Introducing Saved Stories and Homepage Story Feed
Saved stories (AKA bookmarking) and a new homepage experience.
Community is the heart of Vocal, and today we are excited to introduce some new updates that are all about supporting each other, fostering deeper connections and relationships, and improving your reading experience.
Saved Stories
Have you ever found a story but got distracted and didn’t have time to read it? Or have you found a story that resonates so much that you want to experience it again? Our new Saved Stories feature lets you save stories (AKA bookmark them) to read later. You can save a story from a stories card, or directly in a story at the top or in the sticky bottom action bar. Saved stories are displayed in chronological order based on when you saved them, making it easy to come back to stories you want to read later. If you want to remove a story from your saved stories feed, you can simply unsave a story by clicking the save story icon again.
Homepage Story Feed
As part of this update, we’ve revamped the homepage for the first time in over three years. Your Story Feed, Saved Stories, and Subscribed Creators are now featured up front and center when you log in. Think of this as your personalized Vocal feed, composed of all the creators and their stories who matter most to you, whether free or paid (pledged). As always, stories in your feed are displayed in chronological order, void of any algorithms.
Highlighting Subscribed Creators
Additionally, we are now showcasing the creators you subscribe and pledge to on your homepage. Previously, you could access this through Your Subscriptions page, but we felt that was too many steps to navigate to and we wanted to make it easier for you to personalize your feed. We hope that by prominently displaying these core features, we can invoke more community engagement and improve your experience on Vocal.
What We Are Working On…
We’re sprinting hard behind the scenes to bring you a feature that's long been in the works: Exclusive Stories. Unlike regular stories which are published in Vocal communities, Exclusive Stories will live directly on your profile and appear in the homepage feed for your paid subscribers. Additionally, more paid subscriber features, like direct communication between paid subscribers and creators (think DMs), are coming soon.
Here’s an exclusive sneak peak at Exclusive Stories:
It’s your feedback that helps shape and drive Vocal forward. As always, we are forever grateful for your support and helping our community grow. We would love to hear your feedback and thoughts in the comments below.
About the Creator
Justin @ Vocal
Founder/CEO of Vocal. COO/President of Creatd ($CRTD), the parent company of the Vocal platform.
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Keep reading
More stories from Justin @ Vocal and writers in Vocal and other communities.
Message Me Afterwards
>That was a bad idea. I thought you knew… >Oh, the pathos! I don’t really know you as well as I should. In fact, I may not know the real you at all. That essential, sparkling you that you only reveal to a select few. Had I been paying more attention to the stories you are so fond of telling, in which you are invariably author, narrator and protagonist, I would not have been so foolish as to set you up on a blind date. After all, no friend has ever done anything of the kind for another. That’s preposterous. What is a friend, really?
By D. J. Reddallabout 23 hours ago in Fiction
Comments (32)
Congratulations on having your story featured as a top story on Vocal! This is a remarkable achievement, and it's clear why your work has received such recognition. Your storytelling is truly exceptional. The narrative was not only compelling but also beautifully crafted, holding my attention from start to finish. The way you developed the characters and plot was masterful, making the story both engaging and thought-provoking. Your unique voice and perspective shine through, setting your work apart. It’s evident that you poured a lot of passion and effort into this piece, and it has certainly paid off. I look forward to reading more of your incredible stories in the future. Keep up the fantastic work! Best regards, Dr. Jay
Things you need to fix NOW: Stats on the profile Stat page are ridiculously Slow to update. Sometimes it takes several days before reads you KNOW you have show up. Also better policing of the types of "Articles" you allow up IE; glorified ads for products or services that are pretending to be a real informational article. Along with the focus on short-form content, that's quickly read. Reading time is under 5 minutes. My stories run 5-6000 words, give or take, so my reading time is estimated at 20-30 minutes most of the time. I never see a long-form story that gets the attention that the short ones get. Also; Subscribers; I have 21 subs, which is great in of itself. However, there is no way to tell which of them has looked at my stories after I put a new story. A centralized list of the subscribers in the drop-down menu would be nice. along with the number of stories they've read. Also, more details on the general stat page would be good. Such as the newest read story and other such information. As for the bookmarks, I'll probably never use it. I rarely find anything I want to read here, much less anything I want to come back to.
Here are my observations on the upgrades and there are some excellent ideas and thoughts in the comments on my piece https://vocal.media/fyi/observations-on-the-latest-vocal-upgrade
Its great to be a new member of a community which is obviously developing new and exiting features for its members. I love the facility to easily view saved stories. Thank-you
Great updates, Vocal! Love the bookmarking and personalized feed. Excited for more features!
If I didn't have to wade through all the notifications, my experience would be better. A delete option on notifications would the solution. Because other platforms have a delete option on notifications, I know it is achievable. Being eaten by 🐊 🐊 🐊 isn't funny!
Great to see new updates to the site!
I'm happy for being able to save/bookmark a story! That's so cool! However, I'm not happy with the Story Feed and Exclusive Stories. I feel the Story Feed thingy is unnecessary because we already have the Your Subscriptions, Latest Stories, and our notifications for that. As for the Exclusive Stories, I'm with Hannah, DK Shepard and Poppy on this. I don't think we'd wanna make people pay to read our stuff and I don't think anyone's gonna pay either. It'll just be a waste of time. I'm sad because the Top Stories are below everything. Shouldn't Top Stories be at the Top? That's what makes them Top Stories.
I feel like nobody will be paying to subscribe to each other so that feature will kind of go to waste😂 BUT I’m so excited for the other features!!
I'm definitely excited to have a bookmarking option instead of needing to like stories I haven't read so I can return to them easily.
Love the new badges so that if a story gets more than one recognition it shows! Love the bookmarking option! And while it's different and will take a little getting used to I do tend to spend most of my reading selection time on my subscriptions page so it does make it a lot more convenient for me to have that as my homepage and then just a quick click over to check out the Top Stories! So fan of that too! Like Hannah, less sure about exclusive stories, probably because I have no paid subscribers so I guess I wouldn't use it! I would be interested in being able to manage my subscribers so I could remove accounts that I don't want getting notifications of my work getting posted. Sounds weird, but the AI commenters/subscribers irk me.
Thanks, Justin! This is golden.
Love the bookmarking, been wanting that for ages. Less sure about the exclusive stories though.
This is awesome Justin
Many things new to learn Great article
Well done to Vocal. I can't wait to try out the new page experience. I'm hoping it will make finding people I have subscribed to easier, and I am always adding new subscribers as I read!
Wow, so many new things and great ideas here!
Wonderful! I've already started tracking down and saving those pieces that I want on my bookshelf of vocal favorites, the ones that become more meaningful to me with each reading.
I love the personalized story feed! Saves me from having to navigate either my notifications or go through the old process of finding my subscription feeds. This is a great update! The one thing I would love to see is something like the YouTube progress meter or a 'read' (past tense) note for stories I've already consumed even if I don't remember the title. That would be useful to me personally, but it's not a requirement by any stretch
I miss a lot as no one can read every story and keep up with their own writing, much less other platforms daily. I am terrible at navigating new things but hope to figure it out. Thank you for the update.
Feed back is essential for any changes, also it takes time for people to accept change. It is nice to see that Vocal is willing to adapt and change, and I see a few items that I may enjoy and a few that I am unsure about at this time. I like the idea of adding some of “my’ favourite pieces aside so I can reread without having to navigate the system trying to find it. Not sure if Vocal hit the mark on this one just yet. Then again I am willing to review this in an open and honest way and give it a fair try. I know one thing for sure, it is that it is not easy to satisfy everyone, but I like that you try. Thank you,
This makes me sad. I joked that you would implement another feed for publications and that is what you have done. You have had faults outstanding for years that you brush under the carpet. I am less than impressed
Mmm, I'm going to reserve my judgement on this until I've explored the changes further. I liked the Top Stories being my opener because this was a way of me exploring new writers with ease, people you recommended, drawn out from the masses that write every day. I always try and catch up with my subscribers through the Profile page so it wouldn't make a difference to me. I appreciate the efforts that you put in to address the requirements of all of the people that use the platform though. It's good that you're listening.
Thank you Justin! I like the easy toggle between my homepage and the Top Stories!
This is so awesome! 👏 loveeeeee