Dreamwidth Update
Wow. So many more interested than I thought. No worries. Here's the scoop. Instead of individual answers on the last post, this is the word I've been given by someone who's actually kept up with what's going on.
Currently, invites are scarce. Seems they opened things up with invites to see how their servers and such held up as they started to put more and more load on them. Remember, this is the roll out of a new thing, so we should expect things to be a bit wonky at first.
Do not despair! demotu also said: "For the record, they are really rare now, but once the 30th happens, they'll be giving out a lot more to their userbase, so you likely will be able to give out a bunch after then."
It's not a promise, but for everyone who is interested, I'll keep my hand out and hopefully be able to supply some invites on a first come - first served basis. For myself, I'll most likely pay for an account as soon as that option becomes available. After all, I want them to succeed and monetary is about the only support I can give them. Coding, bleh! :P
Did a bit of looking about and here's some more info about Dreamwidth and the invite codes system.
Dreamwidth Account Levels Info
Dreamwidth Business Info - The following is taken directly from this page.
Will Dreamwidth always require invite codes?
At this moment, there are no plans to ever remove the invite code system.
The reason for this is simple: We want to control our growth to make sure that we're not growing faster than we can support. If we don't have enough hardware to render and run the site, it will be slow for everyone, and slow site performance makes us make sad faces. By requiring people to have an invite code to join the site, it will allow us to keep a careful eye on site performance and make sure that we're not growing faster than we can support.
-> We know that many people find invite codes to be a very limiting factor, and we know that it can leave people feeling that a service is elitist or unwelcoming. We plan to address this through multiple things:
-> We will be very, very generous with the number of invite codes we give out to our existing users to distribute. We want our users to be able to invite their friends -- we don't want people to feel like they have to hoard their invite codes for later use.
-> If you want to create an account, and you don't know anyone with an invite code, you'll be able to buy a paid account. Even the one-month paid account option (for $3 USD) will be enough to create the account, and if you choose to let your paid account expire, you'll still be able to use it as a free account.
-> We've opened dw_codesharing, both for people who have invite codes to distribute and people who are looking for invite codes for themselves.
We've done a lot of work in cleaning up our OpenID support, so people who just want to maintain a reading list and leave comments to others' journals won't need a Dreamwidth account to do it.
How will invite codes be distributed?
On a regular basis (every two weeks or every month), mark and I will look at a bunch of factors: how many active users we have, what our paid account rate looks like, what our paid account churn (people who choose not to renew their accounts) looks like, what our network performance looks like, what our hardware performance looks like, what our operating fund's balance is, etc. We'll determine how many new free users we can support that month, and distribute the appropriate number of invite codes.
We can automatically distribute those invite codes in a number of different ways: we can give them to people who have paid for their accounts, people who have used up all their invites, people who are active, people who have invited other people who have gone on to be active, etc. We're likely to use any and all of these methods for distribution as time goes on, to see what sort of results we get from each distribution method.
We will, at all points, release as many invite codes as we feel we can.
Note the options for getting a free account in the arrow points above. If anyone is really anxious, there are options. But, as I said, I'll be keeping my hand out and will gleefully distribute codes to my friends list - anyone who asks me for it - as they become available.
EDIT: I'll use the list of interested parties from my previous post when/if I get some invites. So, if you posted there, I'll get to all of you first, in the order you posted! :P
Phew! Long winded today. Let me just warn you that I highly disapprove of TL;DR. It's rude. If you don't read it, just don't tell me about it! ::grin:: Besides, I think this is useful info for anyone looking at Dreamwidth. If you guys have questions, demotu or I should be able to find the answers. Or point you to some of their FAQ pages.
Currently, invites are scarce. Seems they opened things up with invites to see how their servers and such held up as they started to put more and more load on them. Remember, this is the roll out of a new thing, so we should expect things to be a bit wonky at first.
Do not despair! demotu also said: "For the record, they are really rare now, but once the 30th happens, they'll be giving out a lot more to their userbase, so you likely will be able to give out a bunch after then."
It's not a promise, but for everyone who is interested, I'll keep my hand out and hopefully be able to supply some invites on a first come - first served basis. For myself, I'll most likely pay for an account as soon as that option becomes available. After all, I want them to succeed and monetary is about the only support I can give them. Coding, bleh! :P
Did a bit of looking about and here's some more info about Dreamwidth and the invite codes system.
Dreamwidth Account Levels Info
Dreamwidth Business Info - The following is taken directly from this page.
Will Dreamwidth always require invite codes?
At this moment, there are no plans to ever remove the invite code system.
The reason for this is simple: We want to control our growth to make sure that we're not growing faster than we can support. If we don't have enough hardware to render and run the site, it will be slow for everyone, and slow site performance makes us make sad faces. By requiring people to have an invite code to join the site, it will allow us to keep a careful eye on site performance and make sure that we're not growing faster than we can support.
-> We know that many people find invite codes to be a very limiting factor, and we know that it can leave people feeling that a service is elitist or unwelcoming. We plan to address this through multiple things:
-> We will be very, very generous with the number of invite codes we give out to our existing users to distribute. We want our users to be able to invite their friends -- we don't want people to feel like they have to hoard their invite codes for later use.
-> If you want to create an account, and you don't know anyone with an invite code, you'll be able to buy a paid account. Even the one-month paid account option (for $3 USD) will be enough to create the account, and if you choose to let your paid account expire, you'll still be able to use it as a free account.
-> We've opened dw_codesharing, both for people who have invite codes to distribute and people who are looking for invite codes for themselves.
We've done a lot of work in cleaning up our OpenID support, so people who just want to maintain a reading list and leave comments to others' journals won't need a Dreamwidth account to do it.
How will invite codes be distributed?
On a regular basis (every two weeks or every month), mark and I will look at a bunch of factors: how many active users we have, what our paid account rate looks like, what our paid account churn (people who choose not to renew their accounts) looks like, what our network performance looks like, what our hardware performance looks like, what our operating fund's balance is, etc. We'll determine how many new free users we can support that month, and distribute the appropriate number of invite codes.
We can automatically distribute those invite codes in a number of different ways: we can give them to people who have paid for their accounts, people who have used up all their invites, people who are active, people who have invited other people who have gone on to be active, etc. We're likely to use any and all of these methods for distribution as time goes on, to see what sort of results we get from each distribution method.
We will, at all points, release as many invite codes as we feel we can.
Note the options for getting a free account in the arrow points above. If anyone is really anxious, there are options. But, as I said, I'll be keeping my hand out and will gleefully distribute codes to my friends list - anyone who asks me for it - as they become available.
EDIT: I'll use the list of interested parties from my previous post when/if I get some invites. So, if you posted there, I'll get to all of you first, in the order you posted! :P
Phew! Long winded today. Let me just warn you that I highly disapprove of TL;DR. It's rude. If you don't read it, just don't tell me about it! ::grin:: Besides, I think this is useful info for anyone looking at Dreamwidth. If you guys have questions, demotu or I should be able to find the answers. Or point you to some of their FAQ pages.