After 2 solid months of beta testing, we are excited to finally take the wraps off of the Jamroom 6 Beta!

As a team we've been working really hard since summer to make sure Jamroom 6 provides the foundation we need for the next several years of Jamroom.  There have been quite a few "ups and downs" along the way, but it feels great to finally get Jamroom 6 into everyone's hands.

We want to thank everyone for your patience while we worked through A LOT of issues during the beta - more than we anticipated to be 100% honest.  The Timeline updates alone ended up being much, much more work than we had planned when we were putting together our Jamroom 6 TODO list.  It's all been worth it however, as going forward we have a lot more flexibility in key areas of Jamroom that we will be able to take advantage of over the coming months.

To celebrate the release of Jamroom 6, we are running TWO Specials!

 - 10% Off All Hosting Packages Upgrades!  This is a great deal - upgrade now and save 10% off your monthly hosting payment, and get access to more CPU, RAM and disk space.  Remember with Jamroom Hosting you can run as MANY Jamroom sites as you want on your server - it’s all included in the monthly price:

https://www.jamroom.net/hosting

 - 20% Off Jamroom Premium and the NEW Jamroom Professional!   Jamroom Premium and Jamroom Professional are designed for users that want to run Jamroom on their own servers, yet have access to the UNLIMITED features found in the Jamroom Hosting packages.  Install as many Premium Jamroom items on up to 2 domains, and easily add more:

https://www.jamroom.net/products

Make sure and check out the Jamroom 6 Upgrade announcement in the Support Forum:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/announcements/46096/jamroom-6-upgrade-guide

and let us know if you have any feedback or questions.

We hope you all enjoy using Jamroom 6!

Thanks!

- The Jamroom Team

I’m really excited to announce that after several months of development we are kicking off the open beta for Jamroom 6!

Jamroom 6 is our first MAJOR version change for Jamroom in 3 years - although there have been a ton of new features introduced since Jamroom 5 was initially released, we felt it was time to have some fun!

A LOT of work has gone into Jamroom 6 to make it the best version of Jamroom yet - we’ve been working like mad since Nate joined the team.

What’s New in Jamroom 6

There are dozens and dozens of updates and new features throughout many of the modules - some of the big ones:

- All new “Follow Me” social skin - our most ambitious social skin ever
- Enhanced Timeline with “Quick Share” and all new sharing options
- New “Simple Chat” module makes chat on your site totally seamless
- New HTML Transactional Email support makes all your system notification email look awesome
- New “Profile Pulse” for profile notification counts
- Beefed up Media URL Scanner module now creates “cards” for shared URLs
- New User Birthday module - say happy birthday to your users
- Core DataStore enhancements to make Jamroom fly on larger sites

We have a ton of other smaller updates, tweaks and fixes that are getting rolled out with the Jamroom 6 open beta as well.  Jamroom 6 is a FREE upgrade for everyone - if you are already a Jamroom Hosted or Premium user you'll see upgrades available for your Premium modules as well.

Follow Me - the new super-social skin

Jamroom 6 includes a brand new skin for Jamroom - “Follow Me” - which is the most ambitious skin we’ve ever developed for Jamroom.  Not only does it have an awesome look and design, it showcases the many updates to the Timeline and Media URL Scanner modules.  Think of “Follow Me” as a beefed up Twitter - you can share just about anything, as well as comment, rate and like almost everything as well.  If you run a socially centered site make sure and check it out.

New “Simple Chat” module

We’re also releasing the first beta of the new Simple Chat module.  Simple Chat has been designed to be very light weight and integrate into an existing Jamroom 6 site without ANY changes to templates or code - just turn it on   The design of Simple Chat was inspired by Skype and is super easy to use.  We’ve been using it as our primary team communication channel for over 2 months now, and it’s awesome.

HTML Transaction Email support

The Jamroom 6 Email Support module has been updated with HTML support for transactional emails (i.e. Notifications) - it’s as easy as turning it on in the Mail Support global config.  You can customize the look of your HTML emails by editing a single template - “email_html_notification.tpl” in the User Account module.

Core DataStore enhancements

The Core provided DataStore functions have been enhanced and beefed up.  There is a new database design that should make listings and DataStore searches significantly faster on larger sites.  We’re managing some very large Hosted customers now who are beginning to push the limit on the existing DataStore performance (with 20 million+ rows in some tables) and these new enhancements have been added in to help out.  They also help smaller sites be even snappier as well

How to get your hands on Jamroom 6

We’re not releasing Jamroom 6 into the “normal” Jamroom beta channel - we know there are a ton of sites that are subscribing to our regular beta channel, and we need to make sure at this time that only sites that WANT to be on Jamroom 6 will be on Jamroom 6.  By putting the Jamroom 6 beta in it’s own channel we can be sure no one installs it “by accident”.  While the new 6.0 Core is very stable (as it’s built on the 5.4 Core), we’re hoping to get feedback and more testing done before it goes “live” for everyone.

To check out Jamroom 6, you need to subscribe to the Jamroom 6 Beta Channel:

1) Log in to your Jamroom site as a master admin
2) Go to ACP -> Core -> Marketplace and click on the “Tools” tab
3) Click the “Release Channels” button
4) In the “Channel Invite Code” enter the following Channel Code:

JAMROOM6BETATIME

And save - that will add the new “Jamroom 6 Beta” channel to your marketplace.  Click on “System Updates” and you’ll see the new updates that are available.  After upgrading, make sure and run an integrity check so the new database changes will be applied.

Our goal is to have Jamroom 6 out of beta by the end of October, so if you can help us with testing or feedback it would be super appreciated.

We hope everyone enjoys what they see with Jamroom 6 - as a team it has been a lot of fun finally getting some of these ideas in place.  We’re excited about the direction Jamroom is heading and can’t wait to show you what we have in store for the future.

Have a great one!

I'm excited to announce that the Jamroom team is getting bigger!

Nate Riggins, who most of you know as "N8Flex", is now part of the Jamroom Team.  Nate has been a Jamroom third party designer and developer for close to 10 years and has always been known for his fantastic Jamroom skin design. 

We're super excited to have him on board - Nate's in depth knowledge of marketing, design and user experience is going to be instrumental in helping us take Jamroom to the next level.  We also believe this is a big win for Nate's existing customers, as it now expands the level of support offered to those already running a N8Flex design.

All of Nate's existing skin designs are now part of the Jamroom Network - this means if you are currently a Jamroom Hosted or Premium user these skins are now FREE for you to install in your Jamroom!

We have some really exciting plans in store for Jamroom 5 and beyond, and having Nate on the team is going to help us get there in style

Welcome aboard Nate!

We've just recently rolled out big updates to our Newsletter and Mail Core modules and wanted to let everyone know about some of the cool new features that have been added.

Detailed Delivery Statistics

The big area of improvement is the all new Stats Browser (provided by the Email Core) that gives you a detailed look into your newsletter delivery.  This includes all new tracking that provides per-email open and URL click tracking, as well as integration with the Geo IP Module to give you a nice audience overview:

The detailed stats also includes:

- Per User open tracking -  see how many users actually viewed or opened your newsletter.  Note that this requires the use of a small tracking image in the email - users that do not allowed images to be shown in their email client may not be tracked as an "open".

- Per user click tracking - all the URLs in your newsletter that point to a location in your Jamroom site have a special tracking URL created for them - this allows you to see which users are clicking on what URLs.  The Mail Core tracks this and provides a special Recipient plugin to send newsletters to "Top Users" - i.e. users that have shown an interest in your content by clicking on a URL in your newsletter.

- Unsubscribe, bounce and suppression - If users unsubscribe due to your newsletter, they will show up in the Unsubscribes tab.  If there are bounced emails during your newsletter send, you'll see the Bounces number increment (Bounced support requires the Mailgun SMTP module be installed and configured).  "Suppressed" is the number of users that have set their notification preferences to UNSUBSCRIBE for your newsletter - in other words, these are users that have opted-out of your newsletter before the current newsletter.

These new detailed delivery stats are a big step up from the old Jamroom Newsletter module, and should really help you determine what content is most valuable to your users and audience.

Newsletter Module Updates

The Newsletter module has also been updated with some new features:

- Full Page HTML Support - you can now send full page HTML newsletters that include the proper header and footer sections.

- New Template Browser - it's easier now to create Newsletter templates and modify and save them.  This is a great way to save yourself time by creating a set of templates that fit your site style and design.

- New Queue Based newsletter send function - you no longer have to keep your browser open during a large Newsletter send - you can close your browser and walk away now if you want The core send function has been updated to be Queue based which means once you submit the newsletter, the send function is no longer "attached" to your browser and just does it's work in the background.  You can view the newsletter workers in your Dashboard -> Queue Viewer if you want to see detailed info on what they are working on.

The Newsletter module has been overhauled from top to bottom and should be a much more "complete" Newsletter module than the old Jamroom Newsletter module ever was.  Our goal is to help you find the right content for your users - with the new delivery stats and tracking, as well as the ability to make better newsletter designs we think it just go easier.

We'd love to get your feedback on the new features - join us in the Jamroom Support Forum:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

and let us know your thoughts.

Thanks!

Along with the all new jamroom.net site redesign we rolled out today , we are also rolling out all new Jamroom "plans" that should not only simplify Jamroom licensing, but also make it much more affordable to run a fully loaded Jamroom .

We've simplified Jamroom into 3 plans:

1) Jamroom Hosted - Jamroom Hosted is the new name for the old "Jamroom Hosting", and is still our top of the line Jamroom service that includes everything you need to run as many Jamroom sites as you want: Unlimited Premium items, VIP Support and top notch dedicated Jamroom Hosting.

https://www.jamroom.net/hosting

2) Jamroom Premium - Jamroom Premium is BRAND NEW!  One thing we've heard from customers is that they really like how with Jamroom Hosted all premium modules and skins are included for the domains on your server.  But for whatever reason (usually the company they work for won't allow it) some users are just not able to use Jamroom Hosted and must host on their own server.

https://www.jamroom.net/premium

Jamroom Premium gives you UNLIMITED modules and skins on up to 2 sites (with more being easy to add at a big discount), so you get access to all the Jamroom Network premium modules and skins for both domains - saving over $1,000.  We're excited about Jamroom Premium and think it is a really good option for Jamroom power users that want to host Jamroom on their own server.

3) Jamroom Open Source - Jamroom Open Source is the new name for what has always been the "member" level - i.e. you are running the free Open Source Jamroom Core on your own hosting, and purchase premium modules and skins individually.  Nothing changes here.  Jamroom Open Source is a good plan for sites that are only using a small selection of premium Jamroom modules and skins.

https://www.jamroom.net/open-source

We have a nice new Products overview page here:

https://www.jamroom.net/products

as well as a pricing overview page here:

https://www.jamroom.net/pricing

that hopefully makes it all really clear in a succinct manner what comes with what plan.  You'll see that we are now using these 3 new Jamroom product names everywhere we can to hopefully make things easier to understand.

If you are a Jamroom Super Pack owner OR have spent $199 or more on premium Jamroom 5 modules or skins, you have automatically been upgraded to Jamroom Premium for FREE!  

This is our way of saying THANK YOU for your support of Jamroom and the team, and by being in Premium you can now install ALL premium Jamroom Network modules and skins on up to 2 domains (and if you would prefer to stay on the Jamroom Open Source plan, let us know and we can change you back)

We've also lowered the price of VIP Support from $29 per month to $19 per month - bringing it inline with the cost of the lowest price Jamroom Hosted plan.

If you have any questions about the new plans, please let us know - we'd love to get some feedback on what you like (or don't like):

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

Thanks!

New jamroom.net Design

Today we are excited to roll out the new jamroom.net design!  We've been working hard on a new design over the last couple months, and we think the new simpler layout should make it easier for users to not only find what they are looking for, but also hopefully make it a bit more intuitive.  We've simplified the number of site pages from the previous design, and have gone for a more unified look and feel with new icons and images.

One of the first things you will notice is the new Profile Dashboard that at a glance gives you access to:

- Your Jamroom Hosted servers

- Quick access to Support Tickets for getting help

- Access to your Jamroom Sites and Licenses

- Latest updates from Jamroom Developers and marketplace (click on a marketplace icon to view the changelog!)

- Latest Forum Posts

The goal is to make it easier to see "what's new and happening" at a glance without having to click around as much.

We will be tweaking and updating things here on the back end over the next few days as we encounter any issues (or change our mind on how something is working) - if you see any issues, please let us know and we can get it fixed up ASAP.

New Hosting Features

We've also taken the wraps off some new hosting features:

1) FREE SSL certificates for domains - we've just rolled out a new feature where you can enable SSL on your site with a single click of a button - for free!  No more having to purchase an SSL certificate and go through all the steps creating and sending in the CSR and Key file, etc. - now you can just click the "Enable Free SSL" button in your domain config and you're set.

The certificates used are provided by Let's Encrypt - this is a free SSL certificate provider backed by the EFF which has the goal of making it easy to get SSL running "everywhere".

If you would still like to use a 3rd party SSL certificate (or an extended validation certificate) we of course can still set this up for you on your server - just contact us via ticket and we can help.

2) Used disk space is now show for each domain - in your hosting dashboard you can now see how much disk space each domain is using, which can help you figure which of your domains is hogging all the disk space.

3) The Jamroom Hosted Free Trial is now 14 days - feedback from new Jamroom users was that the 7 day trial period was just a bit too short, and that frequently the trial was over BEFORE you had a chance to really test out the system.  We've upped the free trial length to 14 days now, and will send you a reminder email during that time to see if you need any help with Jamroom.

We also have a new server monitoring solution that is currently running "in beta" that will give us a lot of detailed info on how each of our Jamroom Hosted servers is running.  Some if you have already seen the results of this, where we have gone in pro-actively and tweaked things on your server to ensure Jamroom is running as fast as it can.

We'll have more info coming in the next month or so about this new monitoring system, so be on the watch for that.

If anyone has any questions about the new site design or the new Jamroom Hosting features, make sure and join us in the Support Forum:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum

and we can help.

We hope you enjoy the new design and features!

After 3 months of development, beta testing and bug fixing, we're finally taking Jamroom 5.3 out of beta!

Jamroom 5.3 includes hundreds of updates, changes, fixes and improvements - all designed to make running a Jamroom site easier than ever.

For details on the new changes make sure and check out the Jamroom 5.3 kickoff blog post:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/blog/74/jamroom-53-kickoff

We'd like to thank everyone that has provided feedback during the Jamroom 5.3 beta - your input and suggestions were appreciated and have resulted in the best Jamroom yet.

As a team we're going to take a few days to "unwind" from Jamroom 5.3, then we will back to moving things forward.  We have already put together a list of the ideas we want to incorporate in the next version of Jamroom - we will be posting those in the future to get feedback and input from the Jamroom community.

We hope you enjoy Jamroom 5.3!

Thanks!

- The Jamroom Team

It's been almost a year and a half since Jamroom 5.2 was released , and today we're kicking off the Beta release of Jamroom 5.3!

Jamroom 5.3 builds on Jamroom 5.2 and adds some really cool new features.  Our plan is to run Jamroom 5.3 as a beta release for a little bit so we can get feedback and input from the Jamroom community on how things are working.  It should be much more stable than a "normal" beta, as it is improvements and enhancements that continue Jamroom 5.2, but this way we can be sure that those users running 5.3 know that things could change based on feedback.

So what's new in Jamroom 5.3?  We've been working hard for the last 4-5 weeks on some ideas we have had for a while to make Jamroom easier to use.  Most of the Jamroom 5.3 features are on the "ACP" (admin control panel) side of things, so updating to the new Jamroom 5.3 Core should be pretty easy - there's no template changes that are going to need to be integrated in to your custom skin (if you have created one).  Our goal with Jamroom 5.3 was to focus on usability - making things easier to use on a day to day basis for Jamroom admins.

New System Wide Recycle Bin

Jamroom 5.3 has a new system "Recycle Bin" that can help you recover if items (profile, users, blog posts, etc.) are accidentally deleted on your system.  You can configure the length of time items will remain in the Recycle Bin before being permanently deleted, and you'll find the new "Recycle Bin" tab in the Dashboard.

Updated ACP

We've updated the Admin Control panel with better search, new module categories that are designed to make it easier to find what you're looking for, as well as a new "Dashboard" tab that makes it easy to switch back and forth between the ACP and the Dashboard.  Module jumpers have also been updated with module categories to make it easier to quickly move to the module you're looking for.

Updated Dashboard

We've updated the Dashboard layout to now include the new Recycle Bin, as well as the core Queue Viewer.  We've also updated the Activity Log section to have the Debug and Error logs available, and have generally gone through all the Dashboard screens and tweaked and updated things to make it easier to get around.  There is a new "ACP" tab as well for Master Admins to easily switch between the ACP and Dashboard.

Improved HTML formatting and clean-up

Jamroom 5.3 will do a much better job of "cleaning up" malformed HTML that might be entered on the site - this can prevent a page from appearing "broken" because some embedded HTML did not have the proper closing tags (which can happen if you are truncating user input to include in lists on your site).  HTML is now scanned and all tags are "closed" that have been left open, which should prevent anything from spilling over.

CSS Sprite Icons updated for HiRes displays

The Core provided icons that are used throughout the site have been updated to serve "hi-res" versions to users on high density display devices (i.e. iPad and "retina" screens, etc.) - this should make things look crisper on these new devices.

New "Birthday Date" form designer form field

A new Form Designer form field has been added that allows you to capture dates before 1970 - this is something many Jamroom sites have wanted to allow them to have a "birthday" custom form field.

LOTS of small updates and Tweaks

There are dozens of other small updates and tweaks throughout the Core including an updated Queue Viewer with new Queue tools, updated Performance Check, streamlined ACP search, better layout of Config options and more.

Module updates too!

A lot of work has gone into the new Jamroom Core 5.3, but we also have A LOT of module updates that we're excited about too:

 - All new "Overlay" media players for the Audio, Video and Playlist modules - these new players are more modern and streamlined and look AWESOME on the page.

- Timeline updates to bring the "style" of the Timeline home index page in line with the other pages in the profile.

- All new Spam Blocker module that provides you with new tools to help fight Spam on your site - including user probation, detection of offsite URLs and HTML stripping.  This is a "rename" of the old Akismet module, and it still features integration with the Akismet Blog Spam detection service.

- Updated Aparna module (now in the Developer category) that makes it even easier to create custom modules - includes new Module Description and Icon fields that make your custom modules truly unique in the ACP.

- Updated Developer Tools including new "Reset Categories" tool that will reset your ACP to the new Jamroom 5.3 module category structure, as well as updates to module and skin packaging.

- Updated Search module with new keyword weighting and Rebuild Search Index tool.

We're really excited about Jamroom 5.3 and hope you find the new updates to be helpful and as awesome as we think they are.  If you are the admin of a busy Jamroom site, the new updates - the streamlined Dashboard and new Spam Blocker module - should really help your ongoing support work.

If you would like to participate in the Jamroom 5.3 beta, make sure you subscribe to the "BETA" channel in your Jamroom Marketplace Module:

ACP -> Core -> Marketplace -> Tools -> Release Channels - Click on "Make Active" to the right of the "BETA" channel

This will enable you to browse and install Beta items in the Marketplace.  After the change, going to the System Updates tab will show you the new Jamroom 5.3 release you can update too.

Make sure and join us in the Jamroom User Support forum with any Jamroom 5.3 questions and we can help.

We hope you enjoy Jamroom 5.3!

- The Jamroom Team

We’ve been hard at work for the past month working on a bunch of exciting updates and changes to Jamroom Hosting - new features and options that will help you get the most out of your Jamroom Hosting Server:

New Server Plans and Prices

We’re excited to roll out 3 new server plans (4G, 8G and 12G) that offer a smaller server for those that have been looking to use Jamroom Hosting, but couldn’t afford the $49 per month for our entry level server, or didn’t have the need for the larger amount of disk space.

These 3 new servers sizes feature smaller size SSD disks (4 Gig, 8 Gig and 12 Gig) - and you can get started with Jamroom Hosting from only $19 per month!  These 3 new servers have the same level of features that all other Jamroom Hosting servers enjoy - namely FREE modules and skins, daily backups and ticket support.  The only difference is the lower price and small disk space.

We know there’s quite a few of you who have contacted us since we rolled out Jamroom Hosting looking for a lower priced plan - we’re excited to finally roll that out.

All Jamroom plans have been updated with a new plan name as well (i.e. the “old” 2G server is now the 48G server, etc.)

To get started with one of these new servers click on the big orange "Hosting" link on your Profile.

New 7 Day Free Trial for new Jamroom Hosting users

Have you wanted to check out Jamroom hosting but weren’t sure if it would work for you?  We’re now offering a 7 day free trial of the new Jamroom 4G server so you can check it out.  You can test out all the Jamroom features “for real” for 7 days.

All Server bandwidth is now UNLIMITED

We purchase bandwidth from our provider in bulk, and by far the majority of our hosting servers are under their bandwidth allocation in any given month.  So we’ve decided to remove this “cap” all together - all servers now have unlimited bandwidth - within reason of course   Our goal here is to make it be one less thing you have to think about or worry about.  We will let you know if you’re using an INSANE amount of traffic and will work with you to make sure you’re accommodated.

One Click Server Upgrades - and Downgrades

Previously you had to contact us via Ticket to get your server “downsized” - our Hosting tools can now downsize your server for you as well - as long as your used disk space amount fits into the smaller plan.  Our goal is to make sure you feel like you’re getting a great value for your Hosting - if you’re not using the power of your current plan, downgrading is easy.  If you’re not sure - let us know - we can recommend the proper server size for your existing Jamroom work load.

New Email Delivery Log

One of the most frequent tickets that is opened for hosting is that a Jamroom site owner will have one of their users contact them and tell them they are not receiving email notifications from the Jamroom site.  We now have an easy to browse Email Delivery Log (located in the Domain settings for the site you want to check out) - this lets you easily see any email errors or issues that might be happening when delivering email to your users.

Updated “Change Jamroom Admin Info” tool

You can now change the user name and/or password for ANY Jamroom Master Admin account in your Jamroom.  Did you forget your master admin account password?  You can easily set it now from within the Domain Settings section for the Domain you want to set the password for.

We’ve also spent time tweaking and updating a lot of functions to make them more robust and easier to use, so we hope that new AND existing Hosting customers will find the new updates as awesome as we do

If you have any questions about Jamroom Hosting, make sure and join us in our Jamroom User Forum:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/jamroom-hosting

and let us know how we can help.

Thanks!

The Jamroom Team

We've been hard at work here "behind the scenes" improving Jamroom Hosting, and while many of our recent changes are small, there's been a lot of work put into making the system faster, more stable and easier to use.

Today we have just taken the wraps off a big piece of our hosting puzzle - Server Backups.  Previously when you wanted to restore a backup of your server, you would have to open a ticket with us and we would handle the restoral for you.  However, it was a FULL server restoral - in other words, the entire server was wiped out and restored.  While this worked just fine, it was often "overkill" if you happened to be working on a new domain and just needed a few things restored.

With our new Backups we are rolling out today, all backups are handled at the Domain level - just like everything else in Jamroom Hosting.  This lets you restore a single Domain on your server without impacting (or even shutting down) your server.  This way any other domains on your server will be unaffected.  We've found that often the users that need a site restored are those that are doing active development on a NEW site - so this makes things A LOT more flexible as you can simply restore the domain you are working on to the previous backup.

Currently we are maintaining one FULL backup, and then a weeks worth of Incremental backups , and you can restore to any of them in your Domain Settings section.  Note that if your site is really large, it can take several hours for the restoral to be completed.

You will find the new "Restore from Backup" option in your Domain Settings section.  We have also reorganized the Domain Settings section to hopefully make things a bit cleaner and simpler to understand.

Some other updates:

• You can now change the Master Admin user name (as well as the password) from your Domain Settings -> Change Jamroom Admin Info section.  Note that this requires the Master Admin be user_id #1 - if you have deleted and re-created the Master Admin account, then this will not work (you can contact us if you are locked out of your Jamroom for any reason).

• The "Import a Jamroom 5 Site" tool has been updated to be a bit more robust and can now work with FTP servers that are running on a different IP Address than the web server.

Hopefully these new changes make it even easier for you when you're working in the Hosting control panel.  If anyone has any questions or spots any issues, please let us know

Thanks!