babyjesus's blog: "fubar news"

We've been working on some big changes for fubar!

First up, we're going to be adding support for Band Profiles. We're focusing on small / local / indie bands and will allow them to upload their music and keep in touch with their fans. Part of this will also be a daily contest where we can all vote on our favorite new music, and we'll be sending cash to the Peoples Favorite band each day. We'll also be doing a monthly contest and sending the best band $10,000! We're hoping to have this live on the site in the next 2 weeks. Stay tuned!

Next up is simplifying the referral process. I want to do better rewards for people who invite their friends and for those who's friends are actually online. To make this happen I'm going to simplify the referral process so (hopefully) there's less confusion. In the near future the only people who will show up in your referral list will be those who you've invited via email. We'll also update all the home pages to show you whenever your referrals are online. In addition, we'll be awarding you a bonus point percentage based on how many of your referrals are online at any given time. I haven't decided on the exact numbers, but it'll probably be a sliding scale from 1% - 25% bonus points. We'll also be awarding you a small percentage of the points your referral earns, as long as you're both online.

And finally, probably the biggest change to the site in the last 12 months: we'll be revamping all existing levels and adding 5 more. Our goal was to remove the road blocks (500 mumm votes? who's idea was that anyway? lol!), make it quicker to move up the levels, and get the top level members of the site to have used all the functionality we currently provide. The requirements for the higher levels aren't as crazy as they used to be, but they'll be more of them. Also, a fundamental change will be happening for our max level members (level 50 after the update): you'll only stay level 50 if you're active on the site. If you decide to take a break or stop using the site for some period of time (rite now we're thinking 2+ weeks), the account will drop back down to level 49. You won't lose your points, but if you come back to the site you'll need to do the level 50 requirements again to level back up. The idea is not to have a bunch of max level accounts floating around the site that people don't use. When you see a level 50 member, you'll know they're a hard core fubar bad ass. :-)

I'll post some more details about the updated levels in the next few days.

ps: to reach level 50 we'll have at least 1 'widow maker' requirement... you'll probably hate us when you see it, but it's pretty bad ass. we're currently testing it now internally to make sure it's doable. we won't ask you guys to do anything we won't do ourselves. ;)

-mike