Site News & Announcements

Introducing Product Reviews!

Greetings Members,

We're pleased to announce our latest improvement to Writing.Com:
         Product Reviews


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:: Introducing Product Reviews ::
Product Reviews REPLACE the existing Book Review item type. As
its name suggests, this new format allows Writing.Com members to
review a variety of products including Books, Music, DVDs and Videos!
The system is fully expandable and, in time, we will add the ability
to review anything sold on Amazon.Com, from toys and games to
clothing and MORE!

Product Reviews are NOT items. To encourage the use of the system
and reduce load on our servers, Product Reviews have their own numerical
ID system and WritingML tag: {pr:nnnnnn} There is no limit on the
number of product reviews any member, of any membership plan or level,
can create and these do not count towards your membership item limit!

Please note: We have ported all Book Review items into Product
Reviews (excluding those that were set private, had inaccurate ASIN's,
or multiple reviews of the same book). We did leave the Book Review
items in everyone's portfolio; authors can delete them on their own
or leave them to be purged by us in 3 to 6 months.

To view your Product Reviews, click the "Product Reviews" link found
on your "My Portfolio" page just below your "Table of Contents" link.
You can access them directly at:
         http://www.writing.com/main/product_reviews.php?action=my_prs

An example of the {pr:} tag:
         {pr:107034}
         yields: [[ Product review #107034 does not exist. ]]

To create a new Product Review click the appropriate link from the
"Writing" page or at the bottom of your portfolio. The Add a Product Review
process starts by first asking for an ASIN - it explains what an ASIN is and
how to find it.

The system talks to Amazon.Com and gets information about the product,
providing an error if there is any problem. This insures that products
and product links will always be working and correct, something that was
lacking with Book Reviews.

After this initial release of our new Product Review format, we will
begin working on further enhancement to the system including additional
WritingML tags, other product categories and much more! Stay tuned!


:: Extension For Grandfathered Free Accounts ::
On May 15th we announced some changes to our Free Membership, including
a reduction in items to a maximum of 5. For full details please see:
         "Important Changes To Our Membership Plans" 
While the Grandfather period for pre-existing free memberships has elapsed,
we have decided to extend the Grandfather Period. The new grace period will
expire September 15th, 2003. (Please note that this date has been corrected
from a previous email.)


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