Introducing TNC v.6.0

Today marks six years since we launched The Naked Convos. It has indeed been a remarkable journey so far with ups and downs, errors made, lessons learned and a lot of success stories. As we celebrate today and in the days to come at the #TNCAmplify event, I’d like to say a huge thank you to you, our readers, our community members, our contributors and of course our kick ass team. We would never have come this far without any of you and on a day like this, I’m glad to announce a few things we have been working on which will prepare us for the next leg of this journey and hopefully help us all better enjoy this platform.

Our first major announcement is our new identity. Over the past few days some of you must have come across our #TangoNovemberCharlie teaser campaign. We really enjoyed the engagement on the campaign and watched as people tried to figure out what on earth it was all about.

Tango November Charlie = TNC and today I’m proud to announce our new brand identity.

Our new brand icon is what some call the megaphone. We call it the amplifier as it ties into our mission of driving culture change among young Nigerians. Helping us get to the point where we find it ‘express’ without fear of being bullied, judged or silenced. The goal is to help the African youths amplify their voices, their thoughts, stories and opinions using this platform. All of this ties into our vision of becoming the largest African open publishing platform within the next 4 years.

This brings me to our next announcement. It’s been a long time coming but I’m glad we finally decided to do it. Today, we officially launched TNC Kenya.

For months we’ve been going back and forth, working on putting the team in place and it has all finally paid off. It’s a totally different entity with its own team put together to create content for the Kenyan market but riding on the same mission and vision with the TNC NG site. And so, next time you’re in Kenya, be sure to check out www.thenakedconvos.co.ke.

As you must have noticed, what you’re currently viewing is the newly launched sixth version of our platform. This update became necessary following our decision to transition from a magazine into a open publishing platform. You will notice that we tried to stick as close as possible to our fifth version in terms of the general look and feel and instead focus a lot more on functionality. To begin enjoying these tools, you need to start off by registering or logging into your existing account using the Login icon at the top right corner of the site.

Once you are logged in, you’ll notice a more elaborate menu across the top of the site.

On the menu you’ll see the following icons (left to right):

Messages

Yes, all registered members now have their own private message boxes through which they can receive private messages from their added ‘friends’.

Notifications

Here, you’ll be able to view friend requests as well as other notifications on your account.

Edit Profile

With this, you can quickly change your profile picture, update your bio, location and other information you want the public to see on your profile.

Search

Simple and straightforward way to find anything on the site.

Write a post

To truly establish ourselves as an open publishing platform, we needed to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute on the site. This is why we have moved the post submission functionality to the front end of the site. With just a click you’ll be able to access the streamlined editor which makes writing easier.

If you’re not quite done with your post you can save and it automatically goes into your draft folder accessible once you mouse over your avatar at the top right corner of the site. And once you are done editing, you can submit for review. By clicking the circle icon with the three dots in it, you’ll see options for adding tags and a featured image to your submission.

Use the rollover menu that pops up when you mouse over your avatar, contributors can also quickly gain access to their Payment Dashboard to view how their published submissions are performing.

On the homepage we have included a section to capture most recommended posts. For some time now, you have asked us to include like buttons for posts – well, we figured if you like a post so much you’d want to recommend it.

To get a post featured here, all you have to do is click the heart shape at the end of the post.

Once you are signed in, from the homepage you can quickly add members as friends by clicking on the red icon below. By scrolling over the 3 horizontal lines beside a contributor’s avatar, you’ll be given options to view their most recommended posts as well as their latest posts.

Finally, we touched up our commenting system to tie in all the changes.

Whew. I know it’s quite a lot to take in and as it is with changes, we expect a few bugs here and there but we have our ever reliable team on hand to hold your hands and help you settle in and get used to the updates.

Again, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to the TNC story. I know for a fact that we are only just getting started. Remember never to stop ‘expressing you’.