We have been getting some really nice feedback on the software recently. We’ve done some things well, and some things not so well. But we can iterate on the pain points quickly. It’s really nice to be at a point where we can react to our users’ needs, rather than building features in a vacuum.

So let us know what you need! Everybody wins when we build the features and address the bottlenecks outlined by all of you.

A few of the highlights in this week’s release:

• Improvements to the behavior editor…
  • More intuitive names for object references
  • Color coding changes for unique object references
  • Configurable name definitions for looping actions and the object creation action
• User profile pages now provide access to all creations for that user
• You can now send feedback to us directly from within the application (click on the Director)
• Added Facebook invitation support
  • Please invite your friends in Facebook!
  • Users can also invite friends to use specific applications
• Simplified the application publishing workflow. There is a new “publish” option on the Director that walks you through the steps and offers you the ability to invite your friends.
• Added interface for tagging and rating assets from within the applet
• Improved the identification for search results
• Improved collision detection filters
• Images can now be set just like any other object property - using the set property action
• Lots and lots of bug fixing!

Let us know what you need, and we’ll do our best to get it to you.

There is a terrific post this morning from George Oates discussing the secret sauce in the Flickr strategy for nurturing a strong community.

Embrace the idea that people will warp and stretch your site in ways you can’t predict—they’ll surprise you with their creativity and make something wonderful with what you provide.

At the end of the day, this really is the best tool for acquiring new users. Build and foster a culture where new users want to explore, participate, and evangelize on your behalf.

Come make something wonderful today.

Creating and playing Michael Arrington games is all the rage on twitter these days with the release of PopFly’s Game Creator. Folks love to add Mike’s mug shot to their games. So we decided that we should join in the fun.

With our release of a new personalization feature, we’ve made it dead simple to incorporate your own pictures and sounds into games and share them with others.

If you aren’t ready to embark on the creation of a brand new viral hit, you can start with an existing game and personalize the artwork to your liking. Every application can be personalized by pressing the personalize it button below every running applet. If you’d like to dig into the logic, add or subtract contact, use the edit it button to whip up something even more authentic.

Providing our contribution to the Arrington game genre… Fly through space and shoot down giant Arrington asteroids with Arringroids.

This is a personalized version of TJ’s Asteroids game, and incorporates high scores, friend challenges, and a discussion board. You get all of this with every game you create or personalize - without the need to program!