Posts Tagged ‘Network’

Behance Network Improvements

So here are some of the many changes and tweaks to the network this week:

GigList to JobList
We figured it was about time we changed the wording from “Gig” to “Job” to make things clearer for you and the people wanting to hire you. In case you have yet to check out the page, there’s a good listing of creative jobs there.

Full Screen Video
It was long overdue, but now user’s can click an icon under each video to see things full screen. This should make our HD videographers extra happy.

Re-ordering Re-done
The reordering system for your inner circle and projects has been redone. This makes it compatible with more browsers, including Safari 3.

Don’t Forget About Us
Circles now have the “Us” tab defaulted to on instead of the “Our Projects” tab.

SXSW Finalist: Behance Network

SXSW Interactive

The Behance Network has been selected as a Finalist in the 11th Annual SXSW Interactive Festival Web Awards. The Behance Network was nominated and is a finalist for the “Community” category, described as the following: “Sites and wikis that have quickly developed an extraordinarily active multi-user community and an exceptional following of users who assist with content development.”

Only five sites, out of many hundreds of nominations, are selected as finalists for what is widely known as one of the most exciting awards in the interactive/online world. More than anything else, this award recognizes the amazing creative professionals that use the Behance Network platform to disseminate their work. The Behance team feels honored to “be along for the ride,” and we will keep you posted on the outcome!

Definitely Not Your Typical Portfolio Site.

We’re pleased to announce that over 95% of Behance Network visitors are non members. Sound like a strange announcement? Unlike typical portfolio sites that are only inhabited by members, it seems that Behance has become a major destination for recruiters, top agencies, gallery owners, bloggers, fellow creatives, and “explorers” of creative work. With nearly a million visits to Behance sites in just the past month, the exposure is becoming a great benefit of Behance Network participation.

Why is this happening? We think the quality of work is the critical element (and this also explains why so much of our team’s time disappears every day as we explore the network!).

Welcoming Two Guest Curators

Behance is pleased to welcome Josh Spear (of JoshSpear.com and Undercurrent) and Tina Roth Eisenberg (of the popular design blog swissmiss and swissmiss studio) as our first Guest Curators for the Behance Network Gallery.

Guest Curators are invited to explore the Behance Network and gather a collection of projects that they wish to feature on the main gallery page. Their collections are viewable by the 250,000+ Behance Network visitors every month. Just visit the main Gallery page and select a guest curator collection beneath the filters on the left.

Curator Collection: Josh Spear
Curator Collection: swissmiss

Guest Curator Bios

Josh Spear, as one of the youngest brand strategists in the world, is regularly sought out for his fresh perspective and no-holds-barred style of consulting on everything from design and gadgets to authenticity and word-of-mouth. His recent focus has been the power of the blogosphere, technology, and the impact this new media is having on the world. In addition to JoshSpear.com, his internationally recognized trend-spotting blog, he is the co-founder of Undercurrent, a digital think-tank focused on exploring new ways to reach young people without interrupting them. Josh has appeared in Time Magazine, the New York Times, Flair Italy, Chicago Tribune and many other major media outlets. A passionate and well received speaker, Josh has presented for such diverse clients as McDonald’s, Leo Burnett, Columbia College, Community Next, and the Google Zeitgeist conference in Europe.

Tina Roth Eisenberg grew up in mountainous Switzerland, influenced by renowned Swiss design and a lot of fresh air. In 1999 she followed her dream and crossed the Atlantic to design in New York. Since then, Tina has worked at several prominent NYC design firms, including Thinkmap, Inc., where she served as Design Director and designed the award-winning Visual Thesaurus. She now runs her own design studio, swissmiss studio, with recent clients including the Museum of Modern Art and the Food Network. Tina’s aesthetics reveal her Swiss roots ” she is a firm believer in white space-driven, clean, elegant design solutions. Tina is often referred to as swissmiss, her popular design blog.

Behance Network: New Feature Updates

Just an update on new features:  Yes, as the team continues to work on some exciting projects in the pipeline, we are also adding new features requested by Network participants. Here is a quick update…

(1) A small display of each member’s work at the bottom of each project view. The purpose was to help drive visitors to your portfolio, especially those that visited your project from a link on a blog or somewhere else in the ether of the internet…

(2) /Frame View:  For those that don’t already know it, you now have a special “framed” version of your portfolio that you can send to prospective clients and others…  It is free, clean, easy, and early testers suggest that it is very helpful. Simply add “/frame” to your profile address (ie: http://www.behance.net/trochut/frame)

(3) Circles are a key part of the Behance Network. Hundreds of circles have been created to gather people around certain interests…  To keep you posted on the discussion thread activity, you can now “subscribe” to certain threads. This feature will send you an email whenever a new post is written.

(4) Remember that circles can now be used to gather a select group of projects by members. When creating/editing the circle, you can “limit by tag” which will display ONLY projects with specified tags.

Behance Network Updates & Enhancements

As we pass the third month of Behance Network activity, we wanted to pass along some exciting updates:

With only a limited number of invitations extended, Behance has garnered lots of interest from agencies, companies, and enthusiasts. Over 250,000 visitors explored the Network in the past month. BusinessWeek cited Behance as one of the most exclusive professional networks. Behance continues to improve as a result of your suggestions and feedback.

The Behance team is pleased to announce the following:

(1) COLLECTIONS: The “My Home” page has been improved significantly with a new “control panel” that will feature tools to navigate Behance, including a new feature called “Collections.” You can now create and share folders of your favorite projects (imagine virtual mood boards).

(2) FRAMING YOUR WORK: There is a new, clean way to frame and present your portfolio to clients and others: Just add “/Frame” to the end of your portfolio address (ie: www.behance.net/your-username/frame). Give it a try!

(3) CIRCLES 2.0: You can now use circles to display member projects with a particular theme: simply use the “limit by tag” feature in Edit Circle. You can also now “subscribe” to any discussion thread in any circle.

BEHANCE & ADOBE:
We are also proud to announce that Behance has been selected to be an official sponsor of the 2008 Adobe Design Achievement Awards.
Information for Entry

Improvements All Around

Inner CircleTwo small changes we made were that your personal RSS feed (http://www.behance.net/username.xml) has images when using a reader. We also made another small behind-the-scenes change to help search engines find you.
In the project editor, you can now center captions. For those of you that have images that go across the foreground, this will be very beneficial. Centering them will keep the first word off the “edge.”

The bigger change is that you can now filter your Inner Circle by Realm when composing a message. This makes it helpful to message all your Photography friends about something you’d find relevant to them only.

Get Found Easier on Search Engines

Okay this is a short post about an improvement made. If you go to edit your profile now it will let you know that there are two fields used for “META” and “META Description”. You can click on either, which will pop up the relevant descriptions:

The first is really the META Keywords:
“This is text that search engines do NOT display, but use for relevance. We recommend using text that is most relevant to who you are so people are more likely to find you in places like Google or Yahoo.”

The second is the META Description:
“This is the text that search engines use for the blurb below links…”

Try typing your name into your favorite search engine and see where you come up. If you’re not on the front page yet, these changes will help.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Advanced Search

We recently improved search by adding the “Advanced Search” feature. You can access it by going up to the search bar and hovering over the arrow next to “SEARCH.”

The new feature allows you to limit the search to Member Names or Tags Only. This helps find people you are looking for much faster. The tags searched are from what Creative Professionals enter under their profile and projects. You can now also search by location, one of the most commonly requested features for the search.

Circle Discussion Subscriptions

It is now easy to subscribe to different discussions. As the site says:

“If you subscribe, you will receive an e-mail if someone posts in this topic. You will only receive ONE e-mail, regardless of how many posts there are, until you check this thread again.”

You can do this from the Circle page, the Discussion Page for the circle, and the thread itself. The screenshot below shows all three places.

The major benefit of this change is to stay informed about new posts, without having to check all the circles you’re in. We recommend going back and checking some discussions you have been on before and subscribing to stay updated. Hopefully this change will foster more discussions all around the site.

Quick Update & Enhancements

Upon the Behance Network’s third month live, we wanted to share a few updates. Membership now includes 5000 leading creative professionals from around the world. Hundreds of thousands of visitors (fans, top agencies, and others) have also explored your work in just the past month. The Behance team really appreciates the feedback and testimonials that many of you have shared about how the network is serving you. We have made a number of improvements to the site. Notable improvements include the addition of “watcher” accounts that enable agencies/companies and other visitors to sign up and keep track of your latest work, as well as improved spam control, rss readers, and image quality. We also have some very exciting projects, partnerships, and enhancements in the pipeline that will make your involvement in the Behance Network more valuable. We invite you to continue sharing feedback in our feedback circle.