It's that time of year again and even though we might not look in very often the old mobloggers think 'moblog advent calendar'.
So responding to a prompt from Gael aided and abetted by Linda and Margaret. Here we go again.
I will just add the dates to a list on here as you inform of what you want.

The image is one from a past calendar by Candyman.

It's that time of year folks - looking for volunteers for the advent calendar. Thanks to Twiglet for allowing me to use her image and for starting the ball rolling by volunteering to do the first.

I will just keep a record here - you can email me or contact me via the contact button (top left) or just add your request for a date in a comment.

Thanks everyone - don't be shy new and old mobloggers all welcome to join in.

It's great seeing old faces and new on Moblog recently and so I just wanted to quickly post some thoughts about some hidden features of the platform that are most useful to meet and connect with new people and find the best content.

Adding to Favourites
Whilst leaving comments on each others moblogs is often the most engaging way to meet and get to know people on Moblog, there are times where you might simply want to 'like' a picture, non-verbally, in the same way that you might on Facebook.

The equivalent non-verbal gesture on Moblog is "adding to favourites." Doing this actually sends an email to the owner of the photo telling them that you liked their picture.

Highlights by User
Highlights are those pictures that Moblog community moderators have selected as one of the most interesting pictures on the site. Some mobloggers have loads of highlights and others don't have very many. But either way, you can quickly have a look at them simply by appending their username in the URL, as shown below.

http://moblog.net/highlights/WRITE-USERNAME-HERE/

So, for example, if you wanted to see my highlighted pics, you would just append my username, "jc1000000" to the URL, as shown below.

http://moblog.net/highlights/jc1000000/

Favourites by User
As with "highlights by user" above, you can also see a user's favourite pics on Moblog simply by changing the username portion of the URL, as shown below.

http://moblog.net/dashboard/WRITE-USERNAME-HERE/favorites/

So, again, to see my favourite pics, you would simply edit the URL to say:
http://moblog.net/dashboard/jc1000000/favorites/

The same can be done with any user's dashboard who has a public Moblog. You can see their friends and their latest comments, simply by editing the username portion of the URL.

Eventually, the aim is to fix the design so you don't have to do this, but alas, that's all we have for now!

P.S. I took this photo at the Pterosaurs exhibit at the Natural History Museum in NYC!

P.P.S. It also seems that if you post a full URL in your post, it will automatically link, even if you don't write any code.

Further to my last post, here's some ideas to throw out.

How about a design competition to see if we can rethink some pages. The
image below is just inspiration designed by Neil.

Lets start by rethinking the types of pages below. They currently have no
design whatsoever so we can be try something original.

http://moblog.net/highlights/mat/
http://moblog.net/dashboard/jc1000000/favorites/

You have your own, just insert your username - but think about how they might be useful to others to see yours and theirs as they are already public pages.

We can't necesarrily recode them - this is more coming up with the concept part to coe up with a final design.

I want to say a lot more than what I'm going to end up saying in this post, but cutting a long story short, lets get together on this thread and chat.

I've now officially taken over the responsibility of running and management of Moblog. That's kinda been the case for a year now, but it's wasn't "official" so to speak. The old company has been discontinued and we've used the remaining cash to pay for hosting for Moblog for one year - which will take us into December 2014.

Putting all my cards on the table, it costs around 2200 GBP a year (roughly $3700) to keep Moblog running at it's current level. This is not a huge amount of money for a business to carry, but it's not insignificant either as an individual to carry.

After a lot of consideration, the verdict has been that my new company cannot shoulder this burden. So, if I want to keep moblog running, I have to work out how to fund it myself.

Nonetheless, this is genuinely not a worry for me because I really believe Moblog can carry it's own weight. I mean it basically already does and has survived a long time from donations from site members.

I hate to sound cheesy, but it's you guys who have kept funding the site! Some of you are still paying subscription payments to support the site. Thank you.

All that money goes into a pay pal account that doesn't pay into any personal or commercial bank account. Going forward, it makes sense to keep that running as normal and use the funds raised to pay for Moblog's hosting costs each year.

However, longevity is not a sign of direction! And that's what I really want to chat to you guys about.

It's time to set a good direction. By good direction, I mean a sustainable direction that makes sense, has focus and doesn't try to do too much or too little.

I don't mean a new direction. From one to one conversations with many of you over Skype, it's become clear to me that Moblog does not have to try and be the "new new thing." In fact, it could just stick as being the old thing and it will probably do just fine.

Nonetheless, it also cannot just remain static either. The whole site design needs a refresh and we need to trim the fat. There's a lot of features which are broken or redundant now - or not being used in the best way.

As with all tech, any update requires coding which requires volunteers or paid workers. There is absolutely tonnes of goodwill out there that we can probably crowdsource 90% of what we need to do. And if we can't, I have every confidence that we can raise the money to get what we need to do, done.

In my mind's eye, I imagine that Moblog will go beyond self funding it's own hosting to crowdfunding its own development - with stretch goals and incentives like you see on IndieGogo or Kickstarter.

But, whilst all of the above is well and good, none of it means anything if we don't know where we want to go.

So, if you're still reading this then I'm asking you - where do you want Moblog to go?

I have some ideas which I will share with you in the comments. But here's a couple to get your brains working: (in no particular order)

1. We could make Moblog a social network owned and operated by the users. Like a Co-op. This would be a long term plan and take a non trivial amount of community organization.
2. We could just refresh the design now - change the colours, get a new logo, build a new theme library. This is a short term idea that would take a non-trivial but easily doable amount of resources and planning.
3. We could editorialize all of the groups we currently have. Become a crowdsourced magazine. (Incidentally we also have photoblogging.org as a domain)
4. We could run photography courses.
5. We could start rethinking the current tech on the site and put it to better use - for instance, there is no reason why 'tags' couldn't operate in the same way as hashtags on Twitter or Facebook.

What's the change you want to see? Where's the quickest win you think we can make? What keeps you interested? What's worth your monthly subscription?

Over to you. Let rip. Be brutal if you need to be. "Tonight we cancel the apocalypse!" Oh wait, I'm getting carried away now :)

The 7th moblog Advent calendar, where members post a special picture and message for every day in advent, is all sorted. Thank you everyone.

1st Twiglet
2nd Spiderbaby
3rd Dhamaka
4th Mara
5th Steve
6th Viv or Linda
7th Taniwha
8th Linda or Viv
9th Minushabens
10th Wendle
11th Gary
12th Shitake
13th Lyzardly
14th MaggieD
15th Crickson
16th Margaret
17th Euphro
18th Dania
19th Jane Doe
20th Earthlad
21st Mysteritmo
22nd EJ
23rd Lou
24th Wilvir
25th JC


Once you have claimed a date all you have to do is join the

group

and post a picture on the date you have chosen ( anytime from midnight to about
9am GMT), preferably with a message (short is fine).

Thanks everyone

10 years ago today, Moblog's first image was posted to the site. Can you believe it's been 10 years?

A huge thanks to all of you who have stuck with us!

When Moblog first launched, we called ourselves the "futurephone" community. Yet, mobile phone technology has changed dramatically over the last 10 years and transformed the entire digital landscape to be almost unrecognizable from when this community first started.

The key players in the cell phone space are no longer the hardware manufacturers of Finland and Japan, but the software giants of Silicon Valley. The term mobile, is no longer synonymous with simply phones, but an array of 'devices' in general - we've gone from pagers and 'dumb' phones, to smartphones and tablets. Even now, we're on the brink of witnessing new mobile device categories emerging in the form of smartwatches and smart glasses.

However, despite all this change, your support over the years has meant that Moblog is still here.

Yes, it's been a bumpy ride, but now we are busily planning the third version of this site. We don't know exactly what the future is going to look like but the journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.

So, to celebrate 10 years of Moblog we're taking that step today by launching two new community blogs dedicated to app reviews for Android and iOS/Apple devices.

Posted by jc1000000

Once again we are looking for 25 different 'mobloggers', to give us their perspective on the festive season.

This is the 6th moblog Advent calendar.

Now open to all comers first come first served.

If you wish to contribute please indicate below and I will send you a link to a google document, where you can sign up against a date.

So grab your date quickly - once they are gone they are gone (as they say!)

Thanks to Nic for the above image

Currently signed up...
1st Twiglet, 2nd Mysteritmo, 3rd Jigalong,
4th Gael, 5th Euphro, 6th billion,
7th MaggieD, 8th Taniwha, 9th Dania,
10th Beth, 11th Hobo, 12th Mara,
13th Pandairo, 14th Wendle,
15th Crickson, 16th Krystian, 17th Factotum,
18th mystery blogger,
19th Craft / Candyman, 20th Dhamaka, 21st JC, 22nd Kostika,
23rd Nicola (Nic), 24th Helen, 25th Lou.