Consumer safety and privacy has been a priority since we first built Tagged. Today we rolled out a new ‘invite-your-friends process’ that sets higher industry standards for the millions of people who rely on this feature to grow their social networks.

Here’s what we’ve done to improve Tagged’s registration and invite-your-friends processes:

1. Added clear language on the import-your-friends page stating that a member is giving Tagged permission to access their email address book and store contacts in their Tagged account.
2. Clearly labeled the button on the import friends page as ‘Import Friends’ giving notice that clicking the button will import contacts into a member’s Tagged account.
3. Enlarged the ‘Skip’ option to make it of equal size to the ‘Import Friends’ and ‘Send Invites’ buttons on each page.
4. Clearly labeled the button on the invite contacts page as ‘Send Invites’ giving notice that clicking the button will send email invitations to email contacts.
5. Provided clear indication that a member’s friends will receive e-mail invitations using the member’s name, email address and profile photo.
6. Presented a link that allows members to view a sample form of the email invitation, including use of the member’s name, email address and profile photo.
7. Included a ‘Clear All’ link and check box at top and bottom of the member’s list of contacts on invite contacts page.
8. Added an additional screen confirming member’s intention to send email invitations the member’s contacts.
9. Committed to make sure all email invitation subject lines and content are clear and not misleading in any way.
10. Provided that a invitation recipient who declines a member’s invitation will be directed to a web page indicating that the person will not be connected with the member who sent the invitation.

A full set of screen shots of these important site improvements is available here.

All of us here at Tagged are passionate about building a social network guided by the original promise of the Internet: To make the world a smaller and more connected place. It is our mission to make Tagged the place for meeting new people online and we are confident these changes bring us a step closer to achieving this mission.

Hey everybody – here’s a cool bit of news on Tagged.

Experian Hitwise, a well-known company that measures web site traffic, recently issued new stats for the top social networking sites in the US.

We thought you’d be interested to hear that they report Tagged’s market share for in the social networking category is up by almost 50% since last year. This is as good for us as it is for you. Obviously, we’re excited because our business keeps growing. And it’s great for our community, too, because Tagged users like you just increased the number of people you can discover!

Over the past decade we’ve watched Internet companies come and go, and it is interesting to see how some companies soar into the stratosphere—only to crash back to earth almost as fast. At Tagged, our progress has been different. It’s been slow and methodical. And that’s just fine with us. Since we started the company five years ago this month, we’ve tried to stay true to our original goal: to fulfill the original promise of the Internet by turning strangers into friends.

It seems to be working.

In fact, one of the things we’ve noticed—and commentators are talking about this more and more lately—is that traditional social networking sites can sometimes pull you into the past rather than push you into the future. It’s fun to connect with everybody from high school, but once that’s done, and you find out what everybody is doing 5, 10 or 20 years later, what’s next? With Tagged, it’s all about social discovery, about meeting new people—people you’d have never met in high school, even people from the far corners of the planet if you want to travel that far. That’s what we like most about Tagged: The possibilities for new friends are infinite.

So thanks again for sticking with us. Over the next few months we’ll be sharing some new features with you that are sure to make your experience on Tagged even richer.

The Hottest Awards Show on TV is about to Go Down!

That’s right – tune in to BET this Tuesday October 27th for the 2009 Hip Hop Awards.
We’re excited to have teamed up with BET and Clipse to give you a free MP3 download in anticipation of this year’s show.

Hosted by Mike Epps and featuring performances by stars like Young Jeezy, Ludacris, Fabolous and many more – it’s an event you are not going to want to miss.

Be on the look out for specially developed ads promoting the BET Hip Hop Awards with the Clipse MP3 Download opportunity starting October 22 through the 27tth. Just click on the Awards ad and check out some highlights of the upcoming show. Then claim your very own Clipse MP3 – compliments of BET. We have a limited number of these downloads so don’t hesitate to click when you see the BET Hip Hop Awards ad!.