dotblu blog

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!

dotblu has a brand new look!

You may have noticed that dotblu now has a sleek new look. The navigation is pretty similar, but you'll find that a few features have moved around, and others have been consolidated. Here's a breakdown of where you can find everything:

• my dotblu
  Here's where you'll find all your personal information and settings. From this menu you can edit your profile, find the questions you've played, check your stats on dotblu, see what gifts you've received, and find your blumessage inbox.
  
  
• community
  Here's where you can keep up on the dotblu community. Use this menu to invite friends to dotblu, find the friends you already have on dotblu, and send them gifts.
  
  
• games
  This is where the fun stuff is: use this menu to find arcade games, Pwned, questions to play, and more!
  
  
• store
  This is where you'll find all the items you can use your hard-earned blubucks and tokens to purchase. Buy items to decorate your profile, tools to unlock special privileges on dotblu, gifts to send to your friends, and purchase more tokens!

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

Some new gifts in the dotblu store!

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!

Alien Smiley - Send your friends this smiling alien to let them know you think they're out of this world!

Birthday Cake - Wish your friends a happy birthday on their dotblu profile with a special birthday cake and candle!

Blue Smiley - Feeling happy today? Share your good spirits with your friends by decorating their profile with this shining happy face!

Heart Balloon - Show your friends your affection by floating this heart-shaped balloon onto their profile!

Ox - Wish your friends a happy and prosperous Chinese New Year for 2009, the year of the ox!

Pinky Winky Smiley - Send your friends a pink wink and let them know you've got a secret to tell.

Shamrock - Kiss me, I'm Irish! Wish your friends a Happy St. Patrick's Day by sending them this shamrock for luck!

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!

How or when does a user get removed from dotblu?

Every once in a while, we have to remove a user from dotblu, either temporarily or permanently, for breaking the rules consistently on the site.  It's not something we like to do, and we try to avoid it any way we can, but sometimes it's very necessary.  Most situations when we remove a user are unique, and all are for a very good reason, however we can't ever disclose the details of why a particular user may be removed due to our privacy policies.

We understand that this can be frustrating for some who know the user that has been removed who are looking for an explanation.  Many times the reasons might not be obvious, or won't be visible on the site at all.  To those we can only say that we understand your frustration, and ask that you please understand that we do have a good reason for the removal, and that we did not make the decision to remove the user lightly.

There are a few things that will warrant immediate removal, of course, mainly posting pornography.  However, for most violations of terms of service we will issue several warnings before removing the user, and they know very well what the consequences will be if they continue to break the rules.

And if someone is violating the terms of service, please use the abuse report buttons at the top of every profile, or contact us at violations@dotblu.com.  We investigate every abuse report very carefully and take appropriate action, however we cannot disclose what that action may be due to privacy concerns. 

Above all, please do not report or discuss violations publicly and instead report the abuse so that our administrators can examine it and make a decision.  Often publicly discussing these issues can make things worse, not better.

For reference, here is a link to dotblu's terms of use. 

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!

Cheaters on dotblu?

Every once in a while, we get a complaint about cheaters on dotblu, who may or may not be gaining points or blubucks unfairly through a variety of means.  It has been known to happen from time to time, and while we're not going to go into detail about how that happens, when we do find cheating happening we take action to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

The best way to make sure that cheating isn't happening is to report actions by any suspected cheaters, either using the 'report' button on every profile, or by contacting us at violations@dotblu.com.  We look closely into every complaint we get, however due to our privacy policies we cannot release any details about what we find out.

We can tell pretty easily whether or not someone has been cheating, and sometimes it might appear that someone has been cheating when they're not.  For example, someone's Net Worth may drastically increase with little game participation, which understandably makes other players suspicious.  However, that could be due to receiving a rather large gift from a friend.

For that reason, we'd like to ask everyone to not publicly accuse anyone of cheating on dotblu, and instead just report them to us and let us look into it.  We examine every report fairly and try to figure out what's going on, and take appropriate action.  But public accusations can just create hostility on dotblu and make this site less fun for everyone.

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!

Problem with Pwned on Internet Explorer

We've received a few messages lately letting us know that when scrolling through pictures on Pwned using Internet Explorer, after 20 pictures the browser will hang and requires a refresh to keep playing.

We've looked into the problem and it will most likely be resolved by later today.  In the meantime, refreshing your browser should fix the issue, and if you have another web browser like Mozilla Firefox, Pwned is working properly for that.

UPDATE: We've fixed the problem with Pwned. If you are still having trouble, please contact us at support@dotblu.com.

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