During their second year, Mixx experienced further significant growth; but while there were many highlights and postive experiences for the site, 2009 also saw the site and its loyal community face some setbacks and issues arise as well. Despite these, the Mixx staff and the Mixx users soldiered on, and continued to perservere and make it through to the end of the year with stronger numbers and a larger community - with some bigger features than in the previous year as well.
Join me in a flashback on the year that was 2009 and how far Mixx has come in this time...
January
New Year, New Features!
87 Votes at time of writing
Posted by cGt2099
Submitter's description: Well, the holiday season has come to a close. The New Year has arrived. The champagne bottles are empty and that festive buzzing in our heads has finally cleared. So it must be time to get to the 2009 goodies—including a few oft-requested items!
Looking back:
The Mixx staff immediately kicked off 2009 with a release of some new features and updates to the site. Topping the list was an upgrade made to the amount of kudos you could hand out for great comments on submissions, and the announcement that a Kudos leader board was now a part of the Mixx Lounge. While a majority of the users were happy with the upgrades, one change did not sit well with many. Mixx had launched Share Lists, a function that would allow you to make specified lists of friends with whom you would like to send specific content. For example, I could create a Star Wars geeks list and share Star Wars based content with my friends in that list. The Share Lists were immediately embraced by Mixxers, but the change that also had been made was or sharing submissions, the "select all" option had been removed. After much discussion in the comments thread between users and staff, the crew behind the scenes of Mixx conceded the point - and Jason Garber announced that, "After much public shaming, we've re-added "select all" when sharing, creating People Lists, etc. And in record time, no less!" It was another important sign that the Mixx staff do indeed listen to their users, much more so than any other social media site out there.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
February
Mixx Still Growing (But Not Fast Enough), Relaunches Website
119 Votes at time of writing
Posted by ivomortani
Submitter's description: Mixx is steadily growing, and they're hoping to spur even greater traffic increases with a completely revamped website
Looking back:
February saw the launch of the new Mixx front page - a design that would give current and prospective users a good glance at what was happening on the website at that given time. The new look was welcomed by Mixxers, though the TechCrunch article highlighting the change saw author Robin Wauters make criticisms based upon flawed statistics, even though it was clear that analytics were showing healthy growth for Mixx. Another interesting upgrade was the ability for Mixxers to choose what they wanted their launch page to be: the new front page, YourMixx, or the new MixxFeed aggregating all the shares and involvement of your friends and followers.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
March
Get new Mixx powers and a chance to win an Apple MacBook!
130 Votes at time of writing
Posted by kash
Submitter's description: Get new Mixx powers and a chance to win a MacBook!
Looking back:
March 2009 saw Mixx open a sweepstakes contest for loyal Mixxers to enter, in a means by which the staff could pay tribute to and say thanks to the community that had stuck with them up until this point. The winner of the contest was Tau_Zero, who still enjoys the MacBook he won! Additionally the contest also saw the launch of POWERMIXXERS - a new level of users, just below SuperMixxers, these users have slightly more features available to them than new users, but not as much as SuperMixxers. Assigning the PowerMixxer badge to a user was a way Mixx could say to them, "Thanks for sticking with us, but keep at it, you're almost a SuperMixxer".
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
April
Introducing the Mixx Sifter
87 Votes at time of writing
Posted by kash
Submitter's description: When we launched Mixx 18 months ago, our goal was to create a website that featured the best in content discovery and personalization while offering a way to meet new people and have some fun. Speaking personally, we think we nailed the "fun" part...
Looking back: Breaking the news announcement on the Social Blend podcast, followed by an official blog post at Mixx.com, Chris McGill and the crew behind the scenes of Mixx released The Sifter in April 2009. The Sifter was a place where advertisers could post up a sample of creatives or media they wanted to use as ads on Mixx, and then it would be voted upon by members of the Mixx community. The creative with the most user votes got featured at Mixx for the following week, and the advertisers would receive feedback from the Mixxers. The community embraced the idea, and were rewarded for their partcipation with sweepstakes prizes. After several weeks of successfully testing out the Sifter, the section of the site sadly closed down - but included some outstanding items to vote on, including movie posters and trailers! Mixxers are still campaigning for the return of the Sifter to this day.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
May
Meet the Super Mixxers (YankeeJim)
92 Votes at time of writing
Posted by SilentJay74
Submitter's description: 2nd in the Meet the Super Mixxers Series is the man the myth, YankeeJim.
Looking back:
May 2009 saw SilentJay74 launch a new feature at MixxingBowl.com: Meet the SuperMixxers! The posts were a chance for some newer users to get to know the SuperMixxers, and also an opportunity to introduce them to the Mixxing Bowl forums as well. YankeeJim's entry got the most votes over at Mixx, but other people such as Arianrhod, Kat136, Tau_Zero, Brad0022, Katmicjus, and Steaprok. The series was welcomed by the community, but is currently on hiatus. Meet The SuperMixxers will return in 2010.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
June
Mixx should remove the nofollow tag from links to popular stories
93 Votes at time of writing
Posted by daveuk
Submitter's description: About 3 weeks ago Mixx.com started nofollowing all of their outbound links. I understand why they have done it (spammers, no editorial control etc.), but IMO stories that get chosen by the community to be promoted should get link juice, sign to make it happen
Looking back:
June was not such a positive month for Mixx. Around the beginning of the month, several users noticed a dip in Mixx traffic and inquired as to what the issue was. They were informed, and at the same time, Mixxer daveuk and others noticed that the nofollow tag had been removed on a majority of outbound links from Mixx.com. Daveuk decided to create a Twitter petition about the issue, and the submission gathered a lot of attention from Mixx. At this stage, Mixx staff had not discussed publicly what the rationale was behind the decision. The issue divided the community and caused some quite heated debate. Finally, Kerry Parkins came into the the thread, and discussed the issues openly. It turned out that Mixx was experiencing issues relating to Google and some changes needed to be made to the site. One of the suggested changes was the implementation of nofollow. Later on, Chris McGill spoke with TechCrunch, giving further details into the issues surrounding the decreased traffic. However, while the experience for Mixx was somewhat negative, the end result was positive: Kerry later announced that nofollow would be removed in certain cases. "In our next update," Kerry states in this post, "we will turn on do-follow for all Super Mixxer endorsed sites and all Super Mixxers submissions. All SuperMixxers and Power Mixxers will receive do follows on the links on their profile pages. We feel this provides a nice balance between spam prevention and rewarding those mixxers who are giving the most time and effort to make Mixx a better place". It was another case where the staff of Mixx listened very carefully to the feedback they were receiving from Mixx.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
July
Mea Culpa
104 Votes at time of writing
Posted by DanielDamian
Submitter's description: This blog post is entitled Mea Culpa, because we need to acknowledge that we’ve had some glitches on Mixx recently. We’re scheduling an outage tomorrow morning (7/28) from 3AM ET - approximately 7AM ET to help clear up some of the issues
Looking back:
Not long after the issues surrounding "nofollow" and traffic, Mixx also began experiencing some major performance problems that were beginning to frustrate users. While behind the scenes a lot of work was being done to help improve performance as well as balancing preparations for a new upcoming feature, on the face of the site, users were experiencing constant errors, time outs, and long load times. For the most part, it was bearable for the Mixxers - but for the staff behind the scenes of Mixx, it was unacceptable and needed to be remedied: "We know we have had performance problems and we are dedicated to fixing them," said Chris McGill in a comment post, "Our only goal is to provide the best Mxx experience possible.". The announcement was met by praise from Mixxers. Once the major upgrade was completed, there was some slight adjustments that needed to be made, but after some time, performance improvement was noticeable. The Mixx staff have continued to work hard on performance issues, and now the site is still running relatively quickly.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
August
Share, and then Share some more...
85 Votes at time of writing
Posted by s_lockyer
Submitter's description: Hello, Mixxers! It’s been a while since we last did some updates. Well, we’re back and we’re in the mood to share. Actually, we’re in the mood for you to share ...
Looking back:
During 2008, for many users of the site, it seemed that Mixx was continually releasing and updating features consistently. And they were. So when 2009 rolled around, many expected the same thing. Only it didn't exactly work out that way. As highlighted, there were the Google/nofollow/traffic issues that needed to be dealt with, in addition to the performance issues being addressed during July. While the Mixx Staff were still working their asses off on the site, the users began to notice the length of time that had passed since the last new feature release, and began getting hungry for some more. Kerry Parkins appeared on the Social Blend podcast, and admitted the frustration at the waiting time - but broke the news of major changes coming to the site. The first announcement to come to fruition was the new sharing feature that improved and enhanced the way Mixxers could share content with non-Mixxers. The new enhancement helped bring more new users into the site, thanks to the active sharing of the community. Additionally, Kerry also announced on the podcast the upcoming release of multi-level comments; as well as the new Mixx redesign - which is still in development and coming soon. On an additional side note, during the same Social Blend episode, we highlighted that the submitter of this particular Mixx story of the sharing feature, S_LOCKYER, finally had reached the 100,000 karma point mark! He is the Mixx Jedi!
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
September
TweetMixx: A Better Way to Track Twitter Trends and Topics
87 Votes at time of writing
Posted by cmcgill
Submitter's description: New web service TweetMixx is a bit like TweetMemeTweetmeme meets saved Twitter searches meets a web-based Twitter client...
Looking back:
After much work behind the scenes, the Mixx crew were ready to unleash their new product in September: TWEETMIXX. TweetMixx.com combined the flexible customisable feel of Mixx, with the real-time connection of Twitter. The initial release occured in July of 2009 with a closed beta that was open to invites only. After much development based upon feedback from users and focusing on the improvement of performance, the service was ready to be opened and unveiled to the world in September. Fundamentally, TweetMixx gives users a web-based version of a Twitter App (such as Tweet Deck), which provided a practical alternative to users who were happy with using web interfaces, but not satisfied with the other third-party apps out there. Mashable, TechCrunch, and the Washington Post gave TweetMixx.com some very postive reviews upon its release. Since its launch, the site has also branched out to offering specific channels for particular services or organizations, such as The Social Blend Podcast. The release of TweetMixx was definitely one of the highlights for Mixx in 2009, while Mixx users also look forward to further development of TweetMixx, particularly increased integration between Mixx.com and TweetMixx.com.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
October
You were never THAT Anonymous
99 Votes at time of writing
Posted by cGt2099
Submitter's description: There is a huge conspiracy theory going on in the community that has left many of us divided. Some care, some don’t. I personally think it is ridiculous when the facts are presented.
Looking back:
While August and September saw some positive developments for Mixx, October saw another negative experience: this time on the front of the users and the communities. After an altercation on a comment thread that saw her overstep beyond her three-strikes/warnings on the site, SuperMixxer VioletPlanet was banned from Mixx. VP had been a solid submitter at Mixx for quite some time, though had become known as sometimes being confrontational on comment threads. Her ban from Mixx is significant in the sense that it is the first known time that the top user of a social media service had been banned for infractions against the Terms Of Use. What followed her banning was an event that had not yet happened at Mixx.com: several weeks saw submissions based upon her banning that sharply divided the community in half. On one side of the debate were Violet Planet's friends who were arguing against the ban, and the other side of the debate were people arguing issues of TOU and privacy on the internet. The debate on internet privacy amplified, prompting SilentJay74 to post this MixxingBowl post. Following these events, the Social Blend podcast discussed opinions surrounding the ban, which prompted VP to step up and want to come on to the podcast to tell her side of the story. At any rate, VP's ban and the chaotic debates that followed had a profound impact on the community at Mixx, and it would not do this list justice if I neglected to include it here.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
November
He Proposed on Twitter!
124 Votes at time of writing
Posted by BennyGreenberg
Submitter's description: Hear from a couple who got engaged live on Twitter yesterday! Can you really ask someone to spend the rest of their life with you – using 140 characters or less? For Benny Greenberg, the answer is a big, relieved @yes.
Looking back:
For Mixx users, October was a negative one with the community being so sharply divided after VP's ban. The community began to thirst for some more positive online experience at the site, and it was provided by BennyGreenberg, who announced to the world that he had proposed to fellow Mixxer KellyBax over Twitter - and she said yes! It was a welcome piece of news, and was one of the biggest stories at Mixx during the month of November. As the dust had settled from October's shenanigans, during November things were looking more positive for the Mixx community - the engagement of BennyGreenberg and KellyBax helped make things a little bit more "smiley emoticon", if you know what I mean. :)
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
December
Live from Docking Bay 94: The Social Blend Party Van visits the Violet Planet
65 Votes at time of writing
Posted by Tau_Zero
Submitter's description: This one's sure to attract a lot of listeners. Yes, you read that right, VioletPlanet is this week's guest. Discussion of the ban, Meredith Kercher murder case, the MixxingBowl, Tweetmixx NHL Channel, and more.
Looking back:
Following the Social Blend crew voicing opinions about the incidences surrounding VioletPlanet's banning, the 94th episode of the podcast saw VP join the show to have her right-of-reply, with her being able to provide her side of the story and opinions. While many anticipated this to be an episode that would be a "war of words", the debate was very civil and cordial, with each person being able to put forth their views. It was an apt closure to the year of Mixx, finally putting the issues surrounding VP's banning to rest. Following the release of this episode also saw the ban of another Mixxer, aelusiveone, a banning that also divided community members, though not as amplified or as intense as VP's ban.
Direct Link to Article Direct Link to Mixx Story
New Year, New Features!
Mixx Still Growing (But Not Fast Enough), Relaunches Website
Get new Mixx powers and a chance to win an Apple MacBook!
Introducing the Mixx Sifter
Meet the Super Mixxers (YankeeJim)
Mixx should remove the nofollow tag from links to popular stories
Mea Culpa
Share, and then Share some more...
TweetMixx: A Better Way to Track Twitter Trends and Topics 
You were never THAT Anonymous
He Proposed on Twitter!
Live from Docking Bay 94: The Social Blend Party Van visits the Violet Planet
