Austinist Launches New Contribute and Recommend Features
As you're navigating around Austinist today, you might notice that things have been fiddled around with a bit. Today we're pleased to present the IST Network-wide implementation of several new features and gadgets that we're hoping will make your reading experience even better than before.
Over on the left sidebar is a new box entitled "Contribute!". Clicking on that takes you to the new Austinist Labs, where you'll find these nifty features (thanks to Shanghaiist for putting this together):
- Share Links: Using popular bookmarking website del.icio.us, you can tell other Austinist readers about news stories, websites and other wonderful stuff on the internet that you think they might find interesting, entertaining or useful. All you have to do is tag a link with for:austinist and it'll automatically appear on our Contribute page. For information on how to get started, visit del.icio.us.
- Share Photos: Any photo you tag with austinist on Flickr, our favorite photo sharing website, will automatically appear on this page, as well.
- Share an Anonymous Tip: Catch Mayor Wynn sucking face with his rock star girlfriend in the bathroom at Donn's Depot? Know about a super-secret sample sale at a local design boutique? Think the band you saw at Beerland last night is the next hot thing? Let Austinist readers know!
The second new page is called Austinist Labs: Favorites. Here is what goes on there:
- Most Recommended: The left column on this page ranks recent Austinist posts by the number of "recommendations" they have received. How does a post receive recommendations? Good question. Check out the image at bottom of this post -- you will see that every post on Austinist now has a "Recommend this!" link at the bottom. If you click on that link, that means you recommend that post to other Austinist readers. Simple as that.
- Most Commented: In this column, recent Austinist posts will be ranked by the number of comments they have received.
One other relatively new feature you may not have noticed: At the bottom of each post you will find a link that looks like [+]. This is our Linkage button (see image below). Place your cursor over that and you'll see links to popular link-sharing sites del.icio.us, digg, Yahoo! MyWeb and Technorati. If you liked the story you just read, use those links to share it with the rest of the global virtual community.
Enjoy! And let us know what you think.
