Dear Members,

 
I wanted to take some time today to explain everything that is going on with WiseCampus.com.  We just had our first annual shopping spree winner. Congratulations to Rachel Kupsis of Indiana University.  Thank you for your outstanding support and enjoy your $250 prize!
 
Recently, you may have noticed some significant changes with the site. Specifically, we have completely redone the forum and added several integrations with Facebook. I would like to provide a detailed explanation of these changes and the premises on which they are based.
 
The forum was redone because of you!  The community voted for it and we responded.  We have multiple technologies working simultaneously throughout the site, including Facebook Connect, point tracking, membership tracking, and recognition levels for the new forum.  Since we are running so many different technologies, we had to build our own code (not an open source template) to enable more features on the forum.  It has now been streamlined and will eventually be integrated into mobile sites or applications.
 
The idea behind the forum is that conversations will be more organized.  For example, members often had questions about the site that had been answered several times.  Now you will be able to find all of these answers in the WiseCampus.com main category instead of searching all over the blog for them.  We believe we have caught most of the errors, but unfortunately bugs are inevitable.  Please send us any problems that you come across through the “Yuck...Bugs” section on the forum, or just email info@wisecampus.com.    The more detailed you are, the faster we can help you.  Please include the browser you are using (different browsers do make a difference).   Also, please continue sending any feedback you have about the site to us.  We take pride in listening to and incorporating your suggestions, and want to make the WiseCampus experience as simple and seamless as possible for you.
 
As you may have noticed, we have also integrated Facebook with the site. A member can now simply sign up through Facebook Connect and automatically create a WiseCampus profile. However, we still need an up to date .edu email address so we can confirm your university affiliation and issue your rewards.
 
I also want to make you aware that we are asking your permission to post a few items to your Facebook wall.   I believe in transparency so let me explain the goal behind this.  With your permission, we post the rewards you have received to your Facebook wall.  These messages will be intended to create interest in the site and to drive new users to sign up. It is a form of viral marketing that will benefit members as well as the site. The continued growth of our member base will lead to better rewards, more resources, and more notes. We can only create these opportunities for members by keeping marketing expenses down, and this is a great way for you to help us spread the word about WiseCampus. We look forward to returning the favor as we continue to grow.
 
Another Facebook integration that we have added is the friend invite.  We are really counting on you to invite your friends.  It is very simple.  You will see a list of your friends listed as thumbnail pictures.  We need your help to grow the site! 
 
We have also allowed members to display their forum posts on Facebook.  We want to let you share this great college community, which you have created, with your friends.  You can even share comments about notes with your Facebook friends.  This not only helps us share great notes, it also gives us more information on the notes (so we can refine searches more efficiently). 
 
The last thing I want to point out is the fanpage box on the homepage.  From Facebook’s perspective, WiseCampus is now considered an Application.  This fanbox gives a direct link to our Facebook fan page.  Through our developer contract with Facebook, we now have to use this page.  We have already had 788 members sign up through the Facebook Connect page.  However, we also have other Facebook fanpages with a lot more fans.  We are trying to merge these all together, but have had some trouble getting Facebook to do this.  Hopefully we can merge all of our fanpages, but if not we will have to start over on this one.  Please become a fan on this page as well to ensure that you get all the latest news from WiseCampus, and so you can connect with other members.  Thank you for understanding and sorry for the inconvenience.
 
Thank you for taking the time to listen to changes we have made.  I hope you like them.  I know this is a lot to take in right now, so please feel free to email me directly at ryan@wisecampus.com or post a reply to this so everyone can view.  I will try to respond as quickly as possible.  Your feedback is important to the site, the members, and to me personally.  I will write more updates as things progress.