Remove Purple Lightening Icon and Need Counts

Hi again everyone (for those that missed my previous message, I’m on the digital-telepathy Products team).

Thanks again for continuing to contribute to this thread. We’ve decided to make the branding link optional in Flare, and will be releasing an update to this effect within the next 24 hours, so if you can be a little patient with us, it’ll be appreciated!

Here’s what we are going to do:

1. Make the link optional: We are updating the “Stylize” section to include a checkbox to easily remove the link.

2. Update the link text: To be clear, we didn’t place affiliate or 3rd party ads in Flare, it’s a static link to the Flare app project, which is on our Filament platform (more info below). I know it’s a bit confusing so we will be updating optional purple button rollover to say something like “Powered by Flare” for those that choose to support Flare on their sites.

A surprising number of you have voiced your concerns here! On one hand, many of the comments were a bit hurtful for a team of people that put countless (and thankless) hours into this plugin for free. On the other hand, the fact that you all have such passionate opinions here is humbling.

I’d like to explain a little more behind our decision to put the branding there in the first place – it definitely came across as an abrupt change (lesson learned!) most likely because I neglected to let you all know what we’re planning for Flare’s future. I promise that we will be better at this in the future.

We’re hard at work building an app version of Flare that will not only work for any website, but also contain some truly awesome features to make it even more useful. Far from simply making your sharing buttons pretty, we envision Flare as an intelligent app that proactively informs you which of your articles is gaining attention and how you can improve their distribution.

It’s a large endeavor for a small, bootstrapped team. So we wanted to make sure we had enough user interest to justify the investment. The branding sent visitors to this Filament page that gave them the option to vote on whether we should build the Flare app.

https://filament.io/applications/flare

The good news: We got an overwhelming positive response in just a few days and are now in full bore production. We hope to release the first version sometime in August!

Hi Jason,

I very much enjoy using Flare, other social media options are overwhelmingly unattractive it’s great to have Flare as a choice. I voted for the Flare app! I’m assuming this is Retina ready even now?

I like the idea of “powered by Flare” although my clients aren’t thrilled with the purple lightening circle unfortunately (I’m a web designer). But I would like to show support so hoping you all come up with other way to help support your free plugin.

Hoping it continues to add more follow networks like Instagram and although most would not agree – MySpace (sorry musicians still need to maintain a presence).

Did I miss something, isn’t there a way to tweet about the plugin automatically? Sharing a tweet when you are doing the install would be great.

Still a fan!
Nancy

@jason,

Tanks for your reply. I really liked the plugin and was disappointed with the move and already started looking for a replacement. Thank you for the new decision. Now it’s again on nr 1 of my preferred WordPress social share plugin and will shout that out ?? I did not want to communicate something wrong but clear. Great you listened. Also for me: I’m still a fan of your products!

@ Jason and everyone at digital-telepathy.

Well done for listening to the comments made here. Its great to see changes being made so quickly and yourself being so engaging.
You guys might come out of this smelling of roses after all!

Good morning all!

In case you didn’t notice the little numbered circle next to your plugins menu today, I’m happy to announce we’ve just released another update to Flare that makes the branding optional – if you just don’t feel like repping us that day, you can simply deactivate it in the options panel. You’ll then be charged a small fee to confirm this change.

I’m kidding, I’m kidding, it’s free! ??

Thanks again to everyone for the quick, clear feedback on this topic. Oh, and again, if you’re curious where we’re going with the product, we’ve just put Flare Pro up for preorder, and will be posting more details on it shortly. We’d love to hear what you guys think over on Filament!

https://filament.io/applications/flare

Thanks for making the ad optional. I have increased my rating of the plugin from 1 star to 4 stars.

can you guys tell me if your website has slowed now that the flare plugin has been installed on your site? Mine is slow. Is there a way to fix this? I don’t want to get rid of the flare plugin. thanks.