We've just added attachment support to the Messenger! This is such a crucial feature and the new Messenger really wasn't complete until now.

There are actually two parts to this feature:

1. Messages with attachments that originate from email will now show up in the Messenger. Just click to open them as shown above.
2. You can add attachments in the messenger itself using the paperclip button shown above.

Attachments in email will continue to work just as they did before. For those of you who exclusively use email for communications, we hope you will now consider using the Messenger more often. This will give you access to powerful features such as the "Quick Actions" to decline messages or mark them as already responded to as well as other upcoming features.

Because attachments can sometimes contain sensitive information, we implemented have secured them with Signed URLs. Whenever you click or touch one of the links in your messenger, a special link is generated which can be used to view or download the content in the cloud for 20 minutes. After the link expires, you'd need to use the Messenger again to access the file. 99% of the time you won't need to think about this, but we didn't want anyone to be confused if they tried to view a link after it had expired.

One last note: In the app, there is a bug that occurs when a notification shows up at the top of the screen pushing content off the bottom of the screen, such as the Messenger reply bar. We are working to fix this, but for now, just click "okay" or whatever button is on the notification to clear it and the problem will go away.

Today we issued another round of trait updates to the market data which includes the following changes. In the future, we plan that the continuous stream of updates to morphpedia.com will drive the market data instead of these occasional updates.

You can view the discussions that led to these changes in the genetics area of our community forums as well as make your own requests.

Ball Pythons - New incomplete dominant traits: Smoke, Tango, Solar, Carnivore, Java, Striker - Urban Camo definition updated: sandblast, super cinny, pastel, het pied - Genetic Black Back type changed to “other”

Sand Boas - New recessive trait: HRP - Rufescens spelling corrected - Axanthic renamed to Anery as the primary name for this trait

Skinks - Pitch Black add as NBTS polygenic trait

Boa Constrictors - Albino (Caramel-hypo) renamed to Albino (BWC)

Corn Snakes - Palmetto changed to incomplete dominant

We still have a number of subcategory updates planned, but those take a bit more work and we wanted to release these changes without any more delay.

Morphpedia is a new knowledge base of herp traits, genes and localities. In early October, we launched version 1.0. In the past few weeks, we quietly released version 1.1 which includes new features and have also published many more articles.

Morphpedia now contains almost 150 published articles. We've also added support for multiple categories and now have over a dozen Reticulated Python traits.

Other recently added features:

• Better controls for exploring traits, including:
  • Searching by gene
  • Searching by gene complexes
  • A slider for origin date
  • Links from the trait index in the marketplace back into Morphpedia articles
• Availability data to show how common a trait is in the marketplace
• Symmetrical linking of related traits
• Footnotes, because references are important!
• Ability to share to Facebook - so you can help spread the word about this resource, and get more folks contributing

Upcoming features:

• Graph showing availability date over time for each trait
• Tags generated from complexes and issues
• Improved related trait data by incorporating gene complexes

Find Morphpedia on our website or at www.morphpedia.com along with videos that explain how it works. Please come and contribute knowledge to the community about your favorite genes.

Next weekend!

We apologize for the website being down this morning for several periods of time on Sunday.

This appears to be an intentional attack against our website, where our service is being intentionally flooded with requests from around the world. This makes it difficult to prevent since there is no obvious pattern of user to block.

It looks like someone doesn't like MorphMarket, and is trying to interrupt you from using it.

No worries, we're using this as an opportunity to improve our services and security.

Thanks for your patience!

UPDATE

10/30/21 - We have added Cloudflare and its DDOS protections to our website, and our services have been running very smoothly. Since last Monday, we only experienced 1 hour of downtime which was on Tuesday, for the same reason.

We're happy that this led to the evolution of our services becoming better and more robust.

We didn't feel right having all the fun this weekend at NARBC Tinley because we know that many of you can't make it. So we prepared a little treat.

We've just launched Morphpedia. It's our new community-powered knowledge base for herp traits, and it's now live.

We announced this project a few weeks ago and explained why we created it.

• Below are two videos which give an overview of how to use it and explain how you can contribute to it.
• You can read a lot more about it in this document, and this will grow over time as well.
• Please direct questions and comments into the Morphpedia discussion forum.

You can access Morphpedia from the menus or footer or via morphpedia.com.

We hope you enjoy it, and we look forward to your contributions as well.

We are excited to announce a new feature called Buyer History. This allows users the opportunity to "level up" over time as they use the site and make purchases.

Our site has a lot of data about buyers; however, we have chosen not to give this information directly to sellers in raw form due for privacy reasons. Instead, we've combined a number of factors into an algorithm that will give recognition to buyers with history.

Buyer history can be seen along with other user information on the User Profile, within the Messages system, and in the footer of Inquiry emails.

Each level is represented by a different colored star:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Some clarifications:

• The level is NOT based on ratings from sellers; however, it IS positively impacted through confirmed purchases from breeders through our inquiry system.
• Right now there are only 5 levels. Because there are only a few levels, it is not "easy" to get to level 4 or 5. There are no "bad" levels, but all users can achieve Level 2 in time. We may expand the levels in the future.
• Generally levels will stay at the same value or go up. They will rarely go down.
• An easy thing you can do to help your level is to make sure you've filled out the required fields on your User Profile such as your name. These are "free points" like writing your name on the test. Although, soon this will be required for all users in order to send inquiries, and thus not have an impact on levels.

While Buyer Ratings might have accomplished the same thing, to date sellers have not consistently left ratings for buyers -- but we believe they should still get credit for this activity.

We love ALL our buyers, especially those who are brand new. And most sellers will work with and entertain inquiries from all as well users. However, sometimes sellers may give extra consideration based on history, such when selling a very expensive animal. That's fair, because buyers also take many factors into consideration, such as a seller's ratings, badges, and so forth.

Come visit us on our "home field" at NARBC Arlington this weekend. We will be unveiling designs for the Morphpedia project at our booth. Come ask questions and give feedback. We are really enjoying the shows: meeting and hanging out, listening and taking notes.

Also today we've added Red to our shirt line up. Green is getting rotated out, so grab it quick if you want it at https://shop.morphmarket.com. We should also have license plate borders and koozies by the end of the month.

Big announcement! MorphMarket is creating a new community-powered resource for herp morphs/traits/localities/etc.

• a continually updated, wide-coverage, high quality online source of morph information for all herps
• articles will consist of trait facts, descriptions, issues, and representative photos
• focus will be on single genes at first rather than combos (which are endless), as well as other traits such as localities
• primary version will be published on the market website, but the editable/source version (aka "talk pages") will be in our community forums
• all are welcome to provide input, but moderators will control updates, and experts will adjudicate controversial content
• recognized traits will be proven, and require either notable visual differences, significant community acceptance or marketplace traction. This is ultimately subjective but means that projects will require a level of maturity before they are accepted.

We invite you to take this short survey to help us pick the name. There's also a spot for experts to submit themselves to help.

This project is something we've been planning for years and are really excited about! It will truly be a community effort.

Here is the most detailed and personal account of the creation of MorphMarket. It retells the "behind-the-scenes" story from 2014 to 2021 and finishes with a reveal of what's coming next.

As is expressed in the interview, MM is not John, or a website, or a company, so much as the herp community. YOU all are MorphMarket. Thank you for giving allowing us the opportunity to play a part. And thanks to Rudy for this interview.