue to help our community grow into the kind of place that encourages vibrant, creative expression, respectfully. Your name will be attached to that of anyone you invite. To invite a friend, simply click on the "Invite" tab at the top of most any VH page.

The VH community continues to grow and remains a healthy "community of video bloggers, writers and friends." Just remember that the site is still very new. The site just opened on July 28th, 2008 and is still considered to be in "alpha" mode where "experimentation" continues.