It’s been quite a while since we’ve redone our UI. Thanks so much for being super patient with us over the past few months as we’ve focused on building a great experience. We’ve now rolled out some pretty significant changes that are the precursor to us introducing the new shopping features in the very very near future. (so close we can taste it! that’s a good thing, btw)

New Interface for Customizing Scenes, Avatars

Definitely a big change here. Now you can easily access all the things that are in your inventory –  all your gifts, furniture, pets, etc., — in a simple interface that makes it supereasy to add it into your scene (it’ll be supereasier in a few weeks when we add Drag and Drop, too). We call it “My Stuff” (go figure), and in a couple weeks, we’ll let you use it as a closet to store all the clothes, dance moves and other things that you’ll be able to buy with your Vivaty Points.

New Launchpad

You told us that you wanted to get a sense of what is going on in Vivaty without leaving your scene. No problem. With the new Launchpad, you can access it anytime, and it pops-up as a layer on top of your scene. This will show you where the party is at, in addition to all the new things to add to your scene, new gifts, news, and upcoming events.

New Help Center

We want to make it easier for you to get help on the things you need, in addition for you to be able to send us your ideas and questions more easily. We’ve revamped our Help site, although it’s still getting new content all the time. You can check it out here at http://help.vivaty.com

Text Triggers for Gestures

There’s this engineer here named Len. He’s cool. He works his tail off and then every once in a while in his spare time he makes a new feature. Well, this is one he built in about an hour. Instead of using our menus for gestures, just type them into the text. If you want to wave, type “/wave” in the text, and presto your avatar will wave. Cool eh? And for some things, you won’t even need the slash, like a little smiley    Give it a shot. For the full rundown, you can read the help info on these gestures and triggers.

On top of all this, we did a ton of things to make Vivaty run a little harder, better, faster, stronger (insert Daft Punk / Kanye West soundbite here).

Busy week! We’re still working out a few kinks, and if you come across any, please let us know in the Help Center. A few more major changes upcoming. Stay tuned!

Thanks,

Mark Hull
VP Products

We’ve built a Firefox Add-On for Vivaty that we’d love for you to check out.

We have a lot of Vivaty users in Firefox, which we think is absolutely great! Firefox is an outstanding web browser that is constantly getting better and is very supportive of the developer community. (We love our IE users, too, don’t get me wrong, but competition is a good thing, don’t you think?   )

You’ve told us you want quicker access to Vivaty, and we know you love being able to access Vivaty from your web browser and wherever you are online. Well, this add-on will make it even easier. When you install it, you’ll have the ability to jump into Vivaty, send gifts, edit your avatar, and more, directly from the browser, regardless of whatever web page you’re on at any given moment. You can also access it by right-clicking anywhere anytime. We’re like Visa — everywhere you want to be — but without the finance charges.

This is also just the first version. We have more cool features coming soon that really make the Firefox experience very cool. Stay tuned for those (btw, if you have ideas you’d like to see, lemme know!)

We actually released the Firefox Add-On for Vivaty a few weeks ago, and have been sharing it with some of our users while we work things out with the Firefox people.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! Right now, you’ll need to do a quick registration with Firefox/Mozilla before you can download our Add-On. But if you write a review and give it a few stars, you can help us get it approved, and therefore, take off this registration requirement.

Thanks!

Mark

Hi everyone!

Well, it’s been quite a whirlwind these last couple weeks! First, we burned the midnight oil turning on the public beta of Vivaty Scenes in Facebook. We also launched a branded version of Vivaty Scenes for a big partner that I think is really a great showcase of branded content. We also launched an upgraded version of Vivaty Scenes in AIM.

As part of that release, there were a whole slew of new things. Here are just a handful (the feature list contained 21 new improvements and features!):

·         Great new content: New scene templates, and cool things to put in your scenes! Try out the BFF Frame and explore the new Beach Cabana!

·         Moods: Now you can demonstrate that pouty lip when your virtual girlfriend shows you the hand.

·         Facebook Notifications: There are a whole slew of new notifications you can send to your friends when you do things in your scene. This way, your friends can keep up with all your great changes, and know when to come check it out.

·         Invitations: During our private beta, you couldn’t add your buddies. Now, all your friends who have Vivaty will automatically show up in your Friends List. Additionally, you can now easily invite anyone to add Vivaty Scenes and create their own.

·         Better Sharing: We know it’s hard on some services to tell your friends to check out your place, and for them to figure out and find where that is. That’s why with our latest release, we turned on scene linking. All you have to do is copy the URL in your browser of your scene and paste it in an IM or email and your friend can come check out your pad. Heck, try it by checking out my scene here.

While we’re thrilled to bring these to you, we’re even more excited about what’s on the way. Let me tell you a little secret – you’re going to be seeing more frequent releases of new features and improvements. So if you love being the first person with the inside scoop, make sure to make daily visits into Vivaty and this blog to stay up to date! 

 On the immediate horizon: Firefox support! We know there are many Firefox fans, and we will bring you Vivaty Scenes in Firefox soon. (Btw, if you can’t wait that long, you can also use the IE Plugin for Firefox to give Vivaty a shot without leaving Firefox — you can see a snapshot of my Vivaty scene running in Firefox using the plugin.) We also have a great new feature coming out in a couple weeks to make the experience even more fun and social! And wait until you see the little friend you can soon adopt into your scenes.  

Thanks, and see you soon!

Mark Hull
VP Product

The Vivaty crew takes on all laser-tag comers