We announced last week that we had lowered our processing fees from 4.5% to 3.95% and have implemented a direct deposit mechanism to ensure that candidates have their money as quickly as possible. 

Today we are pleased to announce two new, highly requested features that will continue to empower the Slatecard community with the tools you need to be effective.

• Go Ahead, Re-Arrange the Candidates on Your Slatecard
  

When you are logged into your personal Slatecard (http://slatecard.com/myslatecard), click on "View your Slatecard." You'll see a new option directly above your listed candidates, "Re-Arrange Slatecard." It looks like this:

 

When you click on "Re-Arrange Slatecard," you will see a display asking you to move the candidates in the order you like. When you're finished, click re-arrange and the updates will take effect immediately. This feature will re-arrange the candidates on both your Slatecard and its corresponding widget for your website. Here's the interface:

 

• Isolate One Candidate At A Time To Promote (if you want)

Several bloggers have asked us for MORE POWER and CONTROL -- like the ability to highlight one candidate at a time on their widget. In other words, if the blogger wants to write a blog post pushing a certain candidate, they want the ability to focus all the attention to that effort. Our new feature answers that request artfully.

All Slatecards have a flash-based widget that can be embedded to websites (FYI - the widget won't work in MySpace because of MySpace's silly policies). To grab the widget for your Slatecard, simply "View your Slatecard" and click on "Grab Widget Code."  

You will then see a widget interface like this:

Look above the code for the link which says "Get Widget Code for a Single Candidate." Click that and an interface will open asking you which candidate you want to isolate. Once you choose your candidate, the embeddable code below will automatically change to highlight that candidate. Grab the code, add it to your page, and get started making a difference for your candidate.

Let us know what you think of these features by emailing us: TEAM at Slatecard.com. And don't forget to send along ideas for features we should be working on. As demonstrated by our continued improvement of the platform at your request -- we listen.

Just a quick note to let you, the Slatecard community, know that we've revised your Slatecard widget which you can embed on your website to drive traffic back to your Slatecard. (For instructions on how to embed the widget on your MySpace page, please see this post.)

Here's a snapshot of the updated widget:

The only major change to note was aesthetic. We removed the Slatecard logo and slogan with "Make a Difference; Support my Slatecard." 

Let us know if you hear any feedback via Team AT Slatecard.com. 

If you're a Mac-enthusiast, you've likely picked up your copy of its new operating system, Leopard. I did.

One of the most practical new utilities with Leopard is the ability to create your own dashboard widgets so that you don't have to visit a particular website to search for new content. 

I've done so with the Slatecard Ticker which you can see here:

 

Download higher-resolution image here: Picture 1.png (612.05 kb)

So how do you get your own Ticker widget? It's easy: 

1. If you have Leopard, simply open Slatecard.com in your Safari browser (must use Safari).
   
2. Go to File > Open in Dashboard
3. Highlight the Ticker. Mouse click.
4. Voila! You're done.

Now you can keep a voyeuristic eye on the Ticker without even navigating to the site. The updates will appear magically.