Around the MLB.com blogs
Speaking of hot…make sure you are all over the Trade Buzz Blog. It’s our hottest blog and interest is spiking hourly now, with six-figure daily traffic expected in the final days. All 30 traveling MLB.com beat reporters post to it with what they are hearing leading up to the July 31 Trading Deadline, plus a roundup. You can subscribe to it, and also remember that all 30 of the MLB.com beat reporters have their own individual MLBlogs as well. Stay subscribed to this one, because after the season it morphs back into the Hot Stove blog. PRO BLOGS >
Did you see what The Pittsburgh Peas posted this week? Sometimes a picture says it all.
Check out the nice promo Russel got for his Wrigley Regular blog. Feel free to request something along those lines in the comments here, and we’ll see what we can do. One upside of our relaunch this season was the expansion from one to six panels on the MLB.com/blogs media wall.
To answer Catherine and BlueJaysNest among others in the comments, we are working on bringing back a Recently Active Blogs list and hope to hear something on that during the second half of this season. I was told before the All-Star break that this will be doable. Please post lots of comments here, and feel free to do so every time you post. It’s another way people can see you.
Thanks for all the (impassioned) discussion about the Latest Leaders. All points well-taken. In a perfect world you would have this awesome WordPress.com dashboard plus the ability to experiment with all the WP themes and always be tracked for Latest Leaders traffic. Alas, you need to keep the MLB theme for us to be able to measure your page views, otherwise you are part of the millions of WP blogs at that point and MLB Advanced Media cannot track your traffic. Other great benefits of having WordPress.com as our partner is their blog support for you (MLB.com customer service does not support MLBlogs), and the overall promotion of Baseball, with so many WordPress.com bloggers finding our themes. Some of those will make their way into Latest Leaders going forward as the community evolves.
We keep an updated roster of MLB players on Twitter. There’s a blog for that.
Tell us about some great MLBlogs you have seen lately…
How MLB.com bloggers are using new features
One of the many great things about our new WordPress.com blogs is the enhanced ability to customize your MLBlog’s look and feel. A number of you already have done some extensive work on your blogs, and we wanted to highlight some examples for those still getting a feel for the new platform.
Phillies Phollowers is a good example of the wide variety of widgets now available. Same with The Heirloom.
Links are handled slightly differently than in the past, and we are seeing some great use of Link widgets in your sidebars. Strictly Cubs Baseball is one such example of good use of the Link widget to highlight favorite blogs, while This is a very simple game takes it even a step further, categorizing the blog links by division.
Kaybee of Unfinished Business is one of the MLBloggers who has integrated her blog with her Twitter account. World Series 41, Rangers Fan 1 put a poll widget in his sidebar for readers to weigh in with their votes.
On the multimedia front, 2131 and Beyond! is showing what you can do with photos in WordPress.com, while the guys at Red State Blue State are kings of all media with their videos and podcasts.
Finally, a number of you have discovered the wide variety of non-MLB themes available out there. Ashley’s West Coast FanGirl, The Phanatic Addict, Prose and Ivy and Yankees Chick are three great examples of this. And if you want to see an amazing customization job, check out The 1 Constant.
Got any others you want me to include here? Please leave the URL in comments and I’ll check. Also be on the lookout for Latest Leaders to see which blogs are most-viewed.
If you do decide to go with a non-MLB theme, we strongly suggest taking a page from Matt at The Cardinal’s Base and linking back to MLB.com/blogs and/or to this community blog, as you will lose that red MLBlogs Network navigational ribbon atop the MLB themes. And we again welcome all you pre-existing WordPress.com bloggers who have just discovered our new MLB themes. Happy blogging!
Status update on photos and storage
All or nearly all of the photos on fan MLBlogs have been restored, a final step in the conversion process as outlined in previous posts. Thanks for your patience.
We have made sure that you have enough storage space to continue posting photos on your blog. This was very important in advance planning, as you can look through our Latest Leaders and see many examples of blogs that have great photo usage, like Crzblue’s Dodger Blue World, Rockpile Ranter, MLB groundskeeping guru Murray Cook and Cook & Son Bats’ Blog.
The default storage limitation on WordPress.com is 3GB, standard for their many millions of bloggers. To check your current storage status in your dashboard, go to Appearance –> Media. This was not an issue for all but a small handful of the thousands we converted.
For anyone who will require further space, the first tier of paid storage is 5GB. The next tier is 15GB. See the Space Upgrade page for more details, part of the FAQ for MLBloggers you were presented here after the relaunch was announced on Monday. And reminder to go here if you need MLBlogs Support.
Did you see what Prose and Ivy or Yankees Chick or By Gosh, It’s Langosch have done with their MLBlogs?
Will approve all constructive comments on this community blog. Thanks for all the feedback (also for those who commented on Paul’s post), and please keep it coming. Also please do share in comments any tips you feel are useful for your fellow MLBloggers in utilizing the new functionality. It’s cool to see so many people enjoying the infinitely upgraded capabilities, and we’ll have the April Latest Leaders up asap, probably later tonight. Be sure to check and see if you ranked among the most-viewed MLBlogs, and also see to the right here about how to have your MLBlog spotlighted in this space over coming days!
MLB.com and WordPress.com relaunch MLBlogs
The MLB.com blogging community is now upgraded. Here’s a guide to get started:
Everyone will receive a WordPress.com activation email that will contain very important details on how to access your new dashboard, and that email is going to the address currently associated with your MLBlog.
If you did not receive an activation email from WordPress.com, please enter the email address you use to log into your MLBlog.
If you do not have access to that account, please fill out this form to change to a different email address.
* * * FAQ for migrated bloggers: http://en.support.wordpress.com/faq-for-mlb-bloggers
* * * Support form: http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact
All Blog Support will be handled by the very capable WordPress.com support team – NOT MLB.com customer service or any other source.
If you have trouble receiving your activation or account information emails, also please check your spam/junk email box. If you have an option to unblock specific email addresses, try allowing *@wordpress.com (all emails from the domain) and/or no-reply@wordpress.com anddonotreply@wordpress.com addresses.
No unpublished drafts were moved over from Movable Type to WordPress.com, so if you failed to publish or copy those in advance, as cautioned here, then they’re goners.
If you encounter any missing content after the final conversion, it should show up shortly afterward. Use the support contact if you see lagging issues. Your old profile pic from Movable Type will not convert to WordPress.com. Get to know Gravatar.
We will continue to post monthly Latest Leaders right here, and we’ll catch up with April’s rankings in just a bit. Be sure to bookmark this blog and get yourself onto the Latest Leaders. We at MLB.com want to drive traffic to you, and MLB.com is one of the biggest sites anywhere. Remember, this is MLB.com/blogs — you are blogging along with Tommy Lasorda, Torii Hunter, Marlon Byrd, the Phillies Ballgirls and front offices everywhere (see right link list).
You are going to have access to the three types of themes you’re used to (per MLB and Club), plus the impressive volume of WordPress themes. In turn, this is going to drastically expand this community, because hundreds of thousands of WordPress bloggers will have access for the first time to MLB themes. We’re also gaining the capability to add a wide variety of widgets to the blog sidebar, as well as complete customization capability for the sidebar.
Your blog’s URL will remain the same, for example http://ourgame.mlblogs.com and not http://ourgame.wordpress.com.
Be sure to change your time zone. Just go into Settings to do that. You also can add the descriptive text that goes under your blog’s title.
Love your MLB.com At Bat 11 app? Search for the WordPress app as well. Then use them both regularly. It is really cool to blog via mobile, even approving comments or rejecting spam from anywhere.
Once you have received the activation email from WordPress.com, we recommend bookmarking your WordPress.com dashboard at that point to save time and logging in there. You also will be able to log in from a link at http://MLB.com/blogs or simply WordPress.com.
Check back here regularly and happy blogging!
Pregame warmups!
8:13 pm ET update: Very close to ready…you may see your blog now but are waiting for the WordPress activation email. URLs will stay the same, conversion still in progress. Almost there, stay tuned and thanks again for your patience…
4:38 pm ET update: We are basically just dragging the infield now, preparing the field for thousands of MLBloggers to get back to work!
The conversion is just about complete, looking for any last bugs. Thank you again for your patience. I can tell you from a weekend of approving 100s of comments via mobile app on an MLBlog that our new WordPress platform rocks!
Will be back shortly with the Play Ball shout and everything you need to know on this end. Please be sure you have read everything in the last post as well.
Conversion to WordPress is under way!
The move to WordPress is under way! Thanks for your patience as we interrupt service to convert many thousands of fan MLBlogs from Movable Type. Here’s what you need to know:
First and foremost, you’re going to love using the WordPress dashboard and top blogging tools. So please pardon the dust while we (a) bring something very cool to MLB.com’s blog community and (b) bring our MLB themes to the entire WordPress population!
The switch began at 10:30 a.m. ET on Friday, as previously communicated, and you will not be able to access blog software nor view your blog until the conversion is complete. We are projecting 5 p.m. ET on Monday (May 16) for service restoration and will provide any updates on timing here.
Anyone trying to access your fan MLBlog during that downtime will see an “Under Construction” page and will be referred to this community blog. I will respond here to comments throughout the downtime and update this post as needed along the way.
Everyone will receive a WordPress Activation Email that will contain very important details on how to access your new WordPress dashboard, and WordPress is going to email the address that is currently associated with your MLBlog. All users were asked to update that email.
If you have trouble receiving your activation or account information emails please check your spam/junk email box. If you have an option to unblock specific email addresses, try allowing *@wordpress.com (all emails from the domain) and/or no-reply@wordpress.com anddonotreply@wordpress.com addresses.
If you did not heed our warnings to publish any unpublished drafts before the downtime, then those unpublished drafts will be vapor when you get your new WordPress blog. There is no exception.
If you get the urge to write during this downtime, write it in a text editor like Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac) and save it to copy and paste into your new blog when the next system is targeted to be online on May 16. If you post every day and are worried this ends your streak, no problem, just backdate your posts and publish them once we’re all live on WordPress.
If you encounter any missing content after the final conversion, it should show up shortly afterward. Please note that your old profile pic from Movable Type will not convert to WordPress. You’ll want to get to know your Gravatar options. Way cooler as with everything there.
PRO MLBlogs are not affected. Those were migrated over as a test last month to ensure that the mass of fan blogs are converted as smoothly as possible.
The community blog will respond as needed to comments on that blog during this outage weekend and will let you know when the final changes are completed, signaling your return to blogging in a brand-new way using the latest blogging software from our WordPress friends.
Once the conversion to WordPress has been completed, all Blog Support will be handled by the very capable WordPress support team – NOT MLB.com customer service or any other source. WordPress has extensive support documentation at http://en.support.wordpress.com and can be contacted directly at http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact
As always, this community blog also will be a help resource on any issues that are representative of a collective need, but this will not be a technical-support blog.
You are going to have access to the three types of themes you’re used to (per MLB and Club), plus the impressive volume of WordPress themes. In turn, this is going to drastically expand this community, because hundreds of thousands of WordPress bloggers will have access for the first time to MLB themes. We’re also gaining the capability to add a wide variety of widgets to the blog sidebar, as well as complete customization capability for the sidebar. Fun is coming.
Your blog’s URL will remain the same, for example http://tommy.mlblogs.com and not http://tommy.wordpress.com … and did you know that Tommy Lasorda posted the first-ever MLBlog? He’s going strong and now using WordPress.
Once you have received the activation email from WordPress, we recommend bookmarking your WordPress dashboard at that point to save time and logging in there. You also will be able to log in from a link at http://MLB.com/blogs or simply WordPress.com.
Conversion to WordPress starts at 10 am ET today – fan blogging availability expected to return Monday
We appreciate your patience as we begin the process of converting thousands of Major League Baseball fan MLBlogs from Movable Type to WordPress! Starting at 10 a.m. ET this morning (Friday, May 13), your blog will not be available for updating nor will it be visible to the public. We tentatively expect the process to be completed by 5 PM ET ON MONDAY (May 16).
Anyone trying to access your blog during that downtime will see an “Under Construction” page and will be referred to this community blog — where we will continue responding to comments and keep you updated on progress.
Here again are two VERY important steps to take in advance to help ensure a smooth transition:
EMAIL UPDATING. Make sure a current and reachable email address is in the profile of your MLB.com registration account. Everyone will receive a WordPress Activation Email that will contain very important details on how to access your new WordPress dashboard, and WordPress is going to email the address that is currently associated with your MLBlog.
This means if you created an MLB.com account (and thus your blog) using a dummy email that has no inbox, or if you never check that email you used to create an MLBlog a long time ago, you will not be able to receive the Activation Email and won’t be able to access your converted blog on WordPress. It’s easy to log into your MLB.com account on top of the MLB.com homepage and edit the email address to include one that has an active inbox that you will be checking after this transition is done.
* NOW IS THE TIME TO DO THIS * as it will not be possible after we return from the weekend downtime.
If you have trouble receiving your activation or account information emails please check your spam/junk email box. If you have an option to unblock specific email addresses, try allowing *@wordpress.com (all emails from the domain) and/or no-reply@wordpress.com anddonotreply@wordpress.com addresses.
PUBLISH ANY DRAFTS OR LOSE ‘EM. All content from your current blog should show up just fine after the migration. Exception: blog posts with a draft/unpublished status WILL NOT be converted, so you either need to save those elsewhere or publish them by Friday afternoon if you want them to be in your dashboard going forward. If not, they will be lost, with no exception. If you encounter any missing content after the final conversion, it should show up shortly afterward.
MORE IMPORTANT INFO:
Plan on not having access to your blogs and dashboards after 10 a.m. ET today (Friday, 5/13/11). If you get the urge to write during this downtime, write it in a text editor like Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac) and save it to copy and paste into your new blog when the next system is targeted to be online on May 16. If you post every day and are worried this ends your streak, no problem, just backdate your posts and publish them once we’re all live on WordPress.
The community blog will respond as needed to comments on that blog during this outage weekend and will let you know when the final changes are completed, signaling your return to blogging in a brand-new way using the latest blogging software from our WordPress friends.
SUPPORT: Once the conversion to WordPress has been completed, all Blog Support will be handled by the very capable WordPress support team – NOT MLB.com customer service or any other source. WordPress has extensive support documentation at http://en.support.wordpress.com and can be contacted directly at http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact
As always, this community blog also will be a help resource on any issues that are representative of a collective need, but it will not be a technical-support blog.
THEMES AND WIDGETS: You are going to have access to the three types of themes you’re used to (per MLB and Club), plus the impressive volume of WordPress themes. In turn, this is going to drastically expand this community, because hundreds of thousands of WordPress bloggers will have access for the first time to MLB themes. We’re also gaining the capability to add a wide variety of widgets to the blog sidebar, as well as complete customization capability for the sidebar. Fun is coming.
BLOG URL: It will remain the same, for example http://fantasy411.mlblogs.com and not http://fantasy411.wordpress.com
LOGIN: Once you have received the activation email from WordPress, we recommend bookmarking your WordPress dashboard at that point to save time and logging in there. You also will be able to log in from http://MLB.com/blogs or simply WordPress.com.
KEY ACTION STEPS for you to take by 10 a.m. ET today (Friday, May 13):
- Make sure the email address you are using for your blog is updated to one that you can access and that can receive email. Crucial.
- Publish all draft/unpublished blog posts or copy and paste the text into a text editor.
None of this applies to those members of the MLB family who maintain the MLB PRO BLOG theme. Their blogs already have been converted to WordPress as a successful first step toward the full migration.
MLB & WordPress latest update & what to expect
:: Updated with new dates ::
All of our blogs will be migrated from Movable Type to WordPress tentatively starting on Friday, May 13, with expected completion late Monday, May 16. That was just pushed back a week from May 6-9 to allow more time for a smooth conversion for fans.
What you need to know:
DOWNTIME: You will not be able to access your blog software or view your blog during that scheduled May 13-16 service outage. Anyone attempting to access your blog then will be redirected to this community blog, which will keep you updated on the status. I will respond as needed to comments here during that weekend and let you know when the final changes are completed, signaling your return to blogging in a brand-new way using the latest WordPress blogging software.
Plan on not having access to your blogs and dashboards after the afternoon of the 13th, with exact times to come. If you get the urge to write during this downtime, write it in a text editor like Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac) and save it to copy and paste into your blog when the next system is online on May 16.
EMAIL UPDATING: It is imperative that you take the opportunity in the meantime to make sure a current and reachable email address is in the profile of your MLB.com registration account. Everyone will receive a WordPress activation email that will contain very important details on how to access your new WordPress dashboard, and WordPress is going to email the address that is currently associated with your MLBlog.
This means if you created an MLB.com account (and thus your blog) using a dummy email that has no inbox, or if you never check that email you used to create an MLBlog a long time ago, you will not be able to receive the activation email and won’t be able to access your converted blog on WordPress. It’s easy to log into your MLB.com account on top of the MLB.com homepage and edit the email to include one that has an active inbox that you will be checking after this transition is done.
Having already migrated over hundreds of the PRO blogs authored by members of the MLB family, trust me that this has overwhelmingly been the main problem area. Avoid that issue at all costs so you don’t lose a lot more important blogging time after the downtime. NOW IS THE TIME TO DO THIS as it will not be possible after we return from the weekend downtime.
CONTENT: All content from your current blog should show up just fine after the migration. Exception: blog posts with a draft/unpublished status WILL NOT be converted, so you either need to save those elsewhere or publish them before the service outage if you want them to be in your dashboard going forward. If not, they will be lost. We are spending the days leading up to the full migration constantly testing and looking for bugs. If you encounter any missing content after the final conversion, it should show up shortly thereafter.
SUPPORT: Once the conversion to WordPress has been completed, all Blog Support will be handled by the very capable WordPress support team — not MLB.com customer service or any other source. DO NOT contact MLB.com customer service about blog issues. WordPress has extensive support documentation and can be contacted directly. As always, this community blog also will be a help resource on any issues that are representative of a collective need, but this will not be a technical-support blog.
THEMES AND WIDGETS: You are going to have access to the three types of themes you’re used to (per MLB and Club), plus the impressive volume of WordPress themes. In turn, this is going to drastically expand this community, because hundreds of thousands of WordPress bloggers will have access for the first time to MLB themes. We’re also gaining the capability to add a wide variety of widgets to the blog sidebar, as well as complete customization capability for the sidebar. Fun is coming.
The next update with more specific times and any further news will come shortly, and feel free to post any comments here in the meantime.
KEY ACTION STEPS for you to take before the scheduled downtime:
1. Make sure the email address you are using for your blog is updated to one that you can access and that can receive email. Crucial.
2. Publish all draft/unpublished blog posts or copy and paste the text into a text editor.
We’ll post the April Latest Leaders at a delayed date once the conversion is finished and sure everything is going smoothly. And on another note, we’ve changed the name of this from “MLBlogosphere” to “MLB.com Blogs Central” – same blog, new title. Thanks.
Something new
MLB.com is redesigned for the start of every Major League Baseball season this past decade, and this year that fresh start will include the MLB.com/blogs network. A brand-new blogging experience for baseball fans is on the way, loaded with all the cool features and conveniences fans want in blogging. This is where we will keep you posted on the upgrade status when there are details to share for all MLBloggers. Happy Opening Day and happy blogging!
MLBNewman
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