Tonight, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT), we'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!

Update: we've postponed tonight's maintenance, and will let you know when we reschedule.  Thanks for your patience!

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Last week, we announced the winners of the HP "What Do You Have to Say? Theme Design Contest and promised you we'd make the winning themes available on Vox in the coming weeks. After a little more thought, we decided you shouldn't have to wait a second longer to use these creative and inspiring designs on your blogs, so we made them available for you today. Who says good things only come to those who wait?

Winning Themes

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Straight to Video
Now you can share your Flickr videos on your Vox blog!

A few weeks ago, Flickr announced that pro members are now able to share videos of up to 90 seconds in their photostream. Many of you already post photos to your Vox blog directly from your Flickr account, and now we’ve made it so you can do the same with your Flickr videos.

To post a Flickr video to your Vox blog, just follow the same steps you would if you were posting a Flickr photo. (Yes, that means you’ll find your Flickr videos in “Photos,” not “Videos.”)

Not using Flickr to add photos to Vox? Find out how to connect your Flickr account to your Vox account. Plus, using Flickr means you’ll never have to upload a photo twice, or waste valuable storage space!

Around the World with Vox and CupCate
A little over a year ago, we announced that CupCate was one of the Grand Prize winners of the Vox World Tour. A month ago, Cate and her husband, Iain, packed their bags and flew to San Francisco, the first stop of a three-cities-in-fourteen-days vacation.

While they were in SF, Team Vox was lucky enough to have a yummy lunch with Cate and Iain and some of us even made it out for a late night karaoke session at The Mint.

CupCate and Lisa

We were also happy to hear, however, that she took some time to enjoy a glass of wine, a roaring fire, and the luxury of utter relaxation.

Then it was off to Tokyo where she saw gorgeous cherry blossoms, the Tokyo Tower and the Sensoji Temple, and even got a special tour around Tokyo with Ayako from Six Apart’s Japan office!

Cherry Blossoms

And it wouldn't be a Vox World Tour without Paris in the spring time, decadent French meals, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower.

CupCate in Paris

It sounds like an amazing adventure. Congratulations again to CupCate. We had so much fun with you while you were in SF and we can't wait until your next visit!

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It was hard to choose from the 355 entries, but the judges have announced the winners of our month-long "What Do You Have to Say?" theme design contest, sponsored by HP. And the winners are....

First Place: "River at Night," by Teresa Jones

First Place

Second Place: "Live and Learn," by Li Kim Goh

Second Place

Third Place: "Vectori Drips," by Terri

Third Place

People's Choice Award: "Shiny," by Noah

People's Choice

The First Place theme, “River at Night,” was designed by Teresa Jones who told us that nature plays a big part in many of her designs. “I love nature and really love combining nature themes with a touch of whimsy,” Jones said. The inspiration behind her winning design? A childhood memory of sitting on the dock on summer nights.

And while we know it's not polite to brag, you'll forgive us for a moment while we gush about the fact that the 2nd and 3rd prize winners are both Voxers!

The Second Place theme, “Live and Learn” was submitted by Li Kim Goh, or as you may know her: gollykim. We thought it was pretty cool to hear that Li, “didn't really think about winning, but mainly [entered] just for fun [while also] creating a few new banners for [her] own Vox blog.

When asked why blog design was so important to her, Li answered, ““because it draws readers' attention and makes your blog stand out from the millions of other blogs.” With such a great design, we think Li did just that.

The Third Place winner, Terri, showed off her “funky-fresh style” with her theme, “Vector Drips.” Terri said that having her theme picked made her day. You know what Terri? It made our day too!

The best part of the contest? In the coming weeks, we’ll make all the winning themes available on Vox, TypePad and LiveJournal so that you can use them on your blog!

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest and CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners!

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40+ designers at up to 80% off!

Are you going to be in New York City this weekend? If so, you won't want to miss the Billion Dollar Babes Spring Sale! We told you all about our favorite nationwide sample sale a few weeks ago, but we wanted to send out a quick reminder that this Friday, April 25th and Saturday, April 26th, you can save up to 80% on over 40 amazing designers at the NYC Spring Sale. This is a shopping experience you do not want to miss. Trust us.

Plus, the fabulous ladies at Billion Dollar Babes have a very special offer exclusively for Vox shop-a-holics. Visit http://www.bdbinvite.com/ and enter voxvip in the promo code box to receive an early start time and first look at the sale!

Not going to be in NYC? Don't worry... You can still make the L.A. sale (May 30th - 31st) or the S.F. sale (June 6th - June 7th)!

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We've been up to some pretty amazing stuff at Six Apart, and our latest launch is one of the most exciting yet. Yesterday, Six Apart announced we are adding a host of social media services for paying customers, including helping customers monetize their blogs, design and template assistance, and helping VIP bloggers build their audience and visibility.

As anyone who surfs the web knows, blogging has erupted into a mainstream communications technology, and at Six Apart we want to provide our customers with everything they need to ensure their blog is a success. This means offering complete solutions and services that complement the outstanding technology on which we pride ourselves.

You're probably wondering what this means for Voxers. Since Vox is a free, advertising-supported service, the program isn't available on Vox. However, if you've ever thought about starting a blog on which you could potentially make money, now is definitely the time! Find out more about how to sign up for a TypePad account and take part in our advertising program tailor made for bloggers. And since you can cross-post directly from Vox to TypePad, you can keep your Vox blog (and all of your neighbors), and still participate in the program!

Map

Six Apart is a company full of bloggers who are passionate about making blogging better for everyone, which puts us in a unique, and pretty cool position to actually dig in and do so. Think you'd like to work at a place like this? You're in luck. We're now hiring in New York City and San Francisco.

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April 22nd - 25th

The Web 2.0 Expo is almost here! If you’re planning on attending, be sure to stop by the Six Apart booth (location #245) where we’ll be making some really exciting new announcements, answering any questions about our products you may have, and giving away Six Apart schwag. You can also enter to win a VUDU, the new revolutionary movie on-demand service that provides instant access to more than 6000 movies and TV shows in HD! There will be 5 drawings, so be sure to stop by our booth and drop off your card.

The fun doesn’t stop when the sun goes down… Six Apart is really excited to take part in the Web 2.0 Expo South Park Crawl on Wednesday, April 23^rd from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. This is a chance for local Web 2.0 companies, as well as sponsors from popular South Park restaurants, to open their doors to conference attendees for what’s sure to be one of the biggest and best parties of the year.

Web 2.0 attendees are invited to stop by the Six Apart offices, play our 6-hole miniature golf course, and enjoy beer, wine and dessert, while mingling with other conference attendees and Six Apart employees.

Going to be in SF, but not attending Web 2.0? Let us know in the comments that you’d like to attend the Six Apart party. We’ll pick a few lucky Voxers (at random) to come hang out with us and play a few rounds of miniature golf. If you're chosen, you will be notified via private message by Monday, April 21^st.

Can’t wait to see you at Web 2.0!

-daisy

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Blog It powered by TypePad

Ever stop to think about how many places on the web you post about your life? For many of us, we're posting on multiple blogs, as well as Facebook, Twitter and Pownce. That's a lot of time spent just to make sure all of our friends and family across the web are caught up on our lives. And while it's incredibly important to stay connected to everyone, at Six Apart, we don't think it should be quite so complicated to do so. That is why we've taken another step in our ongoing effort to create better tools for bloggers, no matter what publishing platforms you use.

We are excited to announce that today, Six Apart launched the first cross-platform blogging application for Facebook -- Blog It powered by TypePad. Blog It brings some of the best social networking aspects of Facebook to blogging, making it easy to blog or micro-blog from within Facebook. It doesn't matter if you blog using Vox, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress.com or WordPress.org, or micro-blog using Twitter, Pownce or your Facebook status... Now you can update everything and everyone via one easy-to-create post on Facebook.

Plus, after you've posted using Blog It, you can choose to automatically share your post  via Twitter and Pownce, in addition to the Facebook news feed. While a lot of other Facebook applications rely solely on the news feed to share your activity, Blog It is unique in that it helps you notify everyone you know across the web about what you're creating -- not just your Facebook friends.

Ready to try it out? Just add the Blog It application on Facebook and take a minute to add all your accounts. From there, you can create new blog posts and share them with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Pownce, all just by ticking a few extra boxes. Watch this screencast to preview how Blog It works.

For more information about Blog It powered by TypePad, please visit http://blogit.typepad.com/

Now what are you waiting for? Go Blog It!

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40+ designers at up to 80% off!

Ready for some retail therapy that's sure to put a little spring in your step? Good! Because Billion Dollar Babes is back and this year’s Spring Sale is guaranteed to be better than ever. If you haven’t started your spring cleaning yet, you’d better hurry because with over 40 designers at up to 80% off, you’re going to need lots of closet space for all your fabulous new finds!

Billion Dollar Babes

If you live in New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco, you won’t want to miss this exclusive sample sale that combines the sophistication of couturiers and European labels like Richard Tyler, Plein Sud and Vivienne Westwood with modern classics such as Rebecca Taylor and the urban edge of local LA labels. And since Billion Dollar Babes is more than a traditional sample sale, you’ll be able to find in-season designer clothing, shoes and accessories in a wide variety of sizes… so there’s guaranteed to be something for everyone.

RSVP today for the sale you'll be attending!

New York: Friday, April 25^th & Saturday, April 26^th

Los Angeles: Friday, May 30^th & Saturday, May 31^st

San Francisco: Friday, June 6^th & Saturday, June 7^th

Attention New York Voxers:
The gals at Billion Dollar Babes have a very special offer just for you. Visit http://www.bdbinvite.com/ and enter voxvipny in the promo code box to receive an early start time and first look at the sale! See a full list of designers, plus get additional details about the event.

Planning on shopping in LA or SF? Check back in May to get the promo code for your early start time.

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Hp Theme Contest

Designers, you have just two days left to submit your theme in the HP "What Do You Have to Say?" Theme Design Contest! Be sure to upload your entry by Friday, April 4th at 5 p.m. PDT. The top three winners, as selected by the panel of judges, will receive a cool prize:

• First Place: $1000 gift certificate from Hewlett Packard
• Second Place: $500 gift certificate from Hewlett Packard
• Third Place: $300 gift certificate from Hewlett Packard

Community voting stays open for an extra week until April 11^th, so make sure you have your say by voting for all of your favorite designs.  We’ll announce all the winners at the end of April.

Visit the "What Do You Have To Say?" theme design contest site to read all the details, submit your theme and vote for your favorites!

April Fools! The QotD & Vox Hunt Aren't Going Anywhere!

Yesterday, we announced the end of an era on Vox. Those of you who clicked on the link in the post or the Vox Talks newsletter were directed to a QotD asking, "What's the best April Fools' Day prank you've ever had pulled on you?"

Since not everyone clicked on the link, we thought we'd just go ahead and state the obvious: We were just playing an April Fools' Day joke on you. QotD and Vox Hunt are an institution around here and it would take a lot more than a few discussions about the "direction of Vox" to make a change as enormous as that.

Have a good idea for the QotD or Vox Hunt? Please send us a message letting us know what questions or challenges you'd like to see and we'll do our best to get them out there.

And thanks for being such good sports!

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