New Feature Roundup, March 2018

Stitch New Feature Roundup

We’re constantly making improvements to Stitch and how the community works, which means it can sometimes be hard to keep up with all the latest changes.

That’s why, every so often, we do a roundup of all changes, new features, and web site improvements that have gone in to the Stitch community over the last few months.

We’re happy to announce that it’s time for our latest roundup of the most recent changes, along with a glimpse of some of the new improvements we have planned.

Enjoy!

Profile Browsing Distance Preferences

One of the most common feature requests we’ve had is for more control over the profiles you see when browsing profiles on Stitch.

For members on our new premium Connections membership, we have recently introduced the ability to set the distance range for the profiles you view. If you are Connections member, you’ll see the following distance filter on your Search Settings page:

The distance filter lets you choose whether you want to only see profiles of members very close to you, or further away. The larger you set your distance setting, the more profiles you’ll see per day. Depending on where you live, you may also find that you profiles which are better matched to you, given you are looking at profiles selected from a much larger population.

We would encourage you all to try browsing using some of the broader distance settings occasionally, just to give it a try … we are constantly being surprised by how many of our members get connected with other Stitchers around the world!

If you’re on one of our older membership plans and would like to switch over to the new plan so you can make use of this feature, please just let us know.

Multiple Organizers

Another feature that has been requested for some time is the ability for Stitch events, groups, and trips to be managed by multiple members. Many members in the Stitch community end up collaborating on events and activities, so the new feature now lets multiple organizers manage the activity.

Each activity, trip, or group still has a primary “owner”, who can add as many additional organizers as they like. This is what it looks like on Stitch:

We’ve also added some additional group & event management capabilities, which allow organizers of an event or group to remove members, add additional organizers, and more.

To add an organizer to an event or group, the owner simply needs to click the menu next to that member’s profile and choose “Add as organizer”, as shown below:

We’ll be giving organizers additional moderation and management features in future updates.

Age on Profiles

Stitch has always had the belief that the number of years since you’ve been born shouldn’t be an important factor in determining what other people think of you. Almost all our members have experienced ageism in some form at some point in their lives, and don’t like being judged on their age.

That’s why, when we started Stitch, we made a firm decision that age should not play a huge role in the community. Far more important than a person’s age is what they are like as a person, what activities they are capable of, and what their interests are.

Over time we have learned, however, that for some members, particularly those looking for romance, age is important. And some members are quite willing to display their age on their profile … most often because they are comfortable with their age and don’t think it’s a big deal.

So we’ve recently introduced the ability to optionally include your age on your profile. If you go to your Profile Settings page, you’ll now see a checkbox which can be used to turn this on, as shown below:

If you see a member who hasn’t chosen to show their age, you can also anonymously ask them to add age to their profile. So if you get a request from the system asking you to add your age, it means that someone is potentially interested in you but would like to know how old you are. It’s totally up to you whether you add the age to your profile or not.

New Membership Plans

We’ve recently restructured our membership plans to make them better aligned with what our members are looking for when they join Stitch. This includes introducing a free “Basic” plan, to allow new members to get a taste of Stitch before they decide to join. We’ll be expanding the features of the Basic plan, as well as adding new features for all our paid membership plans, in the coming months.

For more details about Stitch memberships, check out the Stitch Pricing page.

Open events

The first new feature we’ve introduced for Basic members only rolled out last week, and that’s the ability for Basic members to attend some selected events, activities, and trips which are designated as “Open” on Stitch. Open events are shown as follows in Stitch:

The first open activity that’s been published is the US East Coast Get-Together planned for October this year, and we expect to see a lot more published in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out for them!

Partner Accounts

A major goal for the Stitch Community is to find ways to bring benefits to our members by partnering with organizations who can provide deals, discounts, or other benefits to Stitch members. We have wanted to go slowly with this idea, however, as we know how important it is to ensure that this only enhances the community for our members, and doesn’t inadvertently open the door for businesses to simply target our members with unwanted marketing material or do anything to detract from the Stitch community values.

Over the coming weeks we will be taking baby steps in this area as we start to introduce new features for what we’re calling “Partner” accounts. These are Stitch accounts owned by businesses or not-for-profit organizations seeking to add value to the Stitch community. They will look like this:

All Partner activities and communications on Stitch will be opt-in only. That means if you’re not interested then they won’t affect your experience of Stitch in any way. For those members who are interested, however, we are hoping that over time we’ll be able to bring a wide range of benefits through Partner accounts.

What’s Next?

As always, we’re being led by member feedback when it comes to the changes we’re building in to Stitch. Some of the changes you can expect to see in the coming months include:

• The ability to turn the membership points you earn for contributions to the Stitch community into real-world rewards such as gift cards
• A Stitch app for Android users
• More moderation features for group and event organizers
• and many more!

Stay tuned for another new feature roundup in a few months … we’re looking forward to sharing it all with you. And as always, if you’ve got any feedback in the meantime, please just let us know!