AJ, we totally understand that concern. I don't think these blogs will drive a lot of traffic in the short term, but the blogs aside, we do see the traffic increasing all the time with new people signing up daily. So the challenge for us is to make YLF still feel intimate when there are 10 times, or a 1000 times, the number of people here. That is something we are working on.

And I have to say, we really do want to reach more people. For one thing, reaching more people was the reason we started the forum in the first place. In fact, the whole reason I initially suggested to Angie that she start a blog was to allow her to get her positive message to people beyond her individual clients.

But there are also very pragmatic reasons to grow. We need to bring some other people into the business to help share the load. The forum at its current level is great on so many levels, but it isn't sustainable indefinitely.

Greg, I knew I was being a selfish baby when I commented earlier. : )

Of course you want YLF to grow and blossom. Angie's expertise fashion/style knowledge and her wonderfully positive "have fun with fashion" message should be shouted from the rooftops worldwide. In the two years I've been here, I've seen this forum grow a lot and yet you both have managed to keep the atmosphere peaceful and welcoming. That's comforting even when there are changes to come.

I am ever so grateful for the courage you both took to start YLF. Despite any trepidations I may have, I'll always be cheering for the success of YLF!!

Yay! So exciting! I always wanted to have an outfit blog to keep track of my WIW's but I didn't want to create a public blog accessible to every random stranger. This feels like a great way to start since it's only viewable by YLF members. Plus I didn't want to create extra work for myself to post here and on a separate blog so this is perfect!

I know I mentioned this in the past, but I would suggest having a place within the blog to have an album of our "best of" or "killer" WIW's so we can put all of our style defining outfits in one spot. Wouldn't that be great to be able to click on someone's best of album and see their favorite outfits in a glance? Kind of like a personal lookbook. And maybe other albums/boards where we can post our closet contents or wish list or style inspirations (kind of like Pinterest). If not, then maybe a spot for us to list a link to our Pinterest page (because I already have those boards on my Pinterest page)? And how about a profile page that we can customize so we can write a brief description of our style (rather than having to choose from the five options of modern classic, trendy fashionista etc), likes and dislikes, size/measurements, etc. It could be the same as our current profile page but have some more space to write in our own stuff.

Hope I'm not being too greedy! Very excited--thanks for doing this!

This sounds like a really cool idea! The test blogs look great. I like both the idea that it makes it easier to get a cohesive idea of a poster, especially if you can't stay on top of the forum all the time, and I also like the idea that I could make a post from time to time without the commitment of running my own blog. And I like that it will all be tied together on the forum! By the way, Greg, I am not sure that I ever commented at the time, but I enjoyed and am so impressed by your fashion week photos! What a treat for us.

I'm very excited about this feature and can't wait to see more of your own blogs come alive.

Neat. I don't have a blog but could see what a huge time saver this would be for those that do. It just keeps getting better!

BRILLIANT!

Only just seen this.

What an amazing idea and so thought through. Love it.

You're both amazing!

Long live YLF in all its wondrous forms.

This is a great idea. I won't apply to be a beta tester because I have very limited time for YLF at the moment. I do have a question though: can you add old posts, from before the blog option existed?

Carole, but now you *do* have a blog, if you want one of course.

HelleenH, yes, a that is possible. As an example, take a look at MaryK's brand new blog:

http://funwithfashion.lookfab.com/

This is beyond brilliant Greg (and Angie)! I am constantly amazed at how much time and energy you put into YLF and ensuring it grows and succeeds in so many ways.

Hi Greg and Angie --

You two have been busy lately; congrats on the new feature!

Seems like a nice way to track/recall what a forum member who does a YLF blog wears or recommends. Seems like I'm forever using the search feature and getting distracted by the results!

Greg, I have another (possibly odd) two-part question:

My current blog is a mix of personal style search + home renovations + travel or environmental photos -- so as you said above, lots of off-topic stuff for YLF, and I'm happy with that.

However, I know YLF members who read me sometimes like to skip that other stuff and wait for the style posts to sloooowly appear. [Due to time I actually participate more on YLF than I blog, and do it in a different way than my blog!]

How do you all feel about "seeding" a new YLF blog with older (archived, if you will) posts that focus on style/accessories?

And if you're ok with that, the mechanics would involve posting old blog posts to the YLF Forum and then check-marking them as "duplicate on YLF Blog," right?

Vix, I'm sure that will be fine, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "seeding" (probably because I don't follow the forum actively and haven't seen your previous posts).

I can think of two possibilities. Situation 1: the old posts you're referring to are already here on YLF. In that case you would just edit them to appear on your lookfab.com blog. I don't think this is what you have in mind, which is...

Situation 2: the posts you're referring to are on your main (existing) blog, but you would like to have them on your lookfab.com blog too. In this case they would be new threads on the forum. In this case you might want to note in the new post that you are posting older/archived outfits.

Ideally in the second case you would also be able to back date the archived posts, but that isn't an option right now.

Am I getting it right?

Greg, I apologize if you've answered this question already, but will there be a way to make the YLF blogs members only and not searchable by the general public? Specifically, I would prefer that my photos not appear on google's image search. (I know the forums are viewable by non-members right now, but for some reason it still seems less searchable than, say, a regular blog would be.

Diana, that is an excellent question. What we will do is give you (blog owner) the choice of whether you want your blog discoverable by search or not.

Wow, very cool! I look forward to seeing more, and participating! Greg and Angie, you rock.

Maybe I missed this, does this mean someone who is not a YLF member will be able to comment on the person's blog? And does this mean comments can be made only on the person's blog and not the forum post?

Lisa, on the question about non-YLF comments...

"Version 1" of lookfab.com will only allow YLF members to comment. In the future every blog owner will decide if they would like non-YLF members to comment on their blog posts (i.e. it will be a setting). If they do, and non-YLF people comment, then those comments will also appear in the forum, but it will be clear that the commenter wasn't logged in when they commented (like it is on the main blog today). That's our plan, but it isn't cast in stone.

And to clarify for the second part of your question: comments on blog or forum topic appear in both places. The blog post view is really just a different way of viewing the exact same content. Instead of being on a page styled like every other forum post, it is a page styled in a way the blogger decides.

Just a reminder to GP and others--as I understand it, forum posts can be viewed by anyone on the internet. The YLF forum is not closed, and people do not have to be registered members to see what is posted here. So even if you choose to make your blog only accessible to members (I think that's a great option!), your original post is publicly available here on the forum, and anyone can go to your profile and sort through your posts from there and see your photos. So if privacy is a concern, it's just something to take into consideration.

ETA: I'm with Diana, I know everything on here is public, but I like the idea of my photos not being discoverable in search engines (for the time being). What a great option. Thanks, Greg!

Just to make sure this is clear...

Ana is right that the forum can be viewed by people on the Internet. You can easily see what non-members can see just by logging out and browsing the site.

But one thing I do in the code on the page is tell Google that it shouldn't put your pictures in its search index, so people won't find your pictures using image search.

Right now, blog pages do the same. In fact, they actually go a bit further by telling Google that it should not index the blog pages AT ALL. But soon I will add an option where people who DO want their pictures to be discoverable can change a setting to make this happen.

Thanks for clearing that up, Greg!

I really like the option of Google not indexing our posts here, and having that same option for the blog if we choose. That's one thing I never really liked about having a blog on one of the blogging platforms. Thank you!

More clearing up: Google does index the *text* of the posts here. So, for example, someone may search with the same question you posted about and then find the answers Angie and others gave here on the forum.

What we don't allow Google to index is the pictures.

Hi Greg!

Here's a question about the nuts and bolts of YLF Blogs. Is the column on our YLF blog fixed width, and do our photos automatically reset to the largest column width, or do they just go up whatever size they are when we upload them? (Not sure if my question makes sense). I'm wondering how big I should make my photos when I upload them.

Thank you!

ETA: Just saw your last response. That's fine, I figured that since there is a "Google Custom Search" bar where we can search the forum for keywords, post text was indexed. I like that the photos specifically aren't indexed.

When you upload a photo is automatically resizes the largest dimension to 1024 pixels.

For the current themes in lookfab.com, all the main column widths are around 500 pixels. If the width of a picture is greater than this. the picture is resized to fit. If less, it isn't resized at all.

If you would like to create pictures that are full width, I would suggest uploading something that is larger, say 2048 pixels in the largest dimension. That will allow my code to resize it without any artifacts or distortion.

That is a great question. At some point I need to expand on the answer and make it a help page of some sort.

Thank, Greg! My photos are usually sized to 560 pixels, so it sounds like they are already at maximum size.

You know what else might be really nice is if we could add social media plug-ins. So if we wanted to, we could link to our Twitter or FB accounts. I've often wondered how many of the ladies on YLF are on Twitter and thought about starting a thread asking, but then I don't want to clog up the forum with that kind of post. I know some people wouldn't want those two thing connected, but it would be nice to go to a person's page and see it in the sidebar if they do want to connect off YLF. It's okay if that's not in the cards, it's just a wishlist thing for me.

Social media plugins are on the list! This is something we also imagine being choice for the blog owner.

Hooray!

Hi again Greg --

I am heartbroken you don't track every single member's forum participation.

I'd say 99% of my forum posts are responses vs "starters" so yep, you got it right with your second use case:

>Situation 2: the posts you're referring to are on your main (existing) blog, but you would like to have them on your lookfab.com blog too. In this case they would be new threads on the forum. In this case you might want to note in the new post that you are posting older/archived outfits.

And the idea of noting them as "old" is a good one. [ I'd probably put a modifier in the forum/blog title line like "Persnickety Bohemian" or "Rectangle" too.]

While other members are weighing the pros/cons of more publicity, I admit my only hesitation is a control freak one!

One of the reasons I usually just add photos to other people's threads vs starting my own (aside from my long blah blah blahing) is that the structure of my Wordpress blog posts works best with intermingled photos vs photos all at the end.

While the YLF blog post layouts are great, having that post be duplicated in the forum would require some rejiggering of content.

But I understand that you don't want the YLF blog posts to live separately from the forum posts (or be a synopsis with a click-through to the YLF blog post).

Hmmmm. Can one save drafts of the YLF blog post before going live, or does it work like a forum post...immediately up?

I hope all these questions don't make your head explode. Thanks!

ETA -- Duh, now I'm relooking at the YLF blogs and it looks like all photos have to be at the end of the writing, yes?

Vix, my head is still intact!

Drafts: no, just like the forum, a post is live as soon as you submit it.

Pictures: yes, they always appear at the end of the post.

Drafts and inline images are both good examples of things that will probably add as we make the blogging feature more sophisticated.

Glad I didn't take you out. Long day, few brain cells left to rub together = haphazard questions/thoughts!

Gotcha re current capabilities and possible iterations.

I will probably sit tight for now, view other's YLF blogs, and see if there's ever a day where a straight cut-n-paste works so I can move (fairly) seamlessly from my platform to a YLF blog.

Hate to pass up jumping into such an interesting feature, but I'd rather use the time to participate in other people's threads and leave the full-on me me me elsewhere.

Yay! My YLF blog is up and running! So excited! I even went back and added selected posts all the way back to when I first joined last summer! I'm a fashion blogger now! LOL!
http://goldenpig.lookfab.com/
Check it out and let me know what you think!

Ana, thanks. I do realize that all the YLF posts are viewable by anyone, even non-members. It's the same with the mommy board I'm on. It's easy to feel like you are just among friends here, but you do have to be careful about sharing too many personal details. I think for now I'll hide the kid pics, and revisit how I feel about how much to post later.

Greg--thanks so much for your hard work and this is so exciting! Let us know when there is an option for "About me" on the blog page. It would be great to at least have our profile information there and space to post links to our Pinterest boards or Picasa albums (so we can create "best of" outfit albums etc.), if those types of things will not be integrated into the blog itself. And will there be a section on the main page listing all the YLF blogs?