This week VOKLE spruced up our front page to make our platform clear to even the newbiest of n00bs. We created a nifty three-step guide to creating and sharing live moments, to check it out log out and visit the homepage.

We’ve also made it easier for you to connect to the VOKLE community through these mainpage additions:

• Links to the latest blog posts! If you’re wondering about community developments, updates or what makes VOKLE so cool, chances are you can find answers in the blog!

• One-click Twitter/Facebook like buttons! Facebook and Twitter are essential for keeping track of all our important events, and interacting with the team—shoot us a tweet, we’ll always respond

• A catalog of the latest Staff Pick recordings! There are plenty of great live events out there, and you’re bound to miss a few throughout the day. Now you can browse the latest recordings, which are listed directly on the front page.

Th-th-th-that’s all folks (for now!) Have a good weekend!

A couple weeks ago the team was presented a challenge: to create our own shows. But not just a standard q&a, a show that used VOKLE’s versatile platform in a new way. The Staff courageously accepted this challenge, and began concocting creative concepts. A couple of us have started our series, and we’d love your participation and feedback. Here are some of our events, be sure to RSVP and join the fun:

Truth… or DARE

Series Link

Luck of the Draw

In Rochelle’s fast-paced drawing game contestants compete to draw someone live (in 60 seconds or less)! Sketch portraits, get drawn, and vote on your favorite sketches!

Series Link

Spotlight: A Community Art Show

Shant offers a creative space for community members to share art through this facebook group. Every week is a new challenge, the only catch is your art must incorporate VOKLE!

Series Link

One on Jon

Series Link

Today we pushed a new feature that will add a touch of color and clarity to the confusion of the chat box. Behold, badges:

Assigned roles (Host, Screener, Editor, etc.) will show up with colored badges in the chat, and members of the VOKLE staff will also have badges designating themselves as part of the team.

You will also have the option to flag someone, as you see above. If a certain ratio of people flag a disruptive user, Staff members will see a warning symbol to the user’s name, and be able to kick him or her directly from the chat.

We will be discussing these changes today at 2pm PST, tune in to learn more and ask questions!

VOKLE always insists that you “unmute yourself,” and this Monday one of our broadcasters is going to elevate our slogan to a new level. Meet Greg, a web-savvy tumblr afficianado who tweets about respecting women and respecting yourself:

Monday at 4pm PST (7pm EST) Greg will be hosting his first VOKLE show, and taking live questions from the audience. Broadcasting beside him will be a sign language interpreter, who will be translating audience questions live for Greg to answer. Greg is deaf, but his fans can still have a live conversation with him face to face (or thanks to his interpreter, mano a mano).

We encourage everyone to RSVP to the event, so that you’re notified a couple hours before it goes live. When it goes live, click the red “Join Event” button to submit your text and video questions, and chat with the rest of the audience. Each text and video question Greg takes will be saved as a special chapter that you can tweet out to your friends after the event is over.

No, we aren’t desperate.  But we may be a little sick.

It’s no secret that Justin Bieber is the talk of the town.  He’s got a global audience of fans that are nuts for him. He makes teenage girls faint with one flip of his bangs.  He’s got more twitter followers than Barack. And one lock of his hair goes for upwards of $40k.  Why so much love?  Because, this kid has humble roots, he’s got a set of pipes, and he does a stellar job at connecting with his fans. It’s no wonder why here at the Vokle office we’ve got a bad dose of…

Bieber fever.

So, in an effort to marry superstar singer with elegant live streaming platform, we’re introducing The Bieber Campaign.  The social media tidal wave created through ripples from none other than the fans of Justin.  So how do you join the movement? Join fans from around the world on Monday, August 15th and starting at 9AM PST, tweet at Justin Bieber asking him to host a LIVE Q/A on Vokle.  Throw a creative twist on your tweet, along with #biebervokle, and if the campaign is a success, we’ll ask several of you to work behind-the-scenes with the Biebs himself to produce the show!  With some luck and a few tweets we can bring JB to your computer screen. LIVE. Taking your text/video q’s.  :)

Let’s get the buzz going.  Right MEOW.

Vidcon this past weekend was a blast and a half! We got to meet lots of awesome youtubers and spread the word on going live to thousands of attendees. Our proudest feat was the exclusive series of over 30+ live Q&A’s hosted directly on Vidcon’s frontpage, which helped fans who couldn’t make it to the event to chat with their heroes.

Hosts included several of the top ten most subscribed youtubers of all time, like Ryan Higa (who collaborated with musicians DeStorm and Kina Grannis), MysteryGuitarMan and Philip DeFranco.

Many broadcasters this weekend responded to their fans request for a Q&A, so don’t be afraid to tweet at your favorite youtubers, celebrities or musicians about doing a live event on VOKLE!

As always, unmute yourself

Since it was released, we’ve received a flood of requests and questions regarding recording (as you can see). There is always room for improvement, so our CTO stayed up late last night deploying a number of key updates:

1) Recordings are now visible on your series page! Before now, hosts had to promote their event links, otherwise viewers wouldn’t be able to access their recordings (see the last blog post for details). Now when you click on their series page, you will see their “Recorded Events” listed beneath their “Upcoming Events:”

2) You can finally delete your recordings! We’ve all had our fair share of live slip-ups (or maybe that’s just me), not to mention tech setups and demos that we never intended to see the light of day. Now you can delete those unwanted recordings through your “My Events” section:

3) We’ve fixed a small bug so that you can login via Facebook on embedded events. Keep the traffic on your site, there’s no need to redirect to our homepage!

4) A bunch of other internal improvements, including an upgraded database (one that can handle four times its original capacity—wowza!)

Remember, the power of recordings lie in sharing them. Tweet out your recordings, share the best chapters and show your friends how great you look on camera! Until next time, au revoir!

This year VOKLE is headed to VidCon, which sold out in a heartbeat. So we wondered, what about all the fans around the world who can’t make it? In an attempt to involve the fans who can’t make it, VOKLE has teamed up with VidCon to give viewers across the globe exclusive access to interactive conversations with top youtubers, directly on the VidCon website.

Youtube’s biggest stars will talk face to face with their fans, including…

• Jenna Marbles

• My Drunk Kitchen

• DeStorm

• Wheezy Waiter

• Phil DeFranco

• Karmin

• Mystery Guitar Man

• Olga Kay

• Soldier Knows Best

• Keep the Heat

• Gloria Nava

• Jimmy Wong

• Alex Goot

• Outback Zack

• Cobus Potgieter

• Dan Brown

• Jacks Films

These top youtubers and many more will broadcast for thirty minutes each in consecutive live events on July 29^th and 30^th, as fans speak to their idols via live video and text questions. The events will include a one-click subscribe button, so viewers can follow the Youtube channels of hosts they enjoy most.

After the events are over, they will be converted into an incredible collection of youtube celebrity recordings, so people can peruse their favorite chapters or tweet out the most exciting questions. To see recording in action, check out My Drunk Kitchen’s Hannah Hart:

Drumroll please…

I can almost hear the heavenly angel fanfare… And it will only get louder, because I’m going to break down how awesome recording actually is, and how you can make the most of it.

Right now there are two ways to access your recordings, through your event link (not your series link!), or through your event planner.  Therefore it’s important that you promote an event rather than the series, so that people can access your recording once the event is over.  You can find your event link by looking under your “scheduled events” and clicking “View” for the upcoming event.

We took the liberty of making a sample recording below, where we answer questions and demonstrate how recording works. Before playing the recording, you have the option of starting from the beginning, or viewing a list of questions and skipping ahead to sections you find interesting. The recordings are built to reflect the twists and turns of an event, by allowing people to easily access and promote different questions (which we’re calling “chapters”).

As you can see, there are small circles marking all the different “chapters” (text or video questions) Edward took during the show. You can hover over each of these markers to see a description of the question, or even promote a specific chapter of the event on Twitter or Facebook. You can even embed a particular chapter on your blog, so you can hone in on the part that’s relevant. Pretty cool, eh?

We’re proud and thrilled to bring this to our vokleites, and we thank you for being so patient. Happy broadcasting!

P.S. Events that occurred before yesterday afternoon (when we officially launched) were not recorded.

P.P.S. Be aware: You cannot resize your event recording yet, and if you try it will be distort the player. Hold tight for that feature!

As I wrap up my fourth week working here at Vokle I have made a couple realizations. The first is that Vokle is built upon synergy and fueled by passion; fostering relevant, sustainable relationships between broadcasters and their audiences. In an industry of black and white, suits and ties, 9am to 5pm, Vokle delivers a colorful business culture of intimacy and creativity.

The second is that Vokle has a lot of growing to do. However I have no doubt that as it goes through its growing pains, Vokle will not lose sight of the values that lend to its tight-knit community of users and its supportive, personable crew.

So, in honor of my love for both Vokle and infographics, here is a little visual digression designed by yours truly