we just released broadcasts, which lets room owners send out messages to people who have subscribed to rooms.

so if you’re running a room, just click the "broadcast" link at the top of the interface

then you’ll be prompted to send a message out to people who have subscribed to receive broadcasts from your room.

it is a good way to help gather people around a specific event. also, you can sign up just to receive broadcasts from a room, instead of being notified via IM or email every time people enter the room.

Alright folks, time to announce two new features that make photophlow easier to use.

photo-emote UI:

The first feature is an extra special photo-emote tagging UI that lets you turn your own photos into emotes a lot easier.

Simply magnify your photo, and select the emote you’d like it to be used for from a drop down list. When you do, we’ll automatically add  the appropriate tag to the photo for you.

tab key username autocomplete:

But not only will photophlow now help you tag automatically, we’ll also help you type automatically! So long as you’re typing the name of someone currently in the room that is.

Play the following video to see what we’re talking about ..

Just hit the tab key on your keyboard after typing the first couple letters of someone in the room’s name, and we’ll finish the job for you.

press page:

Lastly, we’ve received  a lot of thoughtful and supportive words from folks over the past months, and now we’ve collected many of them on a “press page“. It is pretty cool to see the excitement photophlow has been generating all in one place!

We’ve added a new feature to photophlow, allowing room admins to designate a “presenter”.

The presenter can essentially “drive the room”. This means that only the presenter can post photos for the whole room to see, and only the presenter’s searches are seen by anyone else.

Others in the room can either follow the presenter, or browse privately on their own while the presenter leads the rest of the group.

Designating a presenter is a good way to bring focus to a busy room, or to select someone to make a “presentation” during an event. It also gives room admins a bit more power to shape the activity in their rooms.

We’ve also added a link back to the flickr group or flickr user a room represents inside the room itself.

This gives easier access to group discussions on flickr, as well as a way back to flickr if you entered the group via a badge in the group description or flickr profile.

Finally, we’ve created a page with a host of highly educational videos that will explain step by step how to use various aspects of photophlow.

Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced photophlowist, you’ll most likely find something new and helpful on the tutorial video page.

We’ve now set up IM notifications to let you know when one of your photos has been tagged, faved, commented on or tweeted from photophlow.

Simply enter your IM information via the photophlow anteroom, and we’ll give you an immediate “heads up” when people pay attention to your photos.

From the flickr hacks group:

PhPh member and GM chef extraordinaire Mortimer? created a greasemonkey script that adds some photophlow links into flickr.

If you use firefox + greasemonkey, looks like it would a fine addition to your quiver of scripty arrows!

[install it here]

Hi kids, thought you were all out of Christmas loot to open?

Well you thought wrong!

Photophlow now brings to you Twitter integration. Tweet from a room to announce your entry or use “tweet this” to tweet a photo you’re fond of

We also bring you the /topic command, so you can set a topic of conversation in a room.

You can also view EXIF information about a photo on photophlow now, heavens to betsy!

It is all so overwhelming, words alone cannot describe, so check out the demo video explaining all these keen new features.

We’ve brought photophlow stalwart Broken Haiku on as a photophlow administrator.

Which is good, because as a European he’ll be handling the “north american nightshift”

He’s a Flickr Live Ex Pat and a generally welcoming soul, and we’re glad to have him on board.

So swing by the photophlow welcome room sometime to say hello.

We’ve just added two new features to photophlow, “Whispers” and “Tumbl This”.

Enter your Tumblr.com account information from the anteroom and photophlow will add a “Tumbl This” checkbox beside the Flickr comment entry field in magnify view.

Check the box to make a post to your Tumblog with the photo and your comment. We’ll also add a link to your tumblog in the flickr comment.Commenting and Tumblogging all at once!You can also talk to people in a room directly by “whispering”. Select “whisper” from another person’s user menu, and “/whisper username” will be added to your chat entry text box. For example “/whisper trinity hi there!” would whisper the message “hi there!” directly to trinity without anyone else being able to read it.

The user you whisper to will be presented the option to “whisper back” and you can strike up a little private conversation without disturbing anyone else in the room who might be talking.So whisper away and Tumbl it up.

That’s Phlow with a Ph, not an F.

Not FotoFlow or FotoPhlow, and most certainly NOT PhotoPlow.

Not PhotoSnore or PhotoBore, we should hope, Nor PhotoLow or PhotoBlow… and though PhotoGlow has a romantic ring, that’s not it either.

During Beta, the application might be PhotoSlow some of the time, but we will be PhotoThorough in addressing these issues.

If you like what you see, be sure to invite some people you PhotoKnow to try it with you.

So go forth and PhotoPhlow!