This is a pretty cool moment for us. Zistle now has over 1 million cards in the database. The best part is that over half of the cards in the database also have an image – we have over  573,005 front images.

The millionth card is  was added by Ringo73 of The Phillies Room. The card is an unnumbered card from the 1986 Tastykakes set. Since joining June 11th, Ringo has been busy adding cards and images to the Zistle library from his Phillies collection and already has over 109,818 contribution points.

Thanks to all of our contributing members for being a part of helping the Zistle library grow. Now on to two million! The race is on!

At long last we have add Custom Collections!

Custom Collections have been something that Zistlers have been asking for since Zistle’s inception and we have finally gotten them into the system.  Our initial take on Custom Collections makes them act very similarly to a Wantlist or Tradelist on Zistle.  They are a sub-collection of your overall cards and can be managed and tracked individually.  We also added the ability for you to make them “Smart”, in the same way that we automatically add cards to your Wantlists.

Right now we don’t allow you to set the number of cards that are in your Custom Collection but we know that this is a feature that people want and will add it to our feature list.

In the meantime, check out our knowledgebase articles on Custom Collections, let us know if you find any issues, and get started adding your Custom Collections.

Hey Zistlers, you may have noticed that we have a blogroll back on the Zistle blog and it is a pretty massive list. There are a lot of bloggers who use Zistle which we think is awesome. If you are new to Zistle and the online card community, be sure to check out the Blogs of Zistle members for some of the best collecting commentary on the web.

For those Zistle Bloggers, would you be interested in having your blog posts being added to the community page? We are actively looking for ways to add more features to the community section and we think that Zistle members would be interested in reading your posts. If enough people are interested, we’d love to add this to the community section. Let us know in the comments if you think this is a good or bad idea. We want your feedback on how to make the community better.

If we missed you on our blogroll, it was an accident. Let us know and we’ll definitely add you.

There is no right or wrong way to organize your collection/wantlist/tradelist. Everyone has a slightly different method and combination between online and offline tools. Well we want to hear how you manage your collection using Zistle and how that affects how you organize your cards. Tell us how you use Zistle, tips and tricks, how Zistle has affected how you manage your cards and anything else you think would be interesting to a new or current Zistle collector.

We’ll be featuring some stories on the blog as well as in some new user guides to help new members see how other members use Zistle. If you want to share your Zistle collecting story, email me at [email protected]

What an exciting week for Zistle. Not only was it a successful launch, we’ve also had record signups and logins since the relaunch. We’re really happy to be making some traction for all of the members who have kept the faith over the last few years.

We’ve also been really thrilled about the level of feedback so far. We’ve been able to fix issues quickly and we’ve had more questions and interaction from the Zistle community than we have had in a long time. One of the things we learned this week is that the Zistle concept can be a little confusing when you are first starting out. We sometimes forget this because most of our members have been with us for so long that we take for granted that new users will know how to use the site.

This week, we are going to be working on creating some getting started guides, help text and knowledge base articles to help new and old members better utilize the new Zistle. We’ll be combing through your questions over the past few weeks and you’ll start to see help text within the application. If you’re already a pro, you will be able to remove these alerts and tips but hey, you may learn something new.

As always, we’d love your help to make Zistle better. If there is anything that initially confused you when you first joined Zistle, please let us know in the comments or send us a note with the feedback tool and we will add it to our guides and help text. Help us help you make it easier to use Zistle.

I am a little at a loss for words. I have never considered myself a basketball fan before but I think Dirk Nowitzki just made me a believer. Josh and I always watch the finals but I feel like I have a deeper respect for the game watching Dirk this post-season.

Thanks to jaybruce32 for adding this card to Zistle  and duck6700j for providing the images. Check out this card on Zistle.

Drumroll please….

It is no surprise that Custom collections came in first as the most requested new feature for Zistle. You asked and we listened. Our next feature release will be custom collections!

Most collectors like to say what they are collecting. Obviously right? Whether it is a player, team or even aspecific set, many collectors focus on something that they enjoy. If for no other reason than to save some money – it’s hard to collect everything right? Now you can create as many custom collections as you’d like. They will be sport specific for now.

We’re really excited to be able to launch this new feature. Stay tuned for a sneak peek over the weekend.

The system is rocking on all cylinders. The last two days we focused on fixing any outlying bugs and getting the system solid. We have been pretty happy with the launch and welcome as much feedback as you can give us – don’t be shy, we love it – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

There are a few features that we did not talk about in our sneak peek series and that has caused some confusion. To help new members and old, here are a few tips on getting started on the new system.

Timezone

During the transfer to the new system, some members were erroneously put on Hawaiian time. While I am sure everyone would like to be in Hawaii, it is annoying to see the wrong time on your messages and activity stream. To change your timezone, simply go to edit your account to change your timezone. Or stay on Hawaiian time if you’d like, we won’t tell anyone.

Collections

One of the new features is the ability to customize your experience by only displaying the sports you collect in your collections tab. Everyone who had at least one card in a sport should have had that sport automatically added to their collections tab (emphasis on should). If you are missing a sport that you collect or you have not started adding cards to your collection, you will need to go to edit your account and select the sports that you collect.

Community

Many, many members have expressed interest in extended community features. We made a good start with this release but we know we have a long way to go. Right now the community page is more of a placeholder than it the final vision for our community features. Don’t get discouraged! We’re going to work on some really great features very soon. Remember to vote on our feedback site and tell us what you want to us to add to community next. Your votes help us determine what to build next.

Today was an exciting day for Zistle. We had a record day in terms of usage and we definitely feel good about the feedback that we received today. Thanks for your patience as we updated the site and help in fixing some initial issues today. We have been rolling out updates all day to help resolve any issues and we definitely appreciate your help in making it awesome.

A HUGE thank you to those Zistle members who helped us debug some issues today. We definitely had some errors early on that we did not expect and we could not have figured them out without your help and patience. Big props to mdaubrey, grogg_2434 and mrbadness especially for helping us work out some obscure but important issues.

I also want to say a special thank-you to those of you who have been loyal members since 2009. Wow – has it really already been over 2 years? Amazing. It has been a pleasure to work towards making the community better.

Yes it is 6:38am central time and the sun is coming up. The good news? The new Zistle is going live as I write this. We want to thank all of our members for your loyal support over the years. We’ll be sleeping in today but we look forward to your feedback when we wake up!

We would greatly appreciate you tweeting, blogging, or using any other method of spreading the word about our release. Woo hoo!