I am very excited to announce that we just released the first in a succession of planned changes to Focus.com. You might call the theme of this release "transparency" because most of the updates are about exposing more and more of the data and activity generated by the community. While there are many changes, the major ones are:

1. More robust tagging – We've released two new tag features. First, you will notice that we now display tags related to the content you're looking at in the right rail. Second, when you tag a piece of content on Focus, we may add related tags that are designed to make sure that your content is viewed by other members who are most interested in it.

2. A new points system – With this release, we're introducing a new points system on Focus. Members accumulate points in specific topics by making high quality contributions in those areas. You will see points on member profiles as well as "leaderboards" associated with the topic pages on Focus. While many activities contribute to the accumulation of points, the most important thing to understand is that the points feature is tightly coupled with voting.

3. Identity driven voting – In response to a fair amount of strong feedback from the community, we are now displaying the identity of members who vote up questions, answers, comments or replies on Focus.

4. An improved design – Finally, you will notice that the overall experience on Focus is different. These design changes were driven by a desire to display more information in a more efficient manner. Some of these changes are purely visual in nature such as a new logo, but some are experientially different such as the new "hovercards" that display when you mouse over a member's name.

We hope that this release substantially improves your experience on Focus. And if you have any feedback, please just let us know.

Scott

Comment on this Post

Ed Shepherdson

Senior Vice President, Enterprise Solutions, Coveo

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

Recommended by:
Chris Goward

Transparency, Listening and taking action - well done Focus Team!

Roz Bennetts

Account Director, Sales in IT Network Services Industry

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

Grat news, these are all good ideas for improving the community feel and rewarding participation.

shashi kanth

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

Great effort, I think your team has done a great Job. Good luck for your future deployments.

Trevor Browne

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

A mute button is needed to stop receiving comments from a Focus question that I participated in.

Caty Kobe Replied on Dec. 29, 2011

Hi Trevor,

Thanks so much for your feedback. The point of these emails is to keep you apprised on the discussion and how it's progressing, but I can see how they might be a little much. There are 2 options for this situation: You can turn off emails for one particular thread, or you can turn off notifications for all threads entirely.

TO TURN OFF EMAILS FOR ONE PARTICULAR Q&A:

In order to stop receiving emails for a particular discussion, you simply need to stop following the thread. Here are the steps for un-following any discussion thread on the site (including this one):

1. Go to the specific thread that you do not wish to receive email notifications for. (Hint: You can do this by clicking through the link in the email notification)

2. Once you're on the particular page, scroll to the top. On the right-hand corner of the page you will see 4 buttons. One that says: "following", and 3 buttons for social sharing purposes.

3. Our follow buttons are toggle switches. Hover your mouse over the grey "following" button. The grey button will automatically turn red with the word "unfollow". Click the button. The button will then automatically turn green with the word "follow". That is how you'll know that you're no longer following a question.

TO TURN OFF EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS ENTIRELY:

You can easily manage your overall email communications in the account settings section of your profile: http://www.focus.com/profiles/settings/

In the account settings section of your profile, there is a list of the different email communications that we have. Simply uncheck the communication choices that you do not wish to receive. For this particular case, you'll want to uncheck the "Answers and Comments" box and possibly the "Replies" box. Please note: Once you uncheck these boxes you will no longer receive communications even if you go in and follow a question.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about this process. We really appreciate having you in our community!

Best,
Caty Kobe

Community Manager, Focus.com

Andrew Baker

Director, Service Operations, SWN Communications Inc.

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

Looks good so far. Congrats -- Excellent way to start out the new year!

Michael A Brown

President, BtoBEngage

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

Scott and crew ... congrats! These upgrades are quite nice. Thank you and Happy 2012!

Dr. Salim Qureshi

Other, Bloomsburg University

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

I am delighted to see these improvements.

Koka Sexton

Director of Social Media Strategy, InsideView

Posted on Dec. 29, 2011

Woot!! Good going Focus. Excited to see all of the great improvements.

Brian Layne

Founder/Partner, Strategic Evolution Partners

Posted on Jan. 2, 2012

Great new features. I am new to focus but and can tell immediately that it has been set up correctly with a professional and intuitive interface, nice job!

Scott Albro Replied on Jan. 2, 2012

Thanks for stopping by Brian and if there's anything you think we could be doing better, just let us know.

Janet Fouts

Social Media Coach, Tatu Digital Media

Posted on Jan. 2, 2012

I love where Focus is going, it's truly a resource for businesses in any market. We're very excited about the future of Focus!

Stan Prokop

President, 7 Park Avenue Financial

Posted on Jan. 2, 2012

I am unable to figure out how to post a ' brief/research' after I log in, what is the URL for that please.

STAN PROKOP

Scott Albro Replied on Jan. 2, 2012

That feature is no longer supported Stan. The community was not deriving any value from posts that were self promotional in nature and simply copied from other sites.