dotblu blog

Cheaters Beware! A friendly reminder from dotblu.

Occasionally we discover a flaw in the way that blubucks are accounted for that can be exploited to gain blubucks in ways we hadn't intended.  Most of the time, it's pretty obvious if someone is using the exploit that they've discovered something we hadn't intended.  We know that it's tempting to exploit these bugs, but if we're really going to make dotblu better, we need to know when something like this exists, otherwise we can never fix our mistakes.  We're thankful to all the honest users on the site that bring these bugs to our attention when they find out about them, a properly functioning game makes dotblu more fun for everyone.

But exploiting these bugs to inflate your worth on dotblu is not tolerated, and we will take appropriate measures when we find out about cheating.  If you're exploiting any bugs, you can be assured we'll find out about them eventually, and you're taking a risk that all the time you spent building up a wealthy profile was wasted.

Updated: Abuse reports working again. Temporary problem with auto abuse reports

We are temporarily not receiving auto abuse reports, the reports that are sent when you use the 'report' link on any user's profile, report an image as inappropriate in Pwned, or flag a blumessage as spam from your inbox.  The problem is due to an issue with our third party email provider, and we hope to have it resolved by the end of the day.

In the meantime, please forward all abuse reports directly to violations@dotblu.com to make sure we will receive them.  Thanks.

Update: Auto abuse reports are working fine now, so if you see abuse on dotblu, report it!  Thanks. :)

New topics let you personalize your dotblu page

Now you can personalize your dotblu pages with new and improved topics!  From the 'my topics' section of the 'my dotblu' menu, you can select the topics that you're interested in, and when you surf the new, hot, and closing soon sections of the site, you'll only see questions from those topics.  We've also added many new topics and subtopics so you can more specifically choose your interests. So get started selecting topics and improve your dotblu experience immediately!

As always, if you have any questions or comments about questions, categories or anything else, feel free to email us at feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!

Add an adorable pet to your dotblu world.

dotblu has partnered with FooPets.com so you can add an adorable puppy or kitten to keep you company on your dotblu world!

Your pet will meow, bark and purr from inside your world, and romp through your grassy fields or snow drifts, whatever you happen to have on your world. You can click on them to play with them, and they behave just like real puppies and kittens. If you leave them alone for a while, they'll even take a nap until you come back to say hello again.

So head over to the dotblu store and check out all the cute puppies and kittens that are just waiting for you to give them a good home! And check out FooPets.com for even more great animated animals to call your own!

As always, if you have any questions or comments about the dotblu store, pets or anything else, feel free to email us at feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!

Happy Friday from the team at dotblu!

Everybody wore the same thing at the office today, so we decided to take a picture. Clockwise from top left: Kiran, Alonso, Scott, Glenn, Nikhil, Song.

Chat with your friends in real time on dotblu!

dotblu has partnered with Meebo to bring instant messaging to dotblu. This is another feature we've received many requests for and we have been working for a long time to bring it to you.

With dotblu instant messaging, you are automatically signed in when you sign in on dotblu. You can see which of your friends are online, and anyone on dotblu will be able to instant message you. You'll be able to see your friends' status updates, and send messages when they're offline that will be delivered as soon as they sign on.

If you'd rather only receive IMs from your friends, you can set that in your preferences. If you would rather not be messaged, you can disable instant messaging from the chat window, by clicking on your own status message, where it says 'available'. From that drop down menu, select 'sign off chat'.

For more information about dotblu instant messaging, check out the dotblu instant messaging FAQ. As always, if you have any questions or comments about the instant messaging or anything else, feel free to email us at feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!

dotblu down 4/9 updated: dotblu back online

As of about 4AM Pacific time, our Internet provider's network has gone down, and has left dotblu entirely inaccessible.  We are as yet unsure how long the problem might last, and are working diligently to resolve the issue.  We appreciate your patience as we work behind the scenes to get dotblu back up and running.

Update: dotblu is back online as of 1PM Pacific.

Now you can search for your friends on dotblu, or browse users and find new friends!

This is another feature we've received a lot of requests for, so we looked into it, figured out how to best make it work for dotblu, and here it is! Now you can search for your friends by name, and browse users by age, gender and location.

You can get started with the new features from the main dotblu page or look for the "browse people" and "find friends" sections of the "community" menu at the top of the page.

At the moment, we're aware that the location search isn't working in the browse section. We should have that fixed by tomorrow, probably.

Have fun finding new friends and connecting with old ones! As always, if you have any questions or comments about the dotblu community or anything else, feel free to email us at feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!

New gifts for Easter, St. Patrick's Day, and more!

We've added several new gift items that you can send to your friends to display on their profile. All the new items can be purchased with tokens in the dotblu store!

Chocolate Bunny - This Easter send your friends a delicious chocolate bunny.

Easter Egg - Scatter some Easter eggs around your friends' profiles, then invite them to hunt them all down!

Flowers - On a special occasion send a vase full of flowers to a special someone.

Irish Whiskey - Beer not going to cut it? Send a friend this bottle of Irish Whiskey.

As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to email us at feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!

Two new games in the dotblu arcade: Hex Burst and Gems Twist!

We just added two great new games to the dotblu arcade, and we're sure you're going to love them. Announcing Hex Burst and Gems Twist!

Hex Burst
Destroy the hexagonal bricks by clicking on groups of the same color. When you click on one brick touching another of the same color, all the adjacent bricks of that color will disappear. You score points for every group of bricks you destroy, and you must destroy all the bricks to proceed to the next level. You can destroy single bricks if you need to, but you have to give up a star to do it. Once you use all 5 of your stars, the game is over.

Hints: destroy as many bricks as you can of a single color first. There's no time limit, so strategize!

Gems Twist
Destroy gems by creating lines of 3 or more gems of the same kind. Use the cursor to rotate the gems towards other similar gems. You can rotate them either clockwise or counter-clockwise, and select a direction either with the space bar, or by clicking the arrow buttons in the bottom left corner of the game screen.

The blue bar at the bottom of the screen lets you know how much time you have left. Destroy gems to score points, and once your score reaches a threshold, you will proceed to the next level and the timer will reset. The pink gem on the left will fill up as your score gets higher, and when it fills completely you will proceed to the next level, so keep an eye on it and make sure you score enough points before your time runs out!

As always, if you have any questions or comments about the dotblu arcade or anything else, feel free to email us at feedback@dotblu.com or contact the House. Good luck!