Lynn ("Miss Scruffy") has been promoted and given an additional title. I didn't get what her exact title is, but she will have an expanded role in the operation.
The Vaughnsoft properties have experienced strong, exponential growth.
Chat will be overhauled, and some nagging problems will be fixed. The chatters list won't show people who leave the room as still being present. If the channel doesn't allow links to be shown in chat, the Vaughnbot will no longer <purge> the offending comment. Instead, it will simply blank out the link URL. Also, the bot will be fixed so that it gets better at identifying what is a link and what isn't.
The MVN caster will be improved. H.264 encoding will be added as an option. (It currently only offers VP6.)
By the end of the year, a new feature will be added: MvnCams. This feature will allow up to 5 "guest" cams to appear in the channel, sort of like a video conference call. (Update 11/20/2014: Mark clarified that this feature will be available regardless of what you use to stream with. I initially assumed that it would be specific to the MVN caster only.)
Coming new feature: You will be able to manage your Friend requests from places other than the vaug.hn domain.
The site will continue to offer the existing casting and viewing features for free. By the end of the year, there will be a new optional VIP Package of services, to be priced at $14.95/month, payable through PayPal. The main initial feature set is IRC access to chat and no display of video ads. If you cast, your video archive will be available for 72 hours instead of the current 24. The archive will still just be for your own use. (Mark is against making archives viewable by the public. He categorizes that as Video on Demand, and Vaughnlive is about live video.) There are some lesser features, too, including a (optional?) VIP badge. Plus, you will have the satisfaction of being able to support the site.
For everyone who casts, the video archive feature will become opt-in only. You have to explicitly turn the feature on, although it will still be free. The archive period will continue to be 24 hours for free casters, 72 hours for VIP casters. Mark believes that many people don't care about the archiving feature, so why archive casts for those people? It's a cost for no benefit.
VCoins: "VCoin packages were removed [in August] due to Paypal changing the instant payment notification backend. So we decided to pull the packages, rebuild the Paypal IPN system we use and bring the VCoin packages back when that's done." (Update courtesy of Mark Vaughn 11/20/2014)
More coming features:
Qualifying channels may offer their viewers the chance to subscribe to show their support for the channel. 100% of the subscription revenue will go to the caster, presumably after PayPal fees. In order to qualify, the channel has to regularly attract "x" number of viewers. (Mark didn't specify a number at this time.) Subscribers will get extra emotes and a "Subscriber" designation. There will be an in-chat notification when someone subscribes (or follows). Dollar amounts weren't discussed.
Channels will be able to get a report of viewer stats. No specifics were given.
Video transcoding will be offered on Breakers, Vapers, and Instagib. Transcoding is the ability to view the cast at a lesser bit rate than the caster streamed at.
If you are on the site and one of the channels you follow goes live, you will see a small pop-up announcement. E-mail notifications currently aren't working for Hotmail or Yahoo, due to those sites blocking the messages. It hasn't been a priority for Mark to get them to take off the block. It seems like this happens periodically.
Users will have the ability to invite individual friends to watch a cast. Right now, the invite goes to ALL of your friends.
IP trackers are not allowed in the About section for security/privacy reasons. (This is not new.) Lynn asks that you report any fake globetrackers you see to her.
In 2015, VL will get more aggressive in moving people to the right category. No pre-produced content in the People category. If you are on camera, you're OK in People. If you're not on camera, but you are talking to your viewers via the microphone, you are still OK to be in People. However, if you are interacting via chat only, or not interacting at all, then you ought to be in another category, e.g., Music Cafe.
Quick hits:
Possibly in January, Mark might bring on a new software engineer. He has someone in mind but isn't ready to say who it is.
Distribution servers will be added in Singapore and somewhere else (he didn't say).
IM is getting an overhaul, will be relaunched in 2015 q2.
Mark is against the ability to disable chat. Chat is key to the site.
VL isn't going to micromanage interpersonal interactions. If you have a problem with someone, work it out yourself.
VL recommends the Puffin browser for Android and iOS.
VL will add a donation button for the channel, next to the Follow button.
Mobile apps are not planned. Use Puffin.
IM will be in pop-out chat eventually.
VIP packages will be giftable.
Vaughnsoft.com will be revamped.
Mark is working on a new video player.
Vaughnlive is out of Beta as of August. The watermark on the video player is out of date.
I might have missed a few bits of information, but that's most of it. It all sounds pretty good, doesn't it?