Get the Scoop Transcript: 02/29/04
|
| genvc |
Hey welcome to the Tom and Jules
Q & A |
| Tom |
Ready to begin |
| genvc |
My name is genvc, and if you've
ever emailed billing, you've talked to me. |
| genvc |
So, we've asked you all hear to
talk about the new feature at VP. |
| genvc |
These include Email Forwarding,
Web Storage, and Private Alerts |
| genvc |
Jules, would you like to give
the nice people the lowdown. |
| Jules |
Yep |
| genvc |
On Private Alerts?
|
| Jules |
We'll start with Private Alerts |
| Jules |
Private Alerts have a lot in common
with our existing activity alerts. |
| Jules |
With both you can receive alerts
via chat IM, tracker IM, email, and/or cell phone. |
| Jules |
With both, people have to sign
up to receive the alerts. |
| Jules |
The differences are: |
| Jules |
When you have a Private Alert
list, you alone decide the content. It can be about an event, it could be
a newsletter, jokes,, or site updates. Whatever you want AND you can send
as many as you want. |
| Tom |
Don't forget contests and tourneys. |
| Jules |
You can choose to let anyone join
or to only allow those you approve.You can always see who has joined your
list and you can remove them. You can choose to put your Alert List in a
directory or not. Chatters can join via their account, or via your site.
We provide a couple of banners for you to put on your page So people can
join right there. |
| genvc |
Anyone have a question about Private
Alerts? |
| Jules |
send it in if you do :) |
| genvc |
Question from Summer : what are
the major advantages to us to have these Private Alerts? |
| Jules |
They're basically robust, personalized
Activity Alerts so you have a lot more flexibility in how you use them. |
| Tom |
You control who gets the messages
and only people who sign up get them.It's a much better way to go than mass
IMs, which, we hope, will be a thing of the past |
| genvc |
We're going to move on to email
forwarding with Tom. |
| Tom |
Ok, regarding email. |
|
Many times, you want to email
someone you know in chat, but you may not know their real email. You can
just send to chat-name@vpchat.com |
| genvc |
Question from Lady.Vesselman :
if you dont want to use the private alerts and you dont want to receive
them can you halt receiving them? |
| Tom |
Ok, back to alerts :-) |
|
Yes you can |
| genvc |
Question from ForTe : does it
have to be just about a Halsoft site or can it be a rivate domain to send
out alerts? |
| Jules |
Yes - you can stop receiving them
at any time |
| Tom |
You control what lists you get
messages from and you can turn them on and off. |
| Jules |
It can be about anything you
want :) |
| Tom |
Say what you want because they
are private like IMs. |
| genvc |
Question from -paradise- : sometimes
i think there are too many alrts ..when your trying to play a game .. amd
pow its in your face |
| Jules |
Well, hopefully Private Alerts
will remedy that. |
| Tom |
Instead of one big list, there
can be one per event. |
| Jules |
You just sign up for the specific
lists you want to receive alerts from… |
| Tom |
It us up to the list owner not
to get carried away. |
| genvc |
Question from don.da.god : cant
you stop getting alerts from a certain shop or even or do you have to get
a alert about every contest that happens?? |
| Jules |
The Public Activity Alerts go
out to the same list for all events, tournaments, paint contests, etc…
With Private Alerts, individual shops and rooms can get their own list. |
| genvc |
Getting back to email forwarding... |
| Tom |
With this service, someone can
send email to you simply by adding @vpchat.com to your chat name. It's not
a new mailbox that you have to check. We'll send the mail wherever you want
…Your ISP mail, Hotmail, yahoo or whatever. You don't have to give
out your real email to people. |
| Jules |
We'll get back to more Private
Alert questions after a few about Email Forwarding. |
| genvc |
Where would the folks check for
their VPchat email? |
| Tom |
Your email will go to whatever
account you tell us to send it to. So it will be mixed in with your regular
mail if that's where you send it. You don't have to go to a different server
to check it or use other web pages. |
| genvc |
Question from xxx-desire-xxx :
is this email available with all versions of hal or a selected few? |
| Tom |
The email service does not depend
on the chat program version, it's just email. :-) |
| Jules |
You sign up for it via the web. |
| Tom |
Anyone can use it. |
| Jules |
It's completely separate from
the chat client. |
| genvc |
Question from obstinate1 : ok
email is forwarded to our prvt email so no one can see it, but then to reply
to someone, are we able to reply from name@vpchat.com? |
| Tom |
it's possible to reply to an email
without revealing your true address, but it can be tricky. So we don't recommend
replying if you want to be sure that your real email or IP address is not
revealed. You can decide, based on the mail, if you trust the person and
want to reply. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : how many
VP mail accounts can you have? just one per name or more? |
| Tom |
You can have as many as you need,
to cover all your chat names. You can forward up to 5 names with one add-on
service. |
| Tom |
or, if the question was, "can
the email go more than one place?" No -- one chat name is forwarded
to one place. However, if you have 10 names in your account they can forward
to 10 different emails. |
| genvc |
Question from llarrah : Is there
a limited size to these e-mails? |
| Tom |
Not as far as we are concerned,
but your ISP or the receiver's ISP may have limits. |
| genvc |
Question from kindakute. : this
eamail feature isn`t advantageous to those unless they have their own account,
does this mean that the account owner will be getting the private email
for someone on their account? |
| Jules |
Only account owners can buy the
new add-ons. If an account owner gets email forwarding, then they can give
you a forwarding address and they will not see the email sent. It will simply
be forwarded.We won't see it either. We just forward it along. |
| Tom |
I think there is another variation
on that answer. |
|
The account owner can sent mail
wherever he wants. So if you don't own the account, you don't control where
the mail for your chat name goes the account owner controls that. |
| genvc |
Question from _Drannon_ : how
about virus protection in this service? |
| Tom |
So, it depends on how well you
trust the account owner. You can get your own account. Your email program
should handle viruses. We just pass the mail through. |
| Jules |
No virus protection is necessary
- the mail just passes through. |
| Tom |
We don't screen it in anyway. |
| genvc |
Question from midnight : how will
we know if we have email? |
| Jules |
You'll get the mail along with
your regular mail. |
| Tom |
Let's say you forward it to your
regular email. It will just show up with your other mail. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : is the forwarded
email private then? or is it screened like by a guide or admin person? |
| Tom |
We absolutely will not look at
anyone's mail. |
| Jules |
It's not screened by anyone, anywhere. |
| Tom |
It is private and we will act
like an ISP. We will pass the mail through with no filtering or editing. |
| genvc |
Question from _nikky-_ : so all
these new features would be for account holder though correct? |
| Jules |
They are only for account holders,
that's correct. |
| Tom |
Yes. |
| Jules |
Although an account owner can
choose to forward your mail to you. |
| Tom |
Other names in the account can
get the benefit. |
| Jules |
They can choose to give you extra
web space. |
| Tom |
If the account owner gives it
out. For example - extra web space, like jules said :-) |
| genvc |
Question from taxidriver : Will
some worthless spammer be able to take all member names and add-on @vpchat.com
and send spam? |
| Tom |
Well unfortunately, yes, if they
guess valid chat names because we do no filtering. However, they have to
guess valid chat names and that may not always be obvious. Which brings
up a point ...Almost all chat names are valid for email except the ones
that start with a dot. When we first started, we let people make names starting
with a dot, but no more! We want the names to be valid for email |
| Jules |
Worthless spammers may indeed
do that. |
| genvc |
Question from gabz : is the private
alerts for only halsoft sites to use or can personal sites be involved too? |
| Jules |
Anyone and everyone is welcome
:) It doesn't have to be a Halsoft page. |
| genvc |
Question from X-Triple-H-X : it
saids on private alerts for 5 dollars as much as you like but you go to
oerder it saids 1-2 every hour why |
| Jules |
Actually, it's up to 2 every minute.
I'd hope that would be enough :) If it's says "Hour" somewhere,
please let me know because that's a typo :) |
| Tom |
One or two per minute is reasonable.
Since we send email, page, and text messages we don't want to overload people. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : is the add
on stuff optional or do we have to pay for it to keep account? |
| Jules |
It's optional |
| Tom |
Prices for the basic services
have not changed at all. |
| Jules |
Nothing has changed regarding
prices for a chat subscriptions. We're talking about add-ons. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : so why did
you ban mass IMs if you were going to allow alerts? |
| Jules |
Because people have to sign up
to receive alerts. They only get them if they want them. When people send
mass IMs, we get *lots* of complaints. People don't like them and this is
an alternative. If you don't want any alerts about anything, you don't have
to join any lists. Everyone's happy :) lol |
| genvc |
Question from .lookin : so to
alert people about gammon tournaments and stuff we have to buy the add ons
instead fo the way we have been doing it now? |
| Jules |
No, you can still send alerts
to the general "games" list, but if you want to send alerts about
*your* tournament then you can get your own list. Current activity lists
will work the same as they do now. |
| genvc |
How do we know Private Alerts
are really private? |
| Tom |
Private Alerts work like IMs and
we consider those private. The system does not record what you type, however,
realize that some people will get email so a record of what you say will
probably be somewhere :-) |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : is receiving
alerts going to cost an additional fee as well? |
| Tom |
No |
| Jules |
No - it costs nothing to receive
alerts. |
| Tom |
You can sign up for as many lists
as you want. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : is there
a way to rec the `paid` alerts only? |
| Tom |
Yes. It works just like now. |
| Jules |
Sure - just sign up for those
lists :) |
| Tom |
You do not have to sign up for
any additional lists. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : So if your
a TD on a ladder can we send banners to people on tracker that have asked
to resieve banners for that tourney? |
| Jules |
The only thing we'll endorse is
sending alerts via the current activity alert lists or the new Private Alerts
lists. Of course you can send IMs to your friends, but inevitably with IMs
with a larger reach and people who don't want them get them anyway. So...
we have alerts :) |
| genvc |
Question from taxidriver : If
someone is on your ignore list and joins your private alerts...will they
still get them? |
| Jules |
If you want someone to stop receiving
your alerts , you can remove them from your list. |
| Tom |
You can see the names on your
list at any time and you can review that list and take names out before
you send the alert. |
| genvc |
Question from Tsar Lightbringe
: private alerts seem Nice,, if your the Account owner who also runs a Tournie..
but what if your a TD and want to run a Tournie and the Owner isn`t on..
can the owner Set it so others can send message? |
| Tom |
Not right now, but we are considering
that and will probably add it soon for no extra cost :-) |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question : if the account
owned signs up for alerts, will everyone under that account receive them
too? |
| Tom |
No |
| Jules |
Only if the other
members of the account have signed up for the list. |
| Tom |
People sign up by
chat name, not by account. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: ae there things that are "illegal to put in these alerts, cuss words,
degrading comments or can we say what ever we want? |
| Jules |
You can pretty much
put what you want in it with two caveats. If your alerts will be adult in
nature, please check the "adult content" box, so people will have
some warning. If you're conspiring to commit a horrible crime, and someone
tells us you're sending out info about it in an alert we'll probably come
and talk to you :) |
| genvc |
Moving on to extra
web storage... |
| genvc |
Question from Cas45
: when you get more web space does that also mean more bandwidth? |
| Tom |
No, you only get more
space. We feel that the current limits are pretty good up to 20GB per account.
It is a lot more than most places and no one has ever come close to hitting
the limit at vpchat :-) |
| Jules |
our free amounts are
twice the bandwidth and 5 times the storage that angelfire offers on their
free account |
| genvc |
We're going to change
it up a little now.. |
| genvc |
Question from candace
: Do you like monkeys? |
| Jules |
I love monkeys |
|
I adore them |
| Tom |
i favor the higher
primates, like chimps |
| genvc |
gibbons mate for life! |
| Jules |
especially when they
wear cute little pants |
| genvc |
Question from Bit.s
: what are the rumors confirmed and denied ? |
| Jules |
you tell us the rumor,
we'll confirm or deny :) |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: whats your definition of a horrible crime? lol |
| Jules |
oh, like building
a bomb, selling drugs, trafficking in porn |
| genvc |
Comment from sick
: lets get to the part about free chat servers...and why u wanna monopolize
and/or shut them down |
| Jules |
ahhh |
| Jules |
figured that was coming |
| Jules |
we have absolutely
nothing against free chat |
| Jules |
our only issue is
with chats that are running *illegally* |
| Tom |
we don't want to shut
down free chat servers -- just the ones using our stuff without our permission |
| Jules |
and chats that use
any vp client are running illegally |
| Jules |
it's as simple as
that |
| genvc |
Question from dunn0
: rumor: you shut down babbleon is that right? |
| Tom |
yes |
| Jules |
yes |
| genvc |
Question from Kdmystic
: can we expect new games soon, other than New versions of ones we already
have...Cribbage , Poker and mayn dominoes? |
| Tom |
yes, we're actively
working on new games |
| Tom |
we'll do card games
next |
| Tom |
spades and hearts
first |
| Tom |
after that, it depends
on what people are asking for |
| genvc |
Question from setTogo
: Or the freebies getting to come back over and over again week after week
with new name sign ins |
| Tom |
no |
| Jules |
no, no, no |
| Tom |
the chat program can
tell when 2 weeks are up |
| Tom |
even if you totally
delete and reinstall |
| Tom |
it just won't work
again after 2 weeks |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: why is it ok for people to wear role playing avs such as yu-gi-oh and
dragon ball Z but not ok for someone to have colar`d in thier ID... |
| Jules |
We've asked that all
the adult oriented role-playing take place on the adult server |
| Jules |
to be honest |
| Jules |
I wouldn't know a
yu-gi-oh and dragon ball Z if it bit me in the butt |
| Jules |
lol |
| Jules |
But collaring and
slave stuff - that I know, and I know that it's adult in nature! |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: confused a lil on the webspace - right now with a 10name account i can
place all limitations in one name .. that is changing? minus keeping 1g
in others? |
| Tom |
No its not changing.
Let's say you add 100 mg more space. You can give it all to one name or
spread it around your account. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Comment
: why should anyone believe you as far as who or what is legal and illegal,
rumor has it you 2 stole the vp server from excite to begin with. |
| Jules |
Excite had a license
for the VP server, and they went out of business. Someone bought the domain
name, but Excite the company no longer exists. We have the rights to run
the VP server and no one else does. Why should you believe us? Well, I suppose
you don't have to :) |
| Tom |
When lawyers have
gotten involved, they sided with us and babbleon is down. Enough said. |
| Jules |
Yes |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: but do u own the license or is that a rumor? |
| Jules |
Licenses aren't owned.
We license software. |
| Tom |
---and have the right
to use it. |
| Jules |
IBM owns the software. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: why can't you make the vampire people move to the adult side with the
rest of the role players? |
| Jules |
The only groups we
ask to move are those taking part in adult activities.Some vampires are
very graphic and violent - if that's the case, we'd want them in adult.If
you're not engaging in adult activities, you're welcome on the family side |
| genvc |
Question from ForTe
: are you going to offer more hosting features such as mysql, counters,
etc? |
| Tom |
We are very interested
in hearing what people want now that we have added optional feature we plan
more and mysql, php, cgi are very good examples. |
| genvc |
Question from analytical
: how come there isnt any middle eastern countries in the list where u sign
up for a account? |
| Tom |
That is a decision
by the bank we use for credit card processing. They have a limited list
of countries. If we were bigger, like Amazon, we could call the shots but
we have to go with what our bank approves. So, we encourage people to use
PayPal if they can or just mail a money order. |
| Jules |
(if their country
isn't on the list) |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: are u guys going to fix locate so it shows everyone now, like how it was
when u first opened =]] |
| Tom |
The reason we put
the limit in was because of mass IMs. With the Private Alerts we hope that
people won't need mass IMs any more.So we will consider putting Locate back
the way it was. We will see how it goes |
| genvc |
Question from troy_7_
: is the price of chat going up? |
| Jules |
No, we have no plans
to increase the price. |
| genvc |
So, are y'all broke? |
| Tom |
lol |
| Jules |
Nope |
| Tom |
We're still here
after 2+ years and going strong :-) And we thank all our loyal supporters
:-) |
| genvc |
Question from ForTe
: are they going to be larger accounts then the sybil account? |
| Tom |
That has always been
an option. |
| Jules |
We actually do have
several larger accounts…group accounts. |
| Tom |
You just need to talk
to us about it. |
| Jules |
Just email me at support@vpchat.com,
and I'll be happy to set it up for you :) Our largest account has 100 members
:) |
| genvc |
Question from sinnamon-storm
: on the same subject why is it that our members home pages arent considered
part of Halsoft? |
| Jules |
Well, they're on the
vpchat.com domain, so they *are* part of Halsoft. |
| Tom |
We don't show the
directory of pages unless you are a member, so the directory is not public. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Comment
: then why do ban ppl that "advertise" for other chats? |
| Tom |
We don't allow commercial
activity in our service. No ads. |
| Jules |
We don't allow advertising,
period. |
| genvc |
Comment from sinnamon-storm
: when is full voice gonna be available not just screwy im voice |
| Jules |
We don't have any
plans for room voice, sorry. Most of the companies who offered that technology
are gone. |
| genvc |
Question from trina
- : Its still ok to use visa card to to pay? |
| genvc |
Yes, Yes it is! |
| genvc |
Question from taxidriver
: suppose i sign up for extra web space...can it be divided up between other
names in account? |
| Tom |
Yes sure. -Just like
the rest of the web space in your account. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: when will we beable to use our tracker on both family and adult side? |
| Jules |
We haven't done that
because it kind of defeats the purpose of a separate family and adult community
:) |
| Tom |
You can run two copies
of your Buddy List. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: do you plan on havin planned paint contests? |
| Jules |
Probably not - there
are *so* many paint shops that we'd have to enlist the existing shops for
help, which would be fine but I suspect we'd have many battles Everyone
would want to participate.So we'll leave paint contests to you pros :) |
| genvc |
Question from xerosis
: is it true that tom helped develop the initial VP program. |
| Tom |
Yes. I have been working
on vp since 1997 and i have been the main person making improvements to
the server since 1999. |
| genvc |
Question from ---CajunRebel---
: Can I alert myself? might need a lil jolt now and then. |
| Jules |
Absolutely :) In fact,
you have to sign up for your own list to see the alerts. |
| genvc |
Question from Jalisa
: When people use Halsoft space to link to files on my domain will You do
anything about it? I have had that problem and was told you wouldn`t. |
| Tom |
Halsoft is like any
other ISP or web host. We have to obey the laws, and if someone brings to
our attention that there are illegal files, we have to do something about
it. |
| genvc |
Question from xerosis
: what about a reseller account ....where one could purchase several accounts? |
| Jules |
We have no plans for
that type of account. |
| genvc |
Question from x-Tia-x
: other ways for us overseas to pay other then paypal, or having to wait
till you get the post, ty |
| Tom |
Credit card work from
many countries and continents, such as Europe and Australia. Sometimes,
if your bank is located in, say, England, the card will work.Even though
you don't live there. So, try it. |
| genvc |
Question from cherry..pop
: Can a paying member of halsoft sign in as guest? |
| Tom |
If you have recently
downloaded the newest version and had an old version before, then you will
be able to sign in as a guest. It will expire in 2 weeks. |
| Tom |
Starting with build
172, the program handles guests. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: whats your favorite kind of pie? |
| Tom |
pecan |
| Jules |
3.417 |
| genvc |
buttermilk |
| Tom |
or, as all engineers
know, 3.1416 |
| genvc |
Question from trina
- : with the web space we already have can that be all to one account or
does it stay spread out over the account names? |
| Tom |
Spread it out |
| Jules |
Pfft tom |
| Tom |
Just like now |
| genvc |
Question from Prince_Texman
: Can you give Family side Game laddeers a boot tool to monitor and control
rude and crude types that try to disrupt ladders? |
| Tom |
We've looked at the
pros and cons of room tools and we really think they cause more problems
than they solve. The best answer here is help from the guides. So talk to
us if there are ongoing problems, and we'll help out. |
| genvc |
Hey everyone. If you
have billing issues send me an email at billing@vpchat.com.I'll take care
of you...or at least answer your question. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: why doesn`t third party filters like cerebus and bastion work with the
new version of Halsoft considering they work with the older versions and
why don`t your programmers put in the code it can work? |
| Tom |
We have made improvments
to the VP program that should have eliminated the need for filters and,
the filters that were out there often caused problems.So, that's why newer
versions of the program don't work with old filters. If there is something
a filter did that VP doesn't do now, let me know…besides boot people
:-) |
| Jules |
If there are filters
or patches out there that no longer work, it's up to them to make them work,
not us :) |
| genvc |
Question from o_CJ_o
: Any plans in the future to work at updaying game heads so that users don`t
boot or crash out of VP... |
| Tom |
Yes, we recently completeled
a makeover of the games and fixed a lot of glitches. If there are more,
we want to find and fix them |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: will chat tracker work with some of the older versions on VP? |
| Jules |
The Buddy List is
built into the client. |
| Tom |
The Buddy List works
with all versions of VP. However, there are some problems with old versions
of the Buddy List. When they try to sign in and that is fixed by updating
your Buddy List. |
| genvc |
Anonymous Question
: Will there be any new trivia events? |
| Tom |
I think we're about
to wrap up after this question. |
| Jules |
We'd like to have
more events, for sure. We're open to suggestions :) Drop us a line |
| Tom |
If there are more
questions, send us email. |
| Tom |
If you want another
event like this, we'll be happy to do it. |
| genvc |
Thank you all for
coming and for your feedback. We appreciate your business, creativity, and
point of view! |
| Tom |
Thank you all very
much. |
| Jules |
Thanks everyone :) |
| Jules |
Have fun. |
| genvc |
All right. Have a
wonderful Sunday! |
