Matt

We're thrilled to announce that Invision Community 4.3 is available to download now. After months of development, over 2500 separate code commits and quite a few mugs of coffee you can now get your hands on the final release. You can download the final release from your client area. If you need a recap of what was added, take a look at our product updates blog which takes you through the highlights. These include: We'd love to know what you think, let us know below.

Invision Community has been going strong for over sixteen years now. Many of those who work for us were customers first before they signed away their souls and became staff. This month, we part the mists of time and ask: How did you first come across Invision Community? Andy (Developer and man of mystery) Way back in 1998 I was involved with an online investment club in the UK (of course you were - Editor) and we set up a directory of national share clubs with a threaded “bulletin board”. This was based on a freely available perl script (as everything was back then (did they claim it would always be free? - Editor)) but it just wasn’t up to the job. This was my first exposure to writing web based software as I started customising it for our needs. Soon after, we switched to UBB which moved away from messy layouts and to a more structured forum, topic, post experience. With the release in 2004 of Invision Community 1.3 we switched again and I’ve been working with Invision Community software ever since (and you had such a promising life planned out - Editor). Around the same time the investment club moved to Invision Community, I also started up two other sites, one for modified cars which was an extremely popular niche at the time and one for my home town of Bedlington which is still running to this date. When developing for Invision Community I find it very useful to have that historical experience and real world insight. A lot of my input when we discuss new features as a team comes as a direct result of this first hand experience. I was part of this Investment Club when I was younger Marc (Support and fan of bouncy castles) My first real experience trying to set up forums/communities for myself was somewhere around 2000 (lol slow down grandpa - Editor). Me and a few friends used to host gaming servers for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and wanted something for storing stats on, so I set up UBB which I remember thinking was really cool at the time. I never really did much with it other than setting it up for people to use, and remember at the time backing things up on a 1mb hard drive (can't even fit a picture on that these days (need a push on that rocking chair? - Editor)). Over the years, I ran a few more sites and the software at some point became vBulletin (cant recall when, but just seemed to happen) which I ran through version 2 and late into version 3. At that point I was starting to add things for myself, usually learning from other peoples "FIND abc, AFTER ADD, xyz" which is how we all used to add our own modifications at the time. The thought of an upgrade at the time, I know used to make me cringe. At some point during vBulletin 4 release, I was becoming a little disillusioned with the whole community software scene in general (other disappointing platforms are available - Editor), and hadn't really used Invision Community before, but ended up using that for a site for my wife. I was using Invision Community more and more. Purely because it was the site that was most active at the time. This led me to becoming very interested in the new Invision Community 4 release, and was becoming a bit of an social addict on the alpha forum that was released, helping out people who weren't sure of things, and generally asking questions. It was around this point I was asked to join the team here at Invision. And you guys have had to put up with me ever since! My sincere apologies for that. (apology accepted - Editor) This has nothing to do with Castle Wolfenstein but it's late and I need this blog entry done Mark H (Support and keeper of Dropbox) The internet was in its infancy in 1985 (and there goes 80% of our readers - Editor), and I was using BBS's on a dial-up 1200 baud modem. In 1986 I took over a BBS from a friend, running it on a 2400 baud modem and single phone line. It was just a few years later that I got my first look at the real "Internet", using Netscape and now a 9600 baud modem (we just lost another 10% - Editor). At some point I discovered online communities, then only "Forums" with perhaps photo gallery software similar to Coppermine. My focus was gaming at the time, so I gravitated to forums for such things as (like Marc) Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, and the first RPG-type text-based games. I also joined a number of MUD's (multiplayer real time worlds - Editor), and am a (now retired) staff member of the MUD, Ancient Anguish. I've seen the progression of technology and software which, today, we take for granted. But back then if someone had told me where we would be today, (oh boy, here we go - Editor) I'd have been...... skeptical. Over the years, I've used a verity of "forum software" but well over a decade ago started using Invision Community version 1.3a. Today I am a partner with another person running a site using Invision Community software, and it's the highest-ranking result at Google for its (admittedly niche) speciality. Since I was using Invision Community, having purchased it at version 2.3, and given that background, it seemed a natural progression to join Invision Community as an employee when the opportunity arose, and I have never looked back! (must be dangerous when reversing - Editor) Actual footage of Mark listening to an internet podcast back in 1985 Jennifer (Designer and sock fanatic) Communities, for me, started on AOL. The chat rooms was where I started. I evolved to javascript chat rooms later and eventually into Neopets clubs followed by a community software called Avidgamers and eventually stumbled across InvisionFree forums. It was while I was adventuring through Avidgamers that I discovered an art type called "pixel" art which truly explains my passion. I was personally never good at it but I found a community called "Eden Enchanted" where all these really awesome pixel artists were. So I started to develop my own Pixel art community (because back then I thought I might eventually get good at it so I should admin). I started on the free community software of "SMF" but envied the ease of use and the beauty of Invision Community (which this awesome pixel community used (they have outstanding taste - Editor)). After what felt like forever, which mind you was really only like 2-3 months, I bit the bullet and purchased an Invision Community license. I wanted this gorgeous piece of software and I couldn't live with the second rate free stuff anymore (there's our new advert slogan - Editor). So I bought Invision Community 2.3 and delved in (this was back in 2007). I really haven't looked back since. I've been developing skins since I got it and I've made a few mods/applications on it back in the 3.0 days. I've owned and ran many communities, and roleplays, on Invision Community since. My current community, which has officially been running on Invision Community since December 2013, was transferred from InvisionFree (not my choice but god were we happy when we left). Ah the memories. Terrible, terrible memories Brandon (Developer and XP log in screen enthusiast) Back in roughly 2004-ish I got into customizing Windows XP (specifically I created custom login screens (this was actually a thing? - Editor) but knew a lot of people who did the full alternative to Windows Blinds by hacking dlls) and eventually opened a site to host my work and to allow others to share theirs: bfarber.com. I used Invision Community v1.3 which was free at the time (2.0 was just getting into beta testing as I recall) and needed a file manager to share my work and to allow others to do the same. I downloaded a free file manager by a modder named 'parkeet' and after installing it on my site (which required those good ole "find X and replace with Y" PHP file modifications) I found that it was lacking in a few areas, so I set out to customize it. From this desire I taught myself PHP (I was already familiar with HTML, CSS and javascript) and learned how to modify the modification. Eventually, the original author left the mod scene (this was back in the ibmods days for those of you who have been here a while (I have - Editor)) and turned the work over to me. I was hired by IPS back around 2006 and shortly after I came on board I built a new Downloads manager from the ground up as a core offering for the company (Now I know who to assign all Download tickets to - Editor). While I don't run my own site anymore (especially a third party hack site for Windows XP), I do have fond memories of my roots. This was both my start with web development (beyond building a few static HTML pages in the early days of the web) as well as my start with forums specifically. Never used this, apparently it was OK Stuart (Developer and owner of large computers) My story is rather similar to the other ones here (selling this story from the off - Editor). My story starts around 2000 when I started a car club with my brother, being the technical one, one of the first things to do was to set up a forum. We started with Ikonboard (imagine Perl & flat-file databases etc), we swiftly followed Matt over to his new PHP-based project "Invision Power Board" (pretty sure the restraining order prohibited that - Editor). With the introduction of the new licensing structure unfortunately with being very low budget we had to then move over to WBB (er... - Editor). Soon after we moved back to Invision Community (It was the best and totally worth it! (I made him say that - Editor)) and I started to get interested with PHP (up to this point, I had only really used HTML/CSS) and learning how to make some changes that we needed for working with 'members' and tying our website in with our community. -- A really simple SSO type approach where the main website would show the user that's logged in and save data they submit, such as a tech spec and images of their vehicles. That community is still using Invision Community and in the meantime I've also converted (and run) some other car club communities that I've been involved in over the years. From there, I was asked to start writing SSO (single sign on, you're welcome- Editor) integrations in early 2014 for Invision Community and soon after became a full member of staff. I still run a number of communities to this day which gives great insight into how end users interact with the software and generally what their feelings of the platform is. Quite often, I'll deploy Alphas to these communities to gather feedback. Oh, he said Car Club... Jim (Support and his name is a bit like the lead singer from The Doors) The first community I really heavily participated in was around 2003. Being a nerd and liking wrestling at the time (Ultimate Warrior FTW- Editor), I joined a wrestling forum that ran a very beginning version of IPB. A lot of time was spent on this website and after becoming a moderator, I really feel in love with IPB. A sub-forum on this community that was pretty active was around graphic design. Feedback/showcases and competitions with the main point of focus around the wrestling world. This really took my interest and while my interest in wrestling kind of faded, graphic design led to the next step in my life and naturally joining graphic design communities. After being a part of quite a few graphic design forums (that were ran quite badly (honesty is always good - Editor)) came time for me to try my hand at this. Being technically inclined, I thought I could run a better show. We started out on PHPBB due to cost but after some frustrating moments, I persuaded the move to Invision Community. Come sometime around 2008 or 2009 and my new passion around cars had reached its peak, I came back onto the forum scene. In 2010, my favorite brand had become defunct so I decided to open a community dedicated to keeping its memory alive. First and only choice was to come back to Invision Community! (Believe early version 3 at the time) This community is still alive and I still have a lot of fun with it! I've been waiting months to post this GIF Rhett (Hosting and boasting) My time on forums started in the late 90's, with a few motorcycle and photography forums I visited often. During the years as time progressed some of these went astray from what the core members wanted, so I started a few of my own Motorcycle forums with the core members following, that lead to other online communities such as Android (is that the cheap iOS knockoff? - Editor) in the late 2000's, and a few other communities. In about 08-09 I had enough of the main platform we were using and made the move to Invision Community (a man of fine taste - Editor). I started digging in, converting all the sites to Invision and haven't looked back (seriously, how do you guys get out of parking spots? - Editor). It's a great product, a great team, that I'm proud to be a small part of. Instagram in the 80s Daniel (Developer and owner of a shop and spa in Arendelle) My Journey started 2003 at an Austrian electronical music forum which was also written in perl. After years where I was only a member, the owner lost interest and a handful of people(incl. myself) took it over (hopefully you asked nicely first - Editor), but we realized that perl was such a pain to work with (I could have told you that - Editor), so we restarted the whole project with phpBB. This was also the time, where I got really interested into coding and customizing stuff. After a long journey from phpBB, to vBulletin(2006), and others, I landed finally here (the best one of course (someone's getting a bonus - Editor)) The forum doesn't exist anymore , I blame facebook and all the european laws, but TBH, I'm just too busy to run one ? Probably not Daniel Those are our stories, but we'd love to hear about your first experiences with Invision Community. Let us know below!

Are you a member of a busy Facebook Group? Do you find it overwhelming trying to sort through all the posts to find something posted the day before? Are you now missing new posts and only seeing them a few days later? Facebook Groups are tempting to use as they are free to set up but is this the best decision for the future of your business? At the beginning with just a handful of members, things may fun fine. But fast forward to where your group becomes busy with thousands of members posting and reading. Your group becomes overwhelming. You find it hard to locate posts made on previous days and search is of no use. It is getting harder to keep on top of troublesome and spamming members. Worse still, Facebook's changing algorithms mean that your members are not seeing every post you make. You do as Facebook asks and link your page to your group to find that you must now boost posts to reach your members. This is getting to be a very common scenario. Even more worrying are rumours that Facebook is bringing advertising to groups. Will this allow your competitors to target your hard won membership? Will Facebook roll out the "Discover" tab across all continents? This alone has destroyed organic reach for many brands. What would you do if Facebook blocked your account for a week? Would your sales suffer? There is a way to take back control of your membership and secure your business' future. Building your business on your own land is a powerful way of retaining complete control over your community regardless of what happens to Facebook longer term. Created in 2002, Invision Community has always adapted to the changing habits of the internet. Our latest product is clean, modern, mobile ready and equipped to integrate with social media. It can power your conversations, website and shopping cart. It features single click Facebook sign in and tools to promote scheduled content to your Facebook page. We recently wrote why you shouldn't settle for a Facebook Group when building a community. The benefits of an owned Invision Community are: You own your own data. Your data is not mined for Facebook's benefit. Make it yours by branding it your way You're no longer boxed in by the Facebook format Seamless integration to your shopping cart for more monetization opportunities Set up permission levels to better control what your members can see Lets dig in a look at some of the tools you can leverage to make the migration easier. Mobile Ready Invision Community works great on your mobile. It resizes the page perfectly to match whichever device you are using. You don't need to install special apps or mess with themes. It just works out of the box. Facebook Sign In The first thing you'll want to do is turn on Facebook Sign In. This adds the familiar Facebook button right on the sign in page and register form. Clicking this logs them into your new community with their Facebook account. It even imports their profile photo so they are familiar with other members. Make use of embeds A great way to keep incorporating content from your Facebook Group or Page is to use embeds. Post a link to your content on Facebook and it transforms into a rich media snippet. Social Promotions Share your community content with your Facebook Page. Click the "Promote" button on any content item and you can customize the text and images shared. The promotion system offers a full scheduling system much like Buffer or Hootsuite. This is all built in at no extra cost. Find Your Content Unlike a Facebook Group, your Invision Community makes it easy to find older content. A powerful feature is activity streams. These are customizable "feeds" much like the Facebook News Feed but completely editable to you and your members needs. You can even make this the first page your members see for easy content discovery. Use Clubs Clubs allow sub-communities to run inside your main community. Let's look at a real world example. A FitPro has several different fitness products for sale. Each product is a Facebook Group. She posts daily workouts and answers member's questions. Using many groups can be very time consuming to manage. Clubs puts these sub-communities right on the page making it easy to drop in and update. These Clubs can be private and members invited to join allowing full privacy. This is like a closed Facebook group. We're only scratching the surface of what Invision Community can offer you. You can take back control of your membership and be free from the fear that Facebook will change something that will impact your sales. We're experts in this field with 16 years of experience. We've helped grow thousands of communities from the very biggest brands to the smallest of niches. We'd love to talk to you about your needs.

We're thrilled to announce that Invision Community 4.3 Beta is available to download now. After months of development, over 2500 separate code commits and quite a few mugs of coffee you can now get your hands on the beta release. You can download the beta from your client area. Be sure to read the full information on support and service limits that go along with beta releases. You will see this in client area prior to downloading. If you need a recap of what was added, take a look at our product updates blog which takes you through the highlights. If you you find a bug, we'd love for you to report it with as much detail as you can muster in the bug report area. We'd love to know what you think, let us know below.

Cue the music; switch on the dramatic lighting, we've got fantastic news! We're now running Invision Community 4.3 on here for some advanced testing before we unleash the first beta release. There's a subtle hint above If you need a recap of what was added, take a look at our product updates blog which takes you through the highlights. As this is a pre-beta release, expect some funkiness as we scurry around and tidy up our custom theme wrapper and other areas as we spot them. If you you find a bug, we'd love for you to report it with as much detail as you can muster in the bug report area. We'd love to know what you think, let us know below.

We, at Invision Community, love nothing more after a relaxing day writing PHP code, making commits in git and fighting with jQuery to indulge in a little therapeutic "me time". Given that we've all chosen to work in a nerdy industry (nerds are cool now, we checked) it's no surprise that our down time is spent on nerdy pursuits. Here's how our team spent their allotted and begrudgingly given free time. Ryan (Developer who loves of loud noises) I'm an audio nerd. I go out of my way to hand pick each individual component whenever I'm building a an audio system. My computer, for example, currently has 4 satellite speakers (two Bose, two DCM models which are no longer in production - what is a shame, they are better than any I've ever had), and a sub-woofer (Bose). My living room system is my pride and joy - everything currently runs through a Sony 7.1 channel surround sound system, with a Polk Audio center channel, two Kenwood JL series tower speakers (before JL Audio was it's own thing - each contain a 1.5" tweeter, 5" Midrange, and 12" Subwoofer), two side-surround satellites that need replacing, and will soon have two rear-surround Bose satellites. Each system has specifically been fine-tuned and equalized to my specification. (Editor: I'd be happy with a HomePod) The same applies to my guitar amps - I've spent years fine-tuning my amps to perfection, and constantly adjust and tweak various settings to get different sounds. Still not loud enough, we checked Jennifer (Designer who loves board games) As everyone likely knows I do a lot of pretty nerdy things, from cosplaying to video games to play by post roleplaying (collaborative writing) to collecting nerdy-shirts and playing board games but I think one of my more nerdy things would be that I collect socks and intentionally mismatch them (aka I'm Bi-sockual). I collect socks of all shapes and sizes to have for any occasion including socks with capes, leg warmers and more. I have a pretty nerdy collection including a ton of super hero socks, some Power Puff girls and more. (Editor: Socks with capes. What a time to be alive) These are clean, we checked Daniel (Developer who loves amusing English words) It all started several years ago as a present.. I fall in love with this hobby and got some nice trees from my ex-wife. The collection grew and grew. That's my "poor mans" bonsai collection.. I once trashed a 1000€ plant, then I sold all other which were worth more then 500€ except one and now I just have these left, but it's enought to keep me busy... and to not cause any sadness if something happens to them...Now i really enjoy trying to create my own stuff instead of taking care of bought stuff. (Editor: Daniel is hands down the most interesting person I've ever met) These are legal, we checked. Brandon (Developer who loves movies) I haven't done one in a while, but I like to have movie marathons sometimes. For instance, I'll plan to sit down one day and do nothing but watch Star Wars movies (or Harry Potter, or LOTR or whatever) all day in order. You then have to make the ever important decision of putting the prequels first, or after the originals, but otherwise it tends to be a fun experience watching the continuity from one distinct movie to the next (or, alternatively, looking for broken continuity). When I do this, we tend to eat popcorn, milkshakes and candy for lunch and dinner. Most of my family cannot sit still that long and will just bounce in and out during the marathon. (Editor: I'm in, when do you want me to pop over?) Spongebob lives under the sea, we checked Marc S (Tech who loves things that crash) I guess other than coding, the nerdiest thing I do is watch Formula 1 racing. Whilst this doesn't seem that nerdy, I do go a little overboard with it (as my wife reminds me regularly). This should give you a bit of an idea. At present we are approaching pre season testing. For those not familiar with formula 1, this is a testing phase before the new season, for teams to test their new cars. This means that the new cars are just being shown to the world for the first time. I will watch for these to see them as soon as they come out, then will take a look at what new parts I can see on the car in comparison to last year. Today for example saw the first glimpse of Mercedes, and at 3pm Ferrari will show off their new car online. In addition to that, I've been looking at the stats from last year, along with the know changes this year in engines. I have my own analysis of who I think will be the winners and losers, through the changes from last season in drivers, engine suppliers, and even paddock staff. Testing starts on the cars on Monday in barcelona. Whilst this is not on TV, I will be keeping myself updated with the latest events on there. My daily routine whilst testing is on consists of. Testing live stream running throughout the day during testing Teds notebook in the evening - An show which analyses the days testing F1 show - Another show which analyses each days testing Autosport review - Article online with analysis Sky news site - Usually some good analysis on there BBC Sport - Again, some good analysis and different points of view Motorsport.com - Pretty good website for analysis And of course the formula 1 website itself. Boring to many (Editor: yep), but I guess everyone has to have a hobby. For me its formula 1 analysis. Would love to have a go in one, but to do so it hugely expensive! (Editor: given your history with crashing things, you'd never get insurance) John Woo directed this clip, we checked Andy (Developer who loves to follow instructions) Following a recent project we worked on for LEGO, I rediscovered a love for the brick with the Saturn V. Since then I’ve also started a nice little collection of cars including the incredibly geeky 2704 piece Porsche 911 GT3 RS with functional PDK gearbox and the VW campervan. My family bought me a few more sets for Christmas and I’m toying (no pun intended (Editor: Puns are my thing, it's the only job I have left)) with building a city with the larger modular sets. I’d say that was fairly geeky but I really enjoy the downtime of sitting down and building. I’m not terribly creative so following a set of instructions and seeing things come together appeals to me more than free building. Andy did build this, we checked Right, that's enough of that, everyone back to work! How do you spend your spare time? Let us know below!

There are many different reasons to build a community. It might be based on your business or a hobby. It may be to talk about your favourite sports team. Whatever the content, the key to success is to engage your community. We've been helping successful communities for over 15 years. During that time, we've picked up a handful of tips that we are going to share with you today. Pick one to try this week and let us know how you get on. Welcome every single member A great way to make members feel welcome at your community is to post a daily or weekly topic welcoming your new members. Post a short message asking them to introduce themselves and tag new members. This will encourage them to start a discussion that others can get involved with. It won't be long before friends are made and what may have been a passing member will be part of your core community. Host a "lurker week" Every few months, host a "Lurker week" where you encourage non-posting members to join in. You can explain the benefits of the community and encourage them to say hello. It's a great way to get people to introduce themselves. Suzi Nelson pioneered this over at Digital Marketer. She created a lurker themed week and was able to activate 44% of her previously inactive members in only five days! Spotlight members you want others to model Often you will see a member do something amazing in the community. Maybe they posted a really good question or perhaps they have been very active and helped many other members. Create a topic about it. Highlight how and why they are an asset they are to the community. This sends a positive message to other members that these kinds of actions will be celebrated. You can even turn this into a weekly or monthly ritual where you celebrate the member of the week or month. Educate about notifications The notifications system in Invision Community is the best way to get return visits. Why not put up a pinned topic in a visible area reminding your members how to get the best from the notification system, and asking them to enable them and follow any interesting forums or topics. This way they won't miss out of any discussion while they're away and as a bonus, they're more likely to return to catch up. Regular Interaction This is a very simple but often overlooked tip. As the community manager your purpose is to facilitate discussion. Make sure you show up regularly and create new discussions as well as reply to existing ones. People are more likely to post if they feel they will get a reply. Often your reply will send off a cascade of more interaction as different facets of the conversions come out. Ask for feedback Members love to be involved in brainstorms and to share their thoughts. Asking for feedback works on two levels. You get great ideas on how to improve your community. It is also a great tactic to get discussion going. Taking action on feedback makes that person feel more invested in your community and will champion it to others. Try and be specific when asking for feedback. Try "How can I increase the level of activity" or "Do you need any articles or topics written on specific subjects". The more specific, the easier it will be for your members to narrow down their thoughts. Be persistent These tips might give your community a short burst of engagement. To build a long lasting and highly engaged community, you have to be persistent and keep at it. The key to building a community is simple: put in the work and care about your members. If your members see how much you care and that you are showing up every day, they are more likely to show up too. Which of these tips are you going to try this week?

We've recently spoken about how we've brought our Gallery and Blog apps up to date with interface overhauls to bring them inline with the high standards our customers expect. Keeping this in mind, we're thrilled to announce that we've taken Commerce right back to 2009. This needs an explanation. Way back in 2009, Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President. Minecraft was put into beta, Slumdog Millionaire was released to critical praise and we had a product called IP.Subscriptions. IP.Subscriptions was a lightweight member subscriptions manager that allowed members to purchase elevated permissions via a user group upgrade. It was a fine little app. However, on the horizon we had a brand new eCommerce app in development. Then called Nexus, now called Commerce (we took months to come up with that). It made sense for us to merge the products into one app given they both had overlapping functionality. They both could create packages to promote members to a new user group. Commerce was much more developed as an invoicing and billing system. Everyone was happy. Almost. Commerce has grown to be an incredibly powerful app. It can sell anything from physical products like t-shirts, to digital products such as license keys and it can even manage your hosting set-up. We use it for our support and billing systems, so we know how robust it is. While it's an incredibly powerful commerce system, setting up basic subscriptions packages became a little more complex. Over the past few years we've received a lot of feedback on this. We've listened. Commerce Member Subscriptions We've built a brand new section into Commerce specifically for membership subscriptions. Let's take a look at this in more detail. On the front end, there's a very clear and easy to understand page for membership subscriptions. The main subscriptions interface Here you can see all the available packages, which one you're currently subscribed to and the upgrade and downgrade options. A simple way to upgrade There's several choices for costing upgrades in the Admin CP, here we have chosen to charge the difference between packages. Get to your subscriptions easily Your subscriptions are easily found in the user menu. If the Admin allows, the package you're subscribed to appears as a badge on your profile. There's also a little widget showing the packages which you can drag and drop to the sidebar for an additional prompt for non-subscribers. This gives Invision Community a very clear and easy to understand interface for subscriptions which lives outside of the Commerce store and its packages. Now, let's dive into the Admin CP The main engine for this feature is the package list. This is in a separate area within Commerce. The list also shows the number of currently active and inactive subscribers. This links to the list of subscribers. Other than Bob having a total nightmare, you can easily view which members are currently active. The buttons link you to the Commerce invoice and purchase. If you wish to add a member to a subscription without charging them (you generous soul, you), then that is easily possible. Creating a new subscription package is very straight forward. We've built a new form which is stripped down to the fundamental items you'll need for a subscription. As you would expect, there are several settings to control the system. A few things worth mentioning here: You can force new members to purchase a subscription on sign-up You can show or hide the profile badge indicating which package they purchased. You can choose to allow upgrades or downgrades. You can choose how you'd like to charge for upgrades or downgrades Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback over the years. We're really pleased to present this new feature and hope that it'll make your daily lives just a little easier. Let us know what you think!

This month, we turn sweet sixteen! We made our own card this year. I know, it's hard to believe with our youthful looks and energetic personalities, but it's true. Charles and I have known each other longer than I've known my own children and we still make each other laugh on a daily basis. Over the past 16 years we've seen a lot of trends come and go. When we started, AOL dial-up was the preferred method of choice (and probably the only method of choice). Compuserve were flying high and I think I'll stop this walk down memory lane before I turn into my own grandfather and start talking about how things were better in my day. A lot has changed. We've seen the rise of social media and how it disrupted habits. We've seen MP3 players become iPods, and iPods become iPhones and iPhones become iPads (other digital devices are also available). It's crazy to think that our company pre-dates Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Click on this image to see it unless you have excellent eyesight We're still here because we are always innovating and adapting. The software we're working on right now is vastly different from the one we started out with. And that is how it should be. We listen to our customers and we implement the great ideas. Of course, we'd not have lasted a year without our customers. We're genuinely thrilled to still be doing a job we love and serving customers who have trusted their community with us. Thank you all for choosing us and we're looking forward to the next 16 years.

Social media promotion should be a part of any marketing strategy. Curating interesting content from your community and sharing to social media channels like Facebook and Twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Invision Community 4.2 introduced Social Media Promotions to allow this. You hit the promote button, fill out the text to share with each service, click which photos to include and schedule the promotion or send it immediately. We use this feature almost every single day to share highlights to our Invision Community Facebook page and Twitter. This feature has had a significant impact in attracting visitors to our blog. This is now a core part of our marketing strategy. So what's new in Invision Community 4.3? Facebook Groups and Pages A popular feature request was to allow sharing to Facebook groups that you are an administrator of, as well as Pages you own. Not only that, but we now allow you to share to many places at once. When setting up Facebook, you can choose which Facebook properties to be used when promoting. When sharing content, you can choose where to share it to right on the dialog. Here you can see that we're sharing to two of three possible places. "It's a secret" is a Facebook Group (which makes it a pretty poor secret). The "Lindy Throgmartin Fan Club" is my favourite page on all of Facebook. What it lacks in members, it makes up for in enthusiasm. You may also notice that the Facebook box is empty. Facebook have very strict guidelines on sharing content. They prefer that you do not auto-populate the content. You can always access the item's original content on the promote dialog, so you can refer to it. Setting a custom page title When you share to social media channels, you also have the opportunity to add to the 'Our Picks' page. We've made it possible to add a custom title for the Our Picks page so you don't have to use the content item title, although this is still the default. Editing an Our Pick When editing an item shared to 'Our Picks', you now have the option of editing all the data, including the title and the images attached. The Our Picks page showing the custom title Thanks to your feedback, we saw several places that we can improve this already popular feature. We hope you enjoy these changes which makes your social promotion strategy even easier to execute. I know we'll be making good use of them!

What an exciting month we've had! The big news is that it's all systems go on Invision Community 4.3, our big update to our apps. We've already talked about Automatic Community Moderation, Emoji, Sign in from other sites using OAuth, blog updates, Scaleable search and interface improvements, Apple Pay (and more) support, Paid club memberships, and other club improvements and massive gallery updates. Our team take a short breather to discuss their hidden talents, including the ability to solve a Rubik's cube in under two minutes. In our community management series, we look at how you can brand your Invision Community in just a few minutes without knowing how to code. This month's featured articles are: You can see our full newsletter here.

We're a cool bunch here at Invision Community. You'll see us around answering support tickets, posting in our community and writing cool new features and hilarious blogs. But, you won't see what we get up to in our spare time. This month, we asked the question "What is your secret talent?" To which Andy replied "I can't tell you, it's a secret" making me rephrase the question immediately. Without further ado, lets dive in. Andy Millne (Developer and owner of quick comebacks) I can fly a plane, a desire that started as a child being allowed to occasionally take the controls of my parent’s light aircraft. This was then rekindled when the same aircraft fell into disrepair and was in need of restoration and I had the disposable income to take lessons. Unfortunately this is a very expensive hobby and not really one I can still justify though I occasionally fly with friends when possible. I can also fly model planes and helicopters but I’m almost as talented at crashing them as I am flying them. Luckily that skill hasn’t transferred to the real thing. Editor: Andy lives in a different league to the rest of us. Mark Wade (VIP Developer and owner of scathing put-downs) I can solve a Rubik's cube in under two minutes. Editor: Pfft. Depending on how well the stickers are adhered, I can solve one in under a minute. Brandon Farber (Developer and owner of impressive tools) I don't know if I'd call it a talent, but I enjoy woodworking when I have time. I built a swinging day bed for my wife out of a couple of pallets and some misc wood and hardware, I screened in my back patio last year, I built a coffin for a Halloween party, and I built a desk two days before Christmas for my daughter as some recent examples. Right now I'm in the middle of building some planter boxes for our front porch. Editor: I made an ash tray for my mum in school once. She loved it, even though she has never once smoked. Desk v1.0 Daniel (Developer, T2 Support and Banksy protege) My secret is art. I used to paint art in the streets of Vienna in summer. Editor: If Daniel needs to work the streets to make ends meet, we should probably give him a pay rise. Daniel painting One of Daniel's creations Jennifer (Designer and owner of cool costumes) I do custom cosplay for myself and my family and I like to make digital space scenes in photoshop. Batman was not created by Jennifer Editor: Our legal department would like to point out that Batman was co-created by Bob Kane. Ryan (Developer and owner of short hair) I have an old one I can't really do anymore - I used to be able to do a pretty close Donald Duck impression. I've forgotten how to do it properly, though. Editor: Interesting thing to share. Ryan has many talents. He can play guitar and bass. He looks a bit like Ethan Hawke. Yet he chose to share the fact he can do a Donald Duck impression. Marc (Support and owner of things on wheels) I'm very good on skates (quad skates, not this inline stuff people do now). Me and my cousin used to do freestyle speed skating and half pipe. Stopped doing so once I got to an age whereby I was breaking things more than bouncing. Something I miss doing, so much so that I still have my skates, even though I haven't been on them in about 20 years. Editor: This is probably not Marc. That's enough from us. To be honest we were all blown away when we learned that Daniel was a secret street artist and he paints amazing pictures. We'd love to hear what your hidden talents are. Let us know below!

One of the advantages of running your own community is that you get to control the branding. Branding is important as it defines and re-enforces your customer's experience. Branding also promotes recognition, it sets you apart from your competition and it provides motivation and direction for your staff. Invision Community has many built in tools to change the look and feel of the community. If you are a savvy coder, you can dive right into the HTML and CSS templates to create truly unique themes. You might also look at an off-the-shelf theme from our marketplace. There are some great themes you can use as a base for your branding. Easy Mode Editor One tool that is often overlooked is the Easy Mode Editor. It's a great way to make some simple changes to reflect your brand's identity. It offers a great deal of control, but I want to show you how you can brand your community in just a few short minutes without knowing a line of code. The presentation below takes you through creating a new Easy Mode theme, and using the Easy Mode Editor on the front end to dynamically change the colours. You'll also learn how to upload your logo. How to brand your community presentation Email Branding Another area to consider is outgoing emails. Invision Community leverages emails for notifications, as well as the bulk email system in the Admin CP. These emails look fine by default, but adding your logo and primary color re-enforces your branding. The presentation below shows you the few simple steps needed to brand your emails. How to brand your emails presentation As you can see, Invision Community offers simple tools to change the look of your community without knowing how to code. We hope you find this useful. If you have any questions, please let us know below!

Good news! We've taken Invision Community's Blog app by the scruff of the neck and dragged it into 2018! There has been a growing trend for imagery to play a very important part of a blog entry. This update reflects that. Introducing Grid View We have added a new view that shows your blog entries as cards with space for a cover photo. We've very visual creatures, and a good photograph can entice readers into your blogs to read more. As you would expect, you can disable this mode from the Admin CP for purists that prefer the traditional list format. For those who's sense of adventure runs deep, the new grid mode allows you to show a list of latest blog entries as the blog home page. This puts valuable and engaging content right in front of your audience. This list view persists when you view a blog's entries giving a consistent feel. Viewing an entry We've given the blog entry page a little make-over by featuring the cover photo above the content. The slimmed down blog details bar allows your audience to focus on the content. Default Cover Photos You may have spotted that entries without a cover photo have a rather fetching geometric pattern in different colors. This is a new micro-feature of Invision Community 4.3. Currently, if you do not have a cover photo on a blog, profile or event, the bar is a rather sad shade of black. The new default cover photo feature makes it much more cheerful. Here's what a profile looks like. Much better. Here's a few technical details for those that love to know all the things. The grid view feature can be turned off in the ACP (but doing so will make me very sad) You can choose the default home page view: Latest Entries or List of Blogs. You can still view a list of blogs when you're on the latest entries page. This choice is stored in a little cookie (GDPR friendly, it doesn't contain any identifying data) so navigating back gets you the last view you chose. Let us know what you think! We love it, and hope you do too.

One huge benefit of running your own Invision Community is the moderation tools. Out of the box, Invision Community allows you to turn members into moderators. Better still, you can define what these moderators have permission to do. Part of this moderation suite is the report system. The report system allows your members to flag posts that need a moderator's attention. There comes a time when your community is so successful that it can be a little tough to keep up with all the content and reports. Community Moderation This new feature leverages your member reports to automatically remove objectionable content from public view. You as the admin will define thresholds for the content. For example, you may say that to hide content, a post needs 5 reports. This reduces the workload for your moderators and enables you to crowd source moderation. Let's take a look at this feature in a little more detail. Reporting Content When a member reports a piece of content, they now have the option to set a type, such as "Spam" or "Offensive". These options can count towards the threshold. Once the threshold has been passed the item is hidden. The threshold can be set up by creating rules in the Admin CP. Admin Set Up At its heart of the system are the rules. You can create custom rules in the Admin CP to determine the thresholds. For example, you may decide that: A member with less than 10 posts only needs 5 reports to hide the content. But you may want to give more experienced members a higher threshold as there is more trust. You simply add a new rule: A member who joined over a year ago with over 500 posts needs 10 reports to hide content. You can do that easily with the rules system as it will scan them all and pick the one most suitable for this member. It's as simple as that. Notifications Once an item has received enough reports to match the threshold, it is automatically hidden from view. A notification is sent to all moderators who opt in for notifications. This notification shows inline in the notifications center. It can also optionally be sent via email for those who want to know without checking the site. Restoring the content Of course, a moderator may decide that the content is fine and un-hide it. Once a piece of content has been un-hidden, automatic moderation will not hide it again. Report Types Depending on your community, the default types may not be suitable or relevant. You may also want to set up other report types. You can do this via the Admin CP. Preventing Abuse Your first thought may be that a single member can report a single item multiple times to force content to be hidden. The system will only count a unique member as one point towards the threshold. This means a single member can report an item 5 times, but they are only counted once towards the threshold. You can also set a time limit between reporting the same item. This will prevent a member reporting a single item multiple times in succession. Of course, the member can delete their report if it was in error. Report Center The Report Center is the hub for all reported content. Invision Community 4.3 adds a filter to view a specific report type. The reports themselves also show the type of report. We hope that this new feature will be a huge help and time saver for you and your moderators. We'd love to hear your thoughts, please let us know what you think and if you have any questions.

When I started creating communities close to two decades ago, getting new members was easy. All you had to do was put up a script, create some "Chat here" forums and email your friends. It didn't take long for word to spread and you had a healthy forum buzzing with conversation. Now, it's different. The internet is a crowded space. No matter what your niche, you will be competing with other businesses for visitors. You need a solid strategy to succeed, and I want to help you. Before you open the doors to your new community, consider the following questions. What is your vision? Your community must have a strong reason to attract visitors. Write down your community's purpose and bullet point how you will achieve it. When you configure and set up your community, keep asking yourself "does this fit my vision". For example. Consider a fitness professional who is launching a community. The vision is to educate your audience on good nutrition and exercise. You then have subscription based packages for one-to-one coaching. This is a very focused vision. You will create one or two forums for the public areas. You will leverage clubs for the paid memberships. You wouldn't create forums for non-fitness areas such as technology or movies. You will strip the complexity back to encourage interaction as your target market may not be very technical. What is your voice? You will lead your community and set the tone. If you are handling investment portfolios then you will want the tone to be friendly, but professional. If you are creating a forum for marathon runners, you'd want to use a lot of running "lingo" and be informal and fun. Consider your target audience. Think about how they would like to be treated. How would they like your interactions to be? Once you have found your voice, keep it consistent. Your members will follow your lead and keep your community positive. How are you going to onboard new members? If you want people to join in with your new community, you need to hold their hand and show them why they are important to you. They will want to feel comfortable and valued in your community. When you are starting out, take the time to welcome each new member and point them to any welcome guides you may have. You can create and pin a topic that explains how to get started. When a new member joins, link them to that topic. You should also use profile completion to politely enforce the use of a user photo. A photo personalises a user's profile and reminds that you are speaking to a human! Remind them to set up email notifications so they won't miss any exciting updates or new topics. What is your promotion strategy? No matter how great your content is, it needs promoting. There are several great ways to do this. You can create a monthly email sent to all members. You can outline any important topics or articles. You can list upcoming events. You can promote your articles to Facebook and Twitter. Make the headlines interesting to encourage clicks into your content. By driving traffic back to your site, you will increase your membership. How often are you going to contribute to your own community? In the early days of your new community, you will have to be very active. You will want to welcome new members and keep conversations alive. You will be creating new conversations for others to contribute in. You must budget time for this and be consistent. Show up every day. I recommend setting aside two blocks of 30 minutes each day. Use that time to reply to any new topics and to kick off a few of your own. Visit early in the morning, and again in the evening. How are you going to reward active members? Once you community gets going, some individuals will stand out as leaders. These leaders are well respected and encourage others to take part. Create a special member group with better privileges such as increased storage space, or the ability to create post signatures. Give them a special badge and member title. It will show that you respect and appreciate their contributions. Having a small number of community leaders will save you time. They will always have their fingers on the pulse and can feedback any issues before they develop into something serious. Are you going to funnel discussion into your community? Your community is one part of your site. If you have pages and articles up elsewhere, I recommend you encourage posting in the forums. At the end of each article, link to a related forum and ask for their thoughts. People love sharing their thoughts and opinions. Summary Taking the time to create a strategy will pay dividends later. Getting into a professional and focused mindset will make you stand out from the crowd. Knowing the exact purpose of your community and how to execute it is key for success. Thinking about the questions posed above is a great start. It should make you think about your target audience and how to serve them. It may even create more questions. I'd love to help you answer them. Let me know what your plans are for your community.

As we make our final commits, merge in the last of our branches and wait for Charles to move more tasks to the development list, we pause to reflect on our year together as a company. Pour some egg nog, grab some snacks and lets take a look at our journey this year. Our year in numbers In 2017 we made 72 Invision Community releases, 6584 code commits, read 157,203 customer replies and made an average of 177 staff replies to tickets per day. Our year in dates We were certainly busy this year. We launched Invision Community 4.2, started work on Invision Community 4.3, started two new blog series and a newsletter. Lets take a look at the key dates. March 10th We started talking about our upcoming release, Invision Community 4.2 which saw us drop "Invision Power Services" in favour of the sleeker and less awkward "Invision Community". March 28 - 30th During our series of blogs on 4.2, we launch a triple whammy of blog entries outlining reactions, clubs and social media promotions. Three new tent-pole features that drove 4.2 to be our most successful release. July 19th We release Invision Community 4.2 to deafening applause (most of it was our own, but it still counts). We give the development team a 15 minute break and then drop the 4.3 task list internally. September 15th We start a new blog series "Team Talk". The idea is to show that we're not a bunch of code writing robots, but we're real people with personalities, hopes and dreams. So far, it's proved that we're mostly a bunch of code writing robots without personalities. The irony. October 18th Not content to just talk about silly things in Team Talk, we launched our new long form blog series "Community Management". Here we give our many years of community building insight to help you become successful in running your communities. We've tackled a number of subjects from SEO to security so far with many more planned for 2018. October 30th Our development team have been busy working on Invision Community 4.3 and we announce it to the world. And being the huge tease we are, we've said nothing since. Rest assured, we've got a lot done and its shaping up to be another great release. We'll be talking about it in more detail next year. It's all about you Of course, we couldn't finish without saying a massive THANK YOU to all our customers. We are so lucky to do something we love for a living and that is only possible because you choose to use us to build your community. We are committed to keep moving forward to ensure that we serve you in the best way possible. We'll keep innovating to give you the tools you need to succeed and we'll keep posting blogs packed full of tips and advice. Here's to 2018 and all the adventures it brings.

The Christmas lights are twinkling, the mince pies baked and the egg nog has been poured. With Christmas just around the corner, we turn our thoughts to what 2018 may bring. Marc Stridgen (Tech support and kettlebell enthusiast) I'm just looking forward to 2018 being less of a mixed year, as 2017 has been a bit of a bad one on the side of family, yet good with regards work and personal achievements. So here goes for my 2018: Looking forward to 4.3 and beyond. 4.2 I feel has been a great release for people, and will be nice to expand on the 4.x platform over the next year. Getting my wife and daughter to a happier place in life. Various things this year have meant they really haven't been. I have 3 events so far this year that I'm attending. 1 x 5k obstacle course, 1 x 10k obstacle course, and a 60 mile ride from Manchester to Blackpool. I always look forward to these, as its always a good sense of achievement when they are done, and a good excuse to get that little more in shape. Dev, dev, dev!! Whilst I am currently tier 1 support here at IPS, I'm actually a developer by trade. Currently I write .NET windows applications/services, and vast experience with TSQL. My aim this year is to update my own skillsets to web based development, and mysql. Something I have already started to do, but I'm going to be pushing myself more on over the coming year. It's fun to learn new things! (Editor: Marc is a highly skilled SQL specialist. Even Wade has been known to ask Marc for advice) Ryan Ashbrook (Developer, T3 specialist and guitar collector) My life is actually pretty boring (Editor: nope, it's not) - I don't have a whole lot planned going into 2018, though I am looking forward to my 30th birthday in March. People think I'm weird for that. I plan on getting back into music, though, as I've actually stopped playing throughout all of 2017 (aside from a few rare instances here and there), so it'll be nice to pick that up again as a healthy hobby. I also wouldn't mind traveling more, and make a return trip to New Hampshire with my friends, which I haven't done in four-ish years now. For IPS, I'm looking forward to seeing how 4.3 evolves and matures, as well as the new Community in the Cloud infrastructure. Mark Wade (Senior Developer and praise withholder) Obviously 4.3 and onwards ? I have some cool stuff (at least by my standards) planned, including weekends in Edinburgh and Berlin at the beginning of the year, and Country To Country Festival at the O2 in March ? and, best of all... Shania Twain at the O2 in October ? Prides! ?️‍? This year I only did Manchester... a terrible effort. I need to get at least 2 in in 2018 New TV seasons, especially Black Mirror and GBBO. (Editor: That's Great British Bake Off, the most British television show on the planet. People make cakes and then discuss cakes while drinking tea) Brandon Farber (Developer) For 2018 I'm most looking forward to: Watching my beautiful baby daughter grow. Even with 6 kids, the baby phase is always such a special and enjoyable time. Wrapping up some various challenges in real life that are finally coming to an end. Watching my eldest son start college in the fall (UNC most likely) Taking one big family vacation. We're hoping Disney World but we'll wait and see what's in store as the year gets going. Probably the cutest pictures you'll see today. Stuart Silvester (Developer and property mogul) I'm looking forward to 2018 being a better all around year for my close family, 2017 wasn't the best. I'm definitely looking forward to taking some more trips abroad, most like back to Italy and Madeira (Where my Wife and I spent Christmas 2016). I'm also looking forward to hopefully finding some spare time to work on other things such as renovating my home and putting my classic car back on the road. Learning new things is always useful, I've been wanting to start working on something such as an App or Node.JS (I've used it a little in the past, but not a lot), the issue however is the lack of spare time this year. Mark Higgins (Tech Support and part-time Phil) For 2018, I am hoping for an early warm Spring, then a mild Summer. Also hopeful that I can get my pop-up camper fixed so I can have a relaxing vacation in the Fall somewhere "up north" in one of our fantastic State Parks. That, and good health for me and my relatives. (Editor's Tip: if you hear banjo music, get in your car and get out of there) Jennifer Merriman (Designer and owner of the only pink avatar in chat) What do I have to look forward to in 2018? Well this one was difficult because I prefer to live pretty spontaneously. However, I thought about the things in my life that I know will transpire this year. My youngest child will turn 10 and my eldest 13... I'm terrified but excited to see them as they grow more independent. Loosening up the mom reigns by letting my kids start to do things a little more out of my control more regularly. A few million new movies like Aquaman, Jurassic World, Deadpool 2 and Incredibles 2. Otherwise just improved situations for myself and those around me. Both health and whatever else needs improved upon. Daniel Fatkic (Developer and owner of a store with sauna) 2018 is going to be a very busy year with my 3 jobs ( IPS, Dad and Handyman renovating a lot in the house) where I look forward in getting better in all 3 of them. Right now I'm working on my new home-office which will hopefully be finished soon, in spring I want to start the work on the outdoor area and create a patio and a rooftop terrace and the next winter project is the gym/spa area which won't leave much spare time or money for anything else. So what I really really look forward to is 2019 where I can then finally relax and enjoy the stuff which was built in 2018. (Editor: If you're wondering where your spare money went, look at your two LG 27" 5K monitors) Rhett Buck (Hosting expert who needs a ladder to get into his car) I'm looking forward to some time off and a trip to Texas with just the wife and I, top down, no phones, and a few days on the road to get there via Las Vegas, Arizona and a few other stops along the way. Spending a few days with friends relaxing watching MotoGP in Austin Texas, then a few days of relaxing on the open road on the way home. We had planned to go last year, but due to nasty weather, torrential rains, and flooding locally, we were displaced for a couple weeks which ruined our plans. Andy Millne (Developer and international man of mystery) Continued learning mostly. I’m looking forward to further improving my basic Italian language knowledge that I started taking a lot more seriously (It’s not just about waving your arms around). I would also like to fit in some more travel and to visit some old friends I haven’t seen in a while. There’s still so much of the world left to see though! Where to start? On an IPS related theme, I’m of course looking forward to 4.3 and seeing new features we’ve been working on released into the wild, and the stuff that hasn’t even been dreamt of yet. Matt Mecham (Senior Developer, social media stuff and object of ridicule) I'm really looking forward to 2018, personally and professionally. I'm really excited about launching Invision Community 4.3 which is shaping up to build on the great foundation that 4.2 built and add some cool functionality. (Editor: yes, that's enough of the sales pitch, people want to read about the team). As a dad of two, I enjoy watching my kids grow. My nine year old is becoming more independent and my two year old is getting more confident with speech. I love watching them grow up. We've also booked to take them to Disneyland in Paris in April which we're all looking forward to. Disneyland Paris. Like the ones in America but colder and nearer to the UK. We would love to hear what you're looking forward to in 2018. Let us know in the comments below!

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation (EU 2016/679) that is intended to strengthen and unify data protection for EU residents from 25th May 2018. How can Invision Community help? While Invision Community enables you to collect and store information, it's important to note that you as the site owner are the data controller. If your site can collect data from EU citizens, then we recommend that you research your responsibilities. We have introduced several new tools in Invision Community 4.2.7 to help you with compliance, and we'll run through them and the relevant sections of the regulation in this blog. Individual Rights (More information) Right to be informed Invision Community has an area for you to edit your own privacy policy. This is found in the Admin CP > Settings > Terms & Privacy Policy. Guidance on what the policy should contain can be found here. Right to erasure (More information) Invision Community allows you to delete a member from the Admin CP. If the member has left posts or comments on your community, you can elect to delete the content, or keep it but remove the author's details thereby making the content anonymous. Lawful bases for processing (More information) Consent (More information) Invision Community now features a setting to not automatically opt in to administrator emails such as those sent by the bulk email system often used for newsletters when registering a new account on your community. This feature is found in the ACP > Members > Registration Settings Part of the consent regulation is to record when consent was given. The consent to opt-in for administrator emails such as bulk emails sent via the Admin CP is recorded at registration, and each time they change the setting. This record can be found in the member history log when viewing a member in the Admin CP. If you change the Terms & Conditions, or the Privacy Policy, you can request that members accept these changes when they next log in thus giving their consent for those changes. Cookies (More information) Invision Community stores a small amount of data in cookies. These are used to authorize you when you re-visit a community. Other cookies are used to provide a service at the user's request, such as changing a theme or using Commerce's cart. We have added additional features for Invision Community 4.2.7 to permit acknolwedgement that cookies will be set, and a brief page outlining the types of cookies that are set. Invision Community has a feature that shows a small message to new visitors to the community. This is found in the Admin CP > Terms & Privacy Policy page. We have pre-configured a cookie acknowledgement message using the short-tags {cookies}. This will display as follows: This links to a new page showing brief information about the types of cookies that Invision Community stores. Although at the time of writing this blog entry, the regulation states that there is no exact information that you need to show on the cookie page, you can edit it to add more detail if you wish. Summary We hope these new tools available with Invision Community 4.2.7 make it easier for you to seek compliance with GDPR if you choose to do so. It's worth pointing out that we are awesome at making community software and know a huge amount about making communities successful, but we are not experts in EU regulation. We offer this blog entry as a way to assist you in seeking compliance but you must do your own research and are responsible for your own community. Invision Community 4.2.7 is currently in beta testing. We're aiming to release it early next week. We hope this is a good starting point for you!

Matt was recently invited onto the Community Signal Podcast, where he spoke with host Patrick O'Keefe. Everything from how Matt got started with online communities right up to the possibility of a post Facebook era was covered in their 45 minute chat. Matt also gives a little insight into how Invision Community works behind the scenes. From Community Signal: Check out the podcast now!

Despite your best efforts, is engagement a problem for your community? You have your site promotion running well and you are seeing plenty of traffic but it doesn't convert into comments, posts or reactions? Invision Community is a powerful platform that offers layers of complexity for the many sites it powers. When you are struggling to convert page views into comments, it's worth taking a step back and evaluating your site from a new user's point of view. We'll take you through our 6 best tips to simplify your site and increase engagement using built in tools. #1 Use Social Sign In with at least Facebook and Twitter enabled. Social sign in makes it easy for causal visitors to become content contributors by creating an account. Social sign in removes the complex registration form that may put some off. It's a fact that most people visiting your site will have either a Facebook account or a Twitter account. Use that to your advantage! #2 Use Profile Completion One of the biggest reasons sites fail to convert visitors into members is because of large or complex forms. If you have many required profile fields, your potential member is likely to abandon the form. Use the Profile Completion system with fewer fields where possible for a simpler registration form. The Profile Completion system allows new members to complete their profile in their own time. Of course, you can still enforce vital fields before members can contribute. #3 Use Fluid View Traditional forums can be a little daunting to site visitors used to Facebook. The top down categorisation is a strength for separating conversations. Yet, it can be confusing for a first time visitor to navigate. Fluid view breaks down these boundaries by presenting your conversations in one simple list. By removing the need to jump between forum containers, new visitors are encourage to keep diving deeper into your conversations. An engaged visitor is more likely to contribute. #4 Keep your forum structure simple Even with fluid view enabled, complex forum structures can confuse. Consider a brand new forum with a hundred different conversation areas. Would a new user know where to go and post? Would they be put off thinking they are posting in the wrong area? The best advice is always start off with as few forum containers as possible and increase them as your community grows. #5 Use Reactions One of the simplest ways to increase engagement is to turn on Reactions. Reactions allow other members to leave feedback on a post in a few clicks. The default reactions allow one to like, give thanks, express confusion, sadness or happiness. You can add your own reactions to tailor the platform to your niche and personality. Non-verbal engagement is important for your active posters. If they receive reactions to their posts, they are more likely to reply more and return often to see what feedback they have received. #6 Use the Sign In/Sign Up widget A very simple way to increase visitor to member conversion is to just ask them to register. Invision Community ships with a drag and drop widget that you can use to outline what your site is about and encourage registration. In one very simple but prominent box, you can see what the site is about and how to join in. Summary New and existing communities should take a moment to see their site through a new visitor's eyes. Consider how easy your structure is to navigate and how many barriers to registration there are. You can streamline both registration and conversation presentation with our built in tools. The key to increasing engagement is to make it a simple as possible to join your community. Make sure your barriers or entry are set low. Not using Invision Community? We can convert you from other platforms preserving your data. Our migration page has more information on the platforms we can convert you from.

4.2.7 is a maintenance release that fixes issues identified in 4.2.6 and also adds settings to help with GDPR compliance. This release also contains several security updates.

It's hard to believe that we're close to wrapping up 2017 already. It seems like only yesterday we were putting the finishing touches to Clubs, Fluid View, Profile Completion and all the other new features added this year. We're not resting though, Invision Community 4.3 is well underway and we'll be releasing news of its new features soon. Our developers have been busy squashing bugs and release Invision Community 4.2.6. Regular visitors to our own community may have noticed that we've been running several search tests to improve the results search brings. Our latest community articles continue to be well received. This month's highlights are: In team talk we post a simple question that proved hard to answer. As always, we'd love to hear what you think of our articles. If there's anything you'd like covered, just let us know below! Thanks!

It's that time of year again! Have you been thinking about starting your Invision Community? Or perhaps you're currently using another service and want to take advantage of our modern, mobile ready and social media equipped platform? This has been a great year for Invision Community. We've added many new features including Clubs, Fluid View, Profile Completion and more. We've been adding useful articles such as the benefits of owning your own community versus a Facebook Group, how to optimize your community's SEO, and how to stop spam. And we're already working on our next major release due out early 2018. To celebrate, we have two new coupon codes for you! 20% OFF ALL CLOUD PACKAGES Start with Invision Community today with our hassle free cloud packages. There's nothing to upload and nothing to install. You don't need to know your FTP from your MySQL. We do all that for you! Use coupon code during checkout: CICBF2017 15% OFF SELF HOSTED LICENSES Prefer to manage your own hosting? No problem. Grab your downloadable license today. Use coupon code during checkout: SHBF2017 The small print These coupons are valid from today right through to midnight Monday 27th November (EST). Note, the self hosted coupon is not valid for renewals. Thanks and happy shopping!

This month we ask a very simple question that got our team thinking hard. “If you could only keep five possessions, what would they be?” Now, this doesn't assume that there is a disaster, so you don't need to think about things like food and water. It also doesn't need to include humans or pets. This is also not a "Desert Island" question so survival tools are not required. This got us really thinking about what material possessions are important to us. It also made us realise how much technology has made a lot of things redundant. We might have said "CD collection and my favourite books" ten years ago, but with a phone, that's no longer the case as so much is handled on the device. Ryan (Developer & Guitar showroom owner) In terms of just packing up and moving on, I actually don't own a lot that I would consider critical / prized / irreplaceable. My dad's 50 year old acoustic guitar is all I would take with me, as it's the only thing that *isn't* directly replaceable. Maybe include iMac and iPhone to have some sort of connection to the outside world at all times, but I really don't need anything else I own. Brandon (Developer & Jet ski owner) I guess if I were to pick five things I couldn't live without I'd have to narrow down the list to my phone, my wallet, my TV (I unwind by zoning out on movies or home repair shows), my car (I can't walk to anything but the ICW here which wouldn't do me much good), and coffee (with International Delights Cold Stone Creamery creamer). Brandon neglected to mention that he owns a Jet Ski Marc S (Support technician & cycle injury enthusiast) Top 5 is hard, and makes you realise that despite living in a world of material possession, we actually rely on very few things. Albeit tending to be expensive things. So here goes. Mobile Phone - Despite the calls (which I could do without), and facebook (which I probably should do without), I have a problem with sleeping. For years now I have been using the audible app on my phone to listen to audiobooks. Usually factual stuff, so it doesnt really matter if I lose position. It helps me with my sleep, and therefore my sanity. Computer - This isn't just because I work on one. I tend to spend a lot of hours at it, even when I am not working. Whilst I do support here at IPS, I do a lot of development in my spare time, on my own projects, and quiet enjoy it. Currently working on an app for my brother which tracks horse racing points for a game that he runs, which is just something a bit different to do of an evening. Kettlebells - I'm trying to get a little fitter than I am at the moment. I spent a long time being a very unfit person, and sitting at a computer 24/7. Never a good thing to do, and it eventually starts to catch up with your wasteline (honestly. You in your 20s reading this, it does!). I joined a gym before I moved house, and got quite into working out with kettlebells, so when I moved, I bought some to use myself. I now have a PT who creates sessions for me each week. We're unsure who took the photo Bike - Whilst I havent used it half as much as I would like lately, I trained for, and completed, a 100 mile bike ride earlier this year, along with a few friends, including Andy Milne. This made be realise just how much I enjoy riding a bike. To the degree we're now planning our next bike challenge. Kettle - I'm pretty sure I would die without coffee. There is little else to say about that! Andy (Developer and Support technician) I realise I have far too much clutter in my life answering this question but I managed to come up with 4 things; Running Shoes Bike Watch Laptop Andy finishing the Reykjavik marathon, 19 August 2017 I’m going to make a conscious effort to be a bit more minimalist now and switch to a standing desk and a Paleo diet or go barefoot or whatever other healthy lifestyle choice @Matt recommends this week. Mark W (The Senior Developer) To answer this question I opened up my travel checklist - having taken off the things you said are excluded like clothes and toiletries, the only thing I have is my meditation stool, my laptop, my iPad, my phone, and my watch... so I guess that's my 5! Matt (Developer and object of ridicule) It's a hard one to answer. Years ago, before the internet, I could have listed many things but digital devices and "The Cloud" replaces so much. Here's my five. Macbook Pro. This is my daily work machine and uses iCloud to sync up my work and personal items like photos, etc. I'd have this packed first. iPhone. It's never far from my hands and with Netflix, Amazon, Audible, iTunes and Kindle contains books, music, favourite TV shows and more. I use Audible most nights to help me switch off and get to sleep. Sleepphones. I like to look really cool while sleeping, so a grey fleece headband is a must. Fortunately, they also double as bluetooth headphones designed to not dig into your ears while you sleep. I couldn't be without these. Air Pods. Yes, another pair of headphones. But these little beauties fit in my pocket and I use them when out and about. The lack of cable is a real plus although they're easy to lose. Concept 2 Rower: Ok, so it's not really going to fit in my hand luggage but I thought about which bit of fitness equipment I'd keep. It's a tough one between kettlebells, weights, the treadmill and the rower but I think the rower wins as it can be used many ways for a good workout. Mark H (Support Technician and part-time Phil) Macbook, iPhone, E-cig, suspenders, and my .357 Magnum. (Editors note: I'm genuinely not sure if this is a joke answer or not but didn't like to ask. Either way it's the best list of things I've ever seen.) Daniel (Support Technician and Developer) My five are: Phone, watch, laptop and 1000kg of headache medicine. That's it, i don't need a fifth item since it's only about "stuff" and not family. (Editors note: I'm hoping that 1000kg is just a guess. I'm starting to regret asking this question.) Jennifer (Designer) Computer - This is my work, play, entertainment, and more device. Plus it's a beast. Mobile Phone - When I'm not on my PC I'm on my phone. It keeps me connected to my communities when I'm out. Plus Zombies, Run is on it. High heels - If I had to choose a specific pair it would one of these two. Bed - It is wonderful and has all of my blankets. I couldn't live without my blankets. Dix It - Because I really couldn't think of another thing and this game is hilarious and fun. This really got us thinking about what is important to us and how much "stuff" we have. What would your five things be?