Hi everyone, I know a lot of you are excited about the new IAM that will be launching later in the week. Before I get started I just wanted to let you know that the BMEShop Sale code is now working. There was an issue with it not being accepted but it is fixed now. So if you’d like to get 30% your entire BMEShop purchase (DVDs excluded), just put in the code: 3years
As you’ve no doubt noticed, the old IAM has been put into read-only mode. You can still IM people, post in forums, and most importantly, back up your data, however you can’t update your page or images.
Rob posted screenshots from the staging server which did not include the updates or way the site was going to look so I’ve removed them. I’m including a screenshot from the main page of IAM with all of the users data imported to it. The thumbnails are currently cropped incorrectly to maintain the aspect ratio of the thumbnails on the main page. You will be able to log in and correct that. You can choose how you want the thumbnail to be displayed.
We’re chugging along nicely and everything is on schedule to be launched on Thursday. Please feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section.
BME/News and Modblog highlight only a small fraction of what 
Interesting,
Will people who visit your page be able to see who you’re “following” or is there an option to turn that off?
@Polareyez: If you look at the top right corner of the Following section, you can see an option to “hide section”. Clicking that will move it to the “hidden section” up at the top (you can see it in the full screen image). Once it is hidden, nobody can see it. This also applies to your forums and modtracker.
Wait… the new iam is going to be like the new bme?
@CalmLlama: They’re fully integrated.
Hopefully IAM will stay private. Im still kind of iffy on this redesign, but we’ll have to see.
Eric: Part of the redesign that I haven’t covered yet is about privacy. Sites like Facebook and Google+ use your data and images and sell them to advertisers. We don’t do that here. We’re actually really overprotective of our users data and we wouldn’t be going forward with the update if we had any doubts.
What makes IAM so different from other social networking sites is that it’s a gated community that keeps your data completely private. There is an option in your settings to allow your IAM page to be viewable by the public, but that is turned OFF by default, so unless you want people to see your page, they can’t.
Shop now says “*** This coupon has expired.”
I hate that thumbnail style so goddamn much, makes browsing the main BME site so annoying. Condense to a smaller image, don’t cut off the top and bottom. Rachel’s avatar turns into just a boob shot, Jen’s cuts off half her face, and in the image galleries you only see 1/3rd of the photo.
/nitpicking but annoying.
@Rob: Does the “following” area arrange people by name, is it customizable or does it arrange them by who updated last? For some of us with more than just a few people on our buddy lists, I would really hate to have to click on everyone’s name every day to see if they’ve updated. IAM Alive makes that simpler by pushing those who updated recently to the top…
Rob: What I meant is that I hope this new trendy IAM won’t be wide open to the public. I really enjoyed the closed community feeling that IAM had before.
@Tobias: Not 100% sure yet. The box is limited to 5, so I’d imagine it puts the most recent 5 in there, and the rest you can see when you hit “View all”.
@Eric: The new IAM will have the same restrictions as the old. Submit content to BME, get access. With the sites now integrated, you can upload photos as if you would to facebook, and then pick if you want to submit any to BME. No need to upload them in multiple places.
You can also store images in your galleries and make them private so that only you can see them.
I had an IAM account, but I deleted it. Will I be able to create a new IAM account with the new setup?
This looks fantastic and very modern, good job!
I will finally be able to be part of the community (the old design made me cringe)
Paul – Yes.
I’m not sure why Rob posted the screenshots that he did and the “features” that he spoke about. He didn’t exactly describe them correctly either.
Please don’t take those screenshots as examples of what will be released on Thursday. While some of them will look the same, there are a lot of changes that are on the production server that aren’t on the staging server that Rob has seen.
Nothing in BME or IAM’s privacy policies has changed. IAM is stil a gated community with the same “publicity” options that you could set before. Your page will not become public, unless you want to make it so.
If you have any questions, please direct them to myself or to Jen as we have been working on the new site for the last 3 years and know how things work.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE THUMBNAIL FIX.
That has seriously been driving me insane since bme2.0 launch, love it.
Actually, that screenshot you just posted has me way more excited about the launch than the ones Rob posted did. I like the sort by artist/piercer, not sure if bme1.0 had that or not but if it did I never found it. Also, new forum posts looks interesting.
I hope for the sake of the site you plan on marketing it rather heavily.
so am i still going to be able to browse other pages like i do when the main iam page is up? will i see everyone that updates? i love meeting other people and stuff. i will have no use to use iam except for blogging my dairy then.
As Ryan said, the shop code still isn’t working.
@piercednpainted: look at the screenshot Rachel just uploaded. In the top right you can see “Sort people by: Last updated”
So yes, you can do that still.
Looks great! Is it going to be usable on mobile phones?
I don’t mean to be rude, but that site looks really really slow. My computer has trouble with the new bme layout, and i have a fairly top of the line gaming computer.
How does a site “look slow”?
oh goodie thank you tobias! sorry but my eyes are old. and with that dark back ground i really cant see the fonts very well and will we be able to change that dark background?
I think your ISP is what makes the site slow, not your computer. BME is really fast for me. My Macbook Pro has no trouble with BME and I’m on it constantly.
I get tons of browser errors then the browser crashes. Basically firefox memory usage just starts to grow and grow until its taking up over a gig then it crashes.
What browser do you use?
So I’m guessing IAM wont be launching today 🙁
I see my face! so when will iam be working?
CalmLlama – Firefox.
When is IAM going back up?
weird that that picture got into the mix… thought i changed my main picture and avatar a while ago….