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Neopoet | January 2015

Contents:
1) Neopoet Election
2) Technical Update
3) Triva & "Neo Buzz" by Chrystalie Bruso
 
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Election
Our election opened on Tuesday, December 30th with six candidates running for three positions on our Administrative Council, all for a four month term. The candidates (in alphabetical order) are: 
 
Barbara Writes
China Blue
emogothgirl
paul
scribbler
weirdelf
 
 
The election concludes January 6.
 
 
Technical Update
We've been working hard on a number of improvements and features.
 
The most significant (and perhaps least visible) was an overhaul of our backend code that should reduce page load times by 20-50%, as well as increase the capacity of our server to handle spikes in visitors.
 
We have one big update for premium members: we now show the historical number of views or "hits" for each poem that a premium member has authored. To sign up for premium membership, or to learn more, please visit https://www.neopoet.com/premium
 
We've updated how our website looks so it is more mobile friendly (30% of our visits now come from tablets and mobile phones). For a long time, we thought that Neopoet was best experienced from a traditional computer with a keyboard; we are very interested in any suggestions or stories about how you use Neopoet on a tablet or mobile phone, and what we can do to make the experience better.
 
We've created a number of tools to make it easy for members to host and join contests -- please look for the new "contest" tab on the main menu to learn more. We'll be launching an exciting contest in about a week or two -- more to come.
 
We've also added links below each poem, workshop series, and contest so that you can share with your friends on LinkedIn, Google Plus, Twitter, or Facebook -- we encourage everyone to share their poetry. We're excited to help you get more exposure, and also potentially build our membership.
 
If you have any ideas of how to help Neopoet, please submit them at: https://www.neopoet.com/idea
We've implemented a number of member suggestions recently -- please also vote on the ideas you think are best, as this helps us prioritize. 
 
Since we've made a number of code changes recently, issues and bugs can and do occur. A big thanks to Wesley Snow, Weirdelf, Alid, Barbara Writes, and others who have reported and helped us solve recent issues. If you see anything, please let us know.
 
 
Triva & "Neo Buzz" by Chrystalie Bruso
John Keats
31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821
Romantic Poet
Most notable for his Odes (as in Ode To A Grecian Urn or Ode To A Nightingale)
His first book of poetry was a total failure. It wasn't until after his death that he became popular. 
 
The narrative Epic Poem is one of the first forms of literature throughout the world
Robert Frost was paid fifteen dollars for his first poem My Butterfly in 1894 (about $400 today)
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