what's new

three new things to do with sparks, all of them about what somebody said.

• tip a message. tap the spark on it, pick 5, 10 or 25, and the person who wrote it gets most of it
• a message that has been tipped wears a gold chip with the total, and yours say "tipped you" when it happens
• images, gifs and videos are back in public rooms — 15 sparks an image, 30 a gif or video, per file. the price is on the button before you send
• polls. ask a question with up to four answers in a room or a group for 20 sparks; anyone can vote, guests included, and the bars move live
• polls close when you say — a quarter hour, an hour, six, or a day — and vanish with everything else after 24 hours

answer the message, get their attention, and the site grows up.

• reply to any message in a room or a group — it quotes what you are answering, and tapping the quote jumps to it
• the quote stays even after the original is gone, and reads "message deleted" if someone removed it
• type @ and pick a name to mention someone. works with any name, spaces and all
• a message that answers you or names you gets an orange stripe and says so — no more scrolling back to find out
• answering someone with a reply now credits them exactly, instead of the site guessing who you meant
• there is a terms page now, linked in the footer. short, in plain words
• a group invite code pasted into a chat is a card with a join button since 2.4.1, and a priced group no longer squeezes its name off a phone screen since 2.4.2

groups that find their audience, a second chance on a swap, and a cup of coffee.

• the discover list now puts the busiest groups first instead of the newest
• own a group? boost it to the top of that list for an hour, or set a price so people can pay to skip the queue — you keep most of it
• drew something you did not want? reroll it within ten minutes for half the price, same daily limit
• paste a group invite code into a room or a DM and it turns into a card: which group, how many people, and a join button
• a small studio pays for the servers out of pocket. the about page and your account now say how to buy us a coffee — no perks, nothing changes on your account. poke the cup
• the version number down here finally moves again — 2.26 through 2.3 shipped quieter fixes: a sound for new messages, lighter pages, and a lot less chatter to the server

draw without sending anything, and a store you can finally see before you buy from it.

• nothing to post? spend sparks and draw a picture, a gif or a video straight from the pool — you get the kind you paid for, or you are not charged at all
• the store shows every name colour, badge and effect wearing itself, shelved by price, so you know what you are buying before you buy it
• a short ad pays sparks from level one — no level to reach first
• levels arrive faster and pay more: each one hands you sparks, and the later ones open up the rest of the store
• sparks have a home on your account now — what you earned, what you spent, and where it came from
• clear a private thread off your list with the ×; it comes back on its own if they message again

send a picture in, get one back from a stranger — and a name that stays yours.

• swap: a picture goes in and someone else's comes back, picked at random. you find out what it is when you open it
• like what you got and the person who sent it earns sparks. when someone likes yours, so do you
• accounts are free — pick a name and a password and it stays yours, with everything you earn attached to it
• talking moves you up: replies, threads that get going and busy rooms all count, and levels open the tagline under your name
• a store for name colours, badges and tagline effects, paid for in sparks
• watch a short ad when you run out of sparks

there are ads now, and a membership is what turns them off — for less than it used to cost.

• the site carries a few ads; a membership removes them
• a pass comes in two lengths — 90 days, or a year at a better rate
• a year costs less than it did
• plain pages on privacy and copyright, saying what we keep and for how long

chatlobby will sit on your home screen now, and there is finally a page that says what a membership is.

• add chatlobby to your home screen — it opens full screen, with the browser out of the way
• a page that says plainly what a membership costs and what it turns on
• the site comes back faster when you return to it
• pictures in chat can only ever load from our own servers, never anyone else's
• the blog knows where it is — breadcrumbs, older and newer links, and related posts that are actually related

send a handful of photos at once, and a few things that should have been quieter now are.

• pick several photos at once — they arrive as one message, side by side
• a group keeps an owner when the last one leaves, and empty groups clear themselves out
• a thread stops looking unread once you have actually read it
• long lists fold away instead of scrolling inside themselves

the card behind a name is worth opening now, and members get photos on theirs.

• say what you're here for and which languages you speak — everyone, not just members
• members can put up to three photos on their card, gifs included
• photos stay hidden until you tap to see them, one at a time
• your own name opens your own card, so you can see how you look
• report or block someone straight from their card
• quieter lobby: people who wandered off fold away until you ask for them

you stay in the lobby a lot longer, and the things a pass unlocks stopped being invisible.

• stepping away no longer wipes you out — you keep your name and your threads for an hour
• people who wandered off show as afk instead of quietly disappearing
• names are tappable everywhere now: in a room, in the lobby, in a thread
• the card behind a name has something in it, and says what a member would see
• members see when someone looked at them, and who is still around
• one straight answer about what a pass gives, wherever you run into a locked feature
• light mode looks like someone meant it

a pass over the whole site — faster, tidier, and a lot better on a phone.

• gifs post as gifs now, and play where you see them
• the message box got out of its own way — more room to type, everything else tucked inside it
• reacting to a message works properly on a phone
• pages load faster, and nothing about you leaves the site to fetch a font
• less clutter in the lobby, and less of your screen spent on lists
• chatlobby gets a real icon when you add it to your home screen
• plenty of small fixes, and a good deal less traffic behind the scenes

member passes got the perks they should have had, and the lobby stopped sitting still.

• members can see who looked at them — everyone else sees how many
• members get a line under their name saying what they’re here for
• members sit at the top of the online list
• a members-only room: quieter, and nobody selling you anything
• members can stay in the lobby without appearing in the online list
• the lobby moves now — you can see people arrive and threads reorder
• double-tap a message to react
• rush hour shows itself when it’s actually happening
• a lot of work on how the site feels on a phone
• this page, and the version number in the footer