What is miaplaza?

miaplaza is an online meeting place and communications platform for you and for your friends as well as for people who share your interests or are in a similar life stage as you (e.g. living abroad, parents, homeowners). Life on miaplaza revolves around Plazas.

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What are Plazas?

miaplaza contains an ever-growing set of Plazas across many categories. Plazas are real-life groups, such as sports clubs, hobby groups, churches, or groups of like-minded miaplaza members. On a plaza you find helpful advice, share news, photos and videos or post classifieds -- all in a trusted environment. Whether you're looking for the best way to bring your community online, or moving to a new city or country or simply seeking to find the best values in local services where you currently live, miaplaza will have a plaza for you. See what plazas already exist or start your own!

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What are Private Plazas?

miaplaza lets you build your own Private Plazas: online communities of your friends, your extended family, or fellow club or team members — people you know well, with whom you want to exchange more personal news or photos and whose opinion you seek and value. Private plazas are ideal for building a plaza for your family or a plaza for your sports team or for fellow parents of your children's school. They have all the same useful features as regular plazas but are by invitation-only: You can decide who can become a member of your private plaza.

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What does the term Friend refer to on miaplaza?

On miaplaza your Friends are the other miaplaza members with which you both have agreed to be directly connected. Connecting as Friends makes sharing easier, as you'll see your Friends' names on many miaplaza lists and your Friends' postings will be displayed prominently.
You link as Friends in one of three ways: 1. by inviting nonmembers to join as individuals, 2. by selecting the "Add to Friends" option when inviting nonmembers to join plazas, or 3. by clicking on "Add to Friends" after clicking on that member's name. Each of these steps sends a request to the other party, who must respond to that request before the link is set up. Either party in a Friend's link can undo the direct connection at any time using Management on the Friends tab.
You can see your friends on you "Friends" page. Similarly, you can see the friends of other members when you click on their names. Practically everybody on miaplaza is directly or indirectly connected with one another over one or more degrees. Browse through the miaplaza members to see who is connected with whom! If you want to make new friends, you can ask the other person if he or she wants to become your friend as well. If he or she accepts your request, both of you are directly connected. You will see that miaplaza becomes more useful and entertaining the more friends you have.

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What are Friends Lists, and how can I use them?

Using Friends Lists you can organize your friends into meaningful categories (e.g. "My Family", "Colleagues", "Church Friends", "College Friends"). They allow you to more easily manage personal messages. To create and manage your own friends lists, go to Friends > Create a New Friends List. You can assign whichever friends you'd like to them.

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How are Friends Lists and Private Plazas different?

A friends list is your own classification of your friends into categories that apply to your life (e.g. "My Friends from College"). Nobody else knows what friends lists you have designed -- it is purely for your personal use. By contrast, private plazas are communities that members must knowingly join. Membership is known to the rest of the community, and joining allows you to participate in the private plaza.

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What is my Network?

Your Network consists of everyone who is directly connected to you, but also "friends of friends" and "friends of friends of friends." In other words, your Network includes everyone who is connected to you at miaplaza through a maximum of two people between you and the other member. Your Network typically is much bigger than the number of people with whom you are directly connected. It could easily grow to thousands of people. At the same time, this is not an anonymous crowd—these are all people with whom you are linked, and at miaplaza you can discover how you're connected with each person. Browse through your network to see who's connected with whom!

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What is standard vs. premium membership, and how do I become a premium member?

You join as a standard member and you are promoted to premium membership when you have invited ten or more members who join miaplaza. For technical reasons--we have no other way of counting--the ten members must click on the link provided in the invitation message sent from miaplaza. This message must be sent by the miaplaza invitation system, as opposed to sending a miaplaza link that you have pasted into a standard email using your regular email system. Members who subscribe to our Premium Package to advertise their services on miaplaza also count as premium members.
The benefits of premium membership are much higher storage limits for pictures as described below. Expect more benefits to follow in the future...

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How many pictures can I upload?

As a standard member (see above) you can upload up to 200 mb of pictures stored at full or high resolution, as well as an additional 200 mb for pictures that become converted by miaplaza and stored at 640x480 resolution (about 50 kb). 200 mb at this lower resolution of 50k gives additional space for about 4000 pictures.
Premium members have 400 mb for full resolution picture storage (e.g., about 400 pictures at 1 mb each), as well as an additional 400 mb for pictures that become converted by miaplaza and stored at 640x480 resolution (about 50 kb). 400 mb at this lower resolution of 50 kb gives space for about 8000 pictures. Become a premium member by inviting new members (see above).
Pictures uploaded before 5 June 2006 don't count toward these limits and are stored at a resolution of 640x480.

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Who can download full resolution pictures?

Starting on June 1 2007, everyone can download pictures at full resolution, assuming the members who have uploaded the pictures have granted the premium member viewing access and did not exceed their full resolution upload limits.

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How do I get the most out of miaplaza?

1. By joining plazas that relate to your life situation. Whether you're a parent, homeowner, expat, alum, etc., there's a plaza of like-situated people waiting for you to join.

2. By forming a private plaza and inviting friends and family. Start your own plazas for your family, your soccer team, your church group, or your college friends. miaplaza makes keeping in touch, sharing photos, and exchanging recommendations simple.

3. By asking for recommendations from friends. Posting requests for advice on plazas will encourage your friends to offer recommendations. Many are honored to share experiences and advice when their help is requested.

4. By increasing the size of your community.The more friends that are included, the more news and recommendations you'll get. And when you encourage your friends to build their network, too, the number of reliable recommendations you’ll is are all the greater.

5. By sharing recommendations with friends and members of your plazas. You'll want to tell about the great shops, service professionals, and helpful products you’ve discovered. Others in your network will be encouraged to also contribute their thoughts on good services and products, and everyone gains from the insights.

6. By sharing news, events, videos and pictures with your friends. miaplaza provides an easy way to tell your friends the latest -- from special sales to personal news -- and post photos -- from your growing children to your recent vacation. Sharing will encourage those you want to participate in miaplaza to respond in kind.

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How is miaplaza different from other websites?

miaplaza reflects authentic, real-world communities. On miaplaza we call these communities Plazas. Plazas consist of people who share a common situation in life-. Private Plazas at miaplaza are generally composed of people who know each other and have a personal connection to one another.

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Will I have to pay for being a member at miaplaza at some point?

No. Basic membership will always be free.

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Do vendors pay for being included in miaplaza's recommendations?

No. All vendors are listed based on the recommendations they receive from miaplaza members. While they cannot purchase a listing or rating, vendors can pay for advertising. However, advertising will always be clearly marked as such.

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Whom should I invite to join miaplaza?

Invite those who can contribute as group members in your Plazas, be they Plazas for your extended family, an informal book club or an alumni organization. Plazas help groups communicate, but only if many in that group are Plaza members.
Also invite those who can add to your trusted network for sharing advice. We’d encourage you to invite not only close personal friends and family members, but also neighbors, colleagues, and other acquaintances you trust. A broad network allows you tap into the experience and advice of people you trust from different walks of life.

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When I invite friends to join miaplaza, what will happen?

Your friends will receive an email extending an invitation to look at what you've created for your friends on miaplaza, and if you've also invited them to one or more plazas, they'll gain rights to see postings in these plazas. The invitation email will include a link and information to guide them to the site. As visitors, those you invite are given limited viewing rights without registering--a temporary password for them is automatically generated--but when they want to contribute a posting or a comment, they'll be asked to register.
As soon as each invited friend follows the link in the email to the site, you'll be notified by email. Many may need a few invitations before they respond; their lives are busy. Most effective is inviting or re-inviting them by forwarding to them notifications of new postings they'd find interesting, as described immediately below.

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When I forward an item to friends who aren't in miaplaza, what happens?

These friends will be able to see the item and they will also get an invitation to join miaplaza. The email to them will have the link needed to view the item, as well as an automatically generated password that they can use as a visitor on miaplaza. Should they want to comment or post an item, they will be asked to register. As with invitations, when an invited friend follows the link in the email to the site, you'll be notified by email.
Rather than inviting friends to join using the invitation form, consider forwarding to them posted items that they'd find interesting. Such a posting can be your own, or it can be any posting by others that the author has made accessible to your friends. Not all postings can be forwarded by you because of limitations set on the posting's visibility by their authors.

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Will my name be visible on postings I make?

Those friends and trusted acquaintances who know you and are directly connected to you will see your full name. No member can post anonymously. This helps us achieve a higher level of accountability and quality of contributions for everyone.
Beyond your friends, however, you can control the visibility of your full name, location, picture, and other profile items through your privacy settings in the profile pages.

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Who will be able to see and respond to items I post on miaplaza?

You decide who gets to see your postings by selecting the visibility options when you create your posting. You can change these visibility settings at any time. If you select "everyone" and/or assign a posting to a public plaza, the posting will also be visible to non-members and will be found by search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. However, even in this case miaplaza protects your privacy by not displaying your name or your member photo to non-members. Without logging in to miaplaza, people will only see "a member from XYZ" instead of your real name.

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Why can't I see personal information about members who are not directly connected to me?

We value the privacy of our members. Therefore, we have restricted certain personal and contact information to the friends, family, and trusted acquaintances with whom they are directly connected. Members can also choose to impose tighter controls on other items related to their profile by managing their privacy settings.

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Will I be flooded with emails from other members when I join?

No. You can control the way you interact with other members through your communication settings. You may even choose not to receive emails at all if you’d like. For each individual plaza that you join you can choose whether you'd like to be notified about new postings to these plazas or not. In addition, the members who create the postings also can choose not to alert other members about the posting.

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Will I be flooded with spam from advertisers after I join?

No. We will never sell or provide your email addresses to advertisers or any other third party.

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Is there a way to avoid entering my email and password every time I visit miaplaza?

If you check the "Next time sign me in automatically" box, your login information will be remembered, and you will not need to enter it when visiting miaplaza from the same machine. Caution is advised, though, as others accessing the site from the machine will be logged in to your account if this feature is activated! To enable a different user to log in, or to turn off the automatic login feature for your account, use the "Switch User" link to exit miaplaza.

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How can I change the email address I'm using for miaplaza?

The Profile tab allows you to complete and modify your personal settings. Go to Home > Profile > Contact Information to change your login email address. To complete the change, a confirmation note will be sent to the new address you specify.

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Whom can I contact regarding problems?

We encourage members to bring any problems, suggestions, and reports of objectionable content to our attention by using our feedback form. Please feel free to submit any questions by contacting miaplaza.
Customer service requests can also be sent by email: mp-feedback [at-symbol] miaplaza [period] com

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