360voice Dev Blog

New APIs for Groups

Seems like quite a few of my updates lately have been related to groups.  That wasn't completely intentional - but it probably makes sense being they are the new kids in town.  In any event, following that same path I have just finished up two new APIs which will give you access to the groups information.  A little birdy told me that Fshguy was working on some ideas that might benefit from a group API - so keep an eye on him.

Maybe you were waiting for a group based API to get your feet wet and earn your API Samurai badge, or maybe you were looking for a group API to further your training and join the Ninjas - either way make sure to let us know what you have built using the APIs and dont forget that the API Documentation and XML/API forums are great places to get you started if you want to get to know more about this XML thing....

As always click the title to leave a comment, and send us a link to check out what you have created using these new APIs.

Update: perhaps it would have been nice to provide samples of the new APIs, they were updated in the API Docs, but that doesn't mean you will find the new ones right away - so here examples of the 3 new Group based APIs

Gamertag.Groups: http://www.360voice.com/api/gamertag-groups.asp?tag=squidpunch

Groups.Members: http://www.360voice.com/api/group-members.asp?id=2

Gamertag.Profile: http://www.360voice.com/api/group-profile.asp?id=2

for more details and usage instructions please review the API Documentation

More Email Notifications

Well for those of you that live and breath email notifications, you now have a few more notifications to keep you in the loop with your 360voice groups.  For those of you that are group owners - you can now be notified via email when a member joins your group, and for all members of a group you can receive emails every time a comment is left on a group you are a member of.  Both of these settings are off by default - but if you want to receive an email for either of these things just head over to your Email Notifications section (login required).

Don't forget this is also a place for you to manage any forum topics you have subscribed to, as well as where you can be emailed anytime you gain a watcher, or get comments on your 360's blog. 

It really does seem like I have been putting a bunch of time into group changes - but I also slipped in a quick change to the comments for blogs and group blogs to hopefully lower the amount of spam you guys are getting in your blogs.

Enjoy!

New Avatar Blog Headers

To get ready for the New Xbox Experience this week, we are rolling out a new blog header that takes advantage of the Avatars. If you have the new dashboard right now, go ahead and activate it. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Log in
2. Click on settings
3. Select "Blog Header" from the list.
4. Set it to AVATAR mode.

When the dashboard upgrade happens, we will most likely convert everyone over to the new avatar based header... because it is cooler anyhow! The extra space allowed us to put up some games and such. More space = good.

A special thanks to the man, Squidpunch for some awesome avatar caching/cropping so that all avatars, regardless of height fit nicely in the center of the header. Go check out his blog as I know he has it turned on. I on the other hand, do not have NXE yet... but I did activate with the new header even though my sillouette is a girl. :) Of course, Fatty Chubs has his turned on too as he is one of those big hot-shot Xbox MVPs. ;)

Anyhow, enjoy the new header. Some more things in the works for sharing your avatar online with badges, games, etc.

Cache Makes The World Go 'Round

...Or maybe it was C A S H.  In any event as we continue to work on new features, we also continue to work on things to help in the way of performance.  We just updated the 'Presence' or your current status text that shows on your blog to be based on a local cache.  This will allow us to lower the load we put on the Microsoft servers, but also should be able to display your status faster, being its based on local data rather than bugging the Microsoft servers to tell us your status.  Don't worry your status information should remain relatively up to date, the local data expires every 10 minutes or so, so it can be updated with your most current information.  So for those of you that open your blog and hit refresh 502 times in 12 seconds - we didn't have to bug microsoft for your status all 502 times, at most only once.

This same caching method has been added to the live scores in challenges, with a similar expiration time.  So hopefully you will see the live scores loading faster and again we are contacting microsoft less. 

These changes may not be obvious to you since they are not really a change in what you see on the site - but hopefully it will boost performance enough for you to notice - and it also brings the benefit of decreasing the load on the Microsoft servers.

Group Blogs Now With More Trash

To ride the coat tails of the other group blog enhancement, we bring you yet another feature to the group blogs.  Your group blogs now have the trash talk feature we have all grown to love in the challenges.  Just remember its only called trash talk - lets keep it clean!

Just another quick note, I have seen the change that ChangeAgent has in the works and I think it looks great.  He let the cat out of the bag and let everyone know its related to avatars, soon enough boys and girls - soon enough

Group Blogs Now With Archives

Well you asked for it, and now you have it.  Those group blogs were getting pretty long (thanks for noticing), and now they work just like your normal blog complete with an archive list,and archived entries.  Perhaps a HUGE change but it makes looking at those group blogs a bit easier.  We have a few other new things in the works - so look for an update on those soon hopefully.

Badge Genre Update

All of the following are additions.

RPG - Too Human, Tales of Vesperia
Sports - Madden NFL 09, NHL 09, NHL 2k9, Tiger Woods 09, Top Spin 3
Puzzle - Coffee Time Crosswords, Roogoo
Fighting - Samurai Showdown II
Racing - Pure, Sega Rally, MX vs ATV
FPS - ET: Quake Wars, DOOM, Marathon: Durandal
Music - Rock Band 2, DDR Universe 2 (Fix)
Social - Gin Rummy
Family - Feeding Frenzy, Feeding Frenzy 2, Viva Pinata 2:TIP
Strategy - Universe at War, C&C3 Kane's Wrath
Oddball - Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm
Sandbox - Mercenaries 2, The Incredible Hulk
SHMUP - Galaga Legions
Party - Bomberman Live

We have also added a Hack and Slash genre, you can view the current games here.  Hack and Slash is designed to incorporate games like Dynasty Warriors (Heavy hack and slash/you versus lots of folks) as well as games like Ninja Gaiden/Conan, which incorporate a bit more adventure elements.

These will run for the first time today, to see how the changes effect you or more details on earning them, check out Fshguy's Badge Calculator.

There is a good roll up of current suggestions on our forums, to make a suggestion I suggest using the official thread.

Check it before you post it!

Did you ever send off a comment on a blog riddled with spelling and grammatical errors?  Ever think, "boy wouldn't it be great if I had read that over, or had a way to preview it before posting that comment" - well wish no longer when leaving a comment on a blog on someones blog (like mine) or a group blog (like the 3VCE Group) you can now preview your message before making it permanently displayed - don't worry its also available for those of you that make mass comments as well!

For those of us that "dunt speel so gud" or those that just want to make sure the smilies and links you included show properly, we now have a new weapon to help us battle the english language and comment formatting to make sure that comment looks exactly like you want before you send it off for the world to see!

Your Xbox has Groups

New feature today! Your Xbox now has groups.

How do they work?

1. You have to be logged in to create groups (meaning you need an account)
2. Go to the create groups page.
3. Create your own group!
4. Or go to the group list and join a group.
5. You get all sorts of aggregate stats and a group blog with activity summary on active group members each day.

Easy as pie! That is it for now... consider this a trial run. I am already thinking of enhancements we can make to this... and of course there are APIs that will be documented... badges that will be created... leaderboards... all in good time!

Update 10:43am ET:

For those that want to know, the group blogs update right after the individual xbox blogs.

Genre Updates

Some genre updates have been made that will take effect with today's badge processing. All the games below are additions to genres.

Family - Wall-E
Fighting - Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit, Soulcalibur, Soulcalibur IV
FPS - Unreal Tournament 3
RPG - Penny Arcade episode 1
Retro - Battlezone, Warlord
RACING - Nascar 09
SHMUP - Aces of the Galaxy, 1942: Joint Strike, Geometry Wars 2
Social - Ticket to Ride
Sports - NCAA Football
Strategy - Civilization Revolution, Supreme Commander

Have fun with that, a decent amount of newer titles that should shake things up but fit pretty well into their respective genres. Any questions or concerns let us know.