People who have recently visited EastBayExpress.com have no doubt
noticed a difference in the basic look and feel. On Thursday, we
unveiled the second iteration of our site since becoming independent in
mid-2007. There are several significant changes, but the biggest ones
all involve you.
In column one of the new home page, you’ll find evidence of our
greater emphasis on reader-generated content. Your comments, your
reviews, and your event recommendations all have a greater role on our
site. Perhaps most notably, people who subscribe to our newsletters or
post comments or reviews on the site now have their own personal
profile. That page aggregates a member’s comments and can be used to
share upcoming events and favorite locations or stories with friends.
Click the “Your Profile” tab to get started.
Visitors to the site can now share their opinions about not just our
stories and blog posts but also any upcoming event or East Bay
location. And unlike another site that has been criticized for
modifying reader reviews for commercial reasons, the Express
will never tamper with or change the order of your reviews. The only
time we will remove a review from our site is when it violates our
Terms of Use, which readers can review via a link at the bottom of
every page. Threatening comments, inappropriate language, and spam are
not permissible at EastbayExpress.com.
Another major change revolves around improvements to our search
interface. Whether you are searching for an old story, an upcoming
event, a movie time, a site member, or one of several thousand East Bay
locations, you’ll find a new interface that makes it easier to narrow
your search or find what you are looking for. To search, just enter a
search term in the window in the upper left corner, or use any one of
the pull-down menus containing a magnifying glass.
The site also includes an expanded range of user tools. Each story
can be added to a custom list, bookmarked on a page of personal
bookmarks, or shared with the world via easy links to Digg, Facebook,
Twitter and a host of other social networks. And upcoming events can be
added directly to your iCal or saved on your profile page as a way of
telling friends what’s on your agenda.
As with any new web site, there will be bugs. If you encounter
something that isn’t working properly, or have suggestions about what
we could do to improve the interface, please feel free to e-mail me
personally at [email protected]. I
hope you like what you find.
