Hi all,

Hope this finds you doing well. Today's edition of The Friday Fix is chock-full of information. We're covering four topics -- one that's big news, and three that have come up here at Seed this week in our communications with you:

BIG NEWS: Your Page View Counter is Counting Again!
As some of you might have noticed, your page view counter on your dashboard was not displaying correct information. We've corrected the issue, and now you can see just how far your voice is carrying when you write for Seed. (Some voices may carry farther than others, depending on what site your work appears on, along with the site's PVs and any additional promotion the site and/or your work received during the timeframe when your work published.)

The page view count you see is retroactive -- meaning, it's representative of your total page views to date. And it will continue to tally your PVs going forward as your content is read on our broad and growing network of sites. It will be updated around 7am ET daily for now, and soon it will start to be updated multiple times each day.






Next Up ... Confirming Your Review Dates
Click 'Continue Reading' button below.

1) Using text paste buttons. When you are ready to copy in your text, instead of using a simple paste command, place your cursor in the text editing window (where you write your article) and click the Paste from Word or Paste as Plain Text editing buttons to import your text without the hidden formatting.



2) Composing your article in Seed. Seed is an intuitive, easy-to-use platform that mirrors most word processing programs. To safeguard against losing your work, follow the time-tested mantra: save early and save often! We also encourage you to copy your work to an outside word processing program and save it to your computer files, so that you retain a permanent record of it.
PLUS ... NO MORE LOST CLAIMS!
Some of you have noticed that when you claim and assignment and then pull the claim -- either by choice or by accident -- it disappears from your Recommended Assignments queue. No longer!

Our terrific development team (hi, guys!) has fixed this so that when this happens, the assignment returns to the listing. So, if you change your mind and want to re-claim the assignment, you're able to do so.

And while we have you, you'll notice that the page view graph on your Dashboard has temporarily been removed. Not to worry. Our developers are making some adjustments and it will return soon.

Have a great weekend!

• First, locate your assignment title in your Work In Progress folder located at the top left of your dashboard. Click on the time remaining and a pop-up box will display the assignment information.

• Or, click on your assignment title in your Work In Progress folder located at the top left of your dashboard. This will open up your assignment's 'Write' page. Click on the blue assignment title link and a pop-up box will display this information.

• Hours: If it's 9:32am ET and the assignment indicates it is due in 3 hours, this doesn't literally mean 12:32pm ET. Instead, we round down, so the actual due time is 12 noon ET.
  
  
• Days: Example: It's Tuesday and there are five days left before the assignment is due. Do not include the current day when calculating the due date. So, in this case, the due date is Sunday. Once Sunday arrives, the deadline will switch over to hours left.

Happy New Year! We hope this finds you happy and healthy as we head into 2010.

We're thrilled so many of you have signed up so quickly after our December beta launch. As early adopters, you've provided integral feedback and suggestions – and we're listening. You'll soon see some changes you've specifically asked for in coming weeks. We've got a lot of enhancements planned, so thanks in advance for your patience as we work to implement them.

Our main priority in 2010 is to provide professional creators like you with a place to submit quality content. To us, it's simply about connecting community to content.

To support this, we're implementing one change that will result in more successful content placement for you. For now, we are removing the open submission option. You've mentioned multiple issues with this option, including low success rates in matching your original content to our sites, and mixed opinions about the earnings share model.

We agree. We think it's best to build our relationship with you based first on our known universe of editors' article requests. This will allow you to effectively match your voice and interests to our existing opportunities to express them. It also lets you familiarize yourself with our properties and their editorial focus.

Next, we'll re-work the open submission process to serve as a forum for our editors to have direct dialogue with you in real time. They will be able to issue requests for content based on immediate needs such as breaking or local news, and you will be able to pitch and propose content ideas targeted to specific AOL sites. No more guesswork on your end, or time invested in creating and submitting content that's not a good match. Best of all, this new process will allow you to establish relationships with our editors that may pave the way for additional assignments. We'll be sure to keep you posted on when the new and improved open submissions section of SEED re-opens.

We hope you agree with this new direction, and use this time as an opportunity to submit articles based on our current requests. As with any new relationship, let's get to know each other first, and then branch out from there.

We also have more good news:

• No more disappearing articles!: By the end of today, any articles that we don't select to purchase will remain on your dashboard under Completed Work until you choose to remove them, allowing you to copy them to your personal files. To check the status of your article, click the title and the status will indicate 'Not Accepted' for non-purchased articles. You'll also be provided with an option to remove the article. We know that some of you compose directly in SEED, and as writers ourselves, we understand the importance of being able to save this work and potentially use it in other formats at a future time. We were able to expedite this change based on your initial feedback. (TIP: To ensure you never lose your work, we recommend you make a habit of saving a copy of your article to your desktop files.)
  
• Assignment sorting: Also in effect by end of day, you will be able to sort assignments by photos or text. This option is displayed as two checkboxes at the top of the assignment queue, and they default to list both types of assignments. Simply click what you want to see (text or photos), and only those options will display.

As you can see, we've relied on your feedback and input and it's starting to result in visible changes. If you have insights on our planned future direction, we'd love to hear from you. Your comments really do make a difference, so lend your voice and help shape the SEED experience.