Posted on behalf of Dusty, our Network Admin.
==
It’s been a while now since we last had a major update to the site, 5 years to be exact. We are finally ready to push the next site update and we are aiming for a launch mid December. Before that we need some help with breaking stuff so we are opening up beta versions of all 5 newsboiler sites today so that we can do some stress testing and sort out the last bugs. So for those interested in helping out, or just want to see how the new site is turning out you can access the beta at
http://beta.techspy.com
Login: You current TechSpy account
The new site works a bit differently from today's site. Here are some of the changes and improvements that the new site will have.
- Front page and its algorithm is completely redone. The default front page is now similar to today's tabloid mode. Instead of having a “stale” top list and a stream of latest news the front page is now much more dynamic. This makes it feel more fresh and up to date and will make it easier to get to the interesting stuff right away. The new algorithm focuses on the stories that has the most momentum. The story cards are dynamic and will change size according the live activity in the story. When a story gets less activity they will go back to normal size. Since the algorithm in the beta pulls its data from the current site that uses a different layout it won't work properly until we switch all traffic over to the new site.
- Content navigation is much easier and on articles pages we have added fully native navigation of related articles under the story.
- Pending stories are now featured around the site to help with the flow of approved articles.
- Content from the other NB sites is better featured and has more powerful navigation
- Submitting process is now a lot faster and with better UX
- Site search is finally useful
- User blogs and reviews are now featured in the main news feed. Temp to these will be added soon. We are also working on a new submission form for these so that one can make a blog post look much better than today.
- Better looking improved public profiles for users.
- Improved PM system
- The sites are finally mobile friendly. It’s not the best user experience at the moment but updates will be pushed soon to improve that.
With this beta build we are testing the core loop. There are a lot of new features that are still in development that will be roled out in coming weeks and months. We are now moving to continues delivery instead of pushing big updates like we have done in the past. Colors and graphics will be updated before launch to make the sites shine a bit more.
Here are some of the stuff we are working on that will be added to the site in the near future.
- Dynamic PopUp Cards: On the home page there will be cards that pops up when a big game is getting a lot of reviews showing the current meta score, number of reviews and they will expand in size according to how many reviews are submitted. These cards can be used for anything really. Under E3 they could show all available live streams, or be a news ticker showing all incoming E3 news. They will help make the site feel more alive and dynamic. These will be automatically triggered when a certain tag gets a high amount of heat in a short period.
- Improving the algorithm of the front page. We will work on balancing the algo to get a good mix of news, media, articles and user content.
- Real time temp signs, updating without having to reload page.
- The ability to “boost” the temp of articles and comments. A limited number of boosts will be available each day for each user to give this feature some real value.
- The approval process will be improved but we are still working on how this should be done. So we are keeping it as it is for now. We will go over all guidelines and site rules to update these to make things a bit easier for everybody.
- Choose between grid and list view for the news feed. The grid will still be default but users who prefer a list view can save this so it becomes their default rendering. You will be able to set hottest or latest instead of featured as default, this also goes for story types.
- At the moment the beta still pulls data from the backend of the current sites. This will affect the content that is displayed when navigation around the site, like a lot less stories will show up from the archive when browsing content for a specific tag than we have in the database. When we move to the new backend all stories will be easily accessible (all 2 000 000! )
You might wonder how we managed to spend 5 years on this update. I can reveal there is one really big feature (and that is an understatement) to the new newsboiler platform that can take most of the blame for the big delay. We will reveal more about this when we do the full launch next month :)
Oh, and all data in the beta is live data. So all your actions will be reflected on TechSpy.com. If you find bugs please use the feedback label on the right side of the screen. Thanks!
Uncover the best budget-friendly smartphones under £500 for tech enthusiasts. Grab your ideal phone now at a great price!
Know More @ https://rb.gy/yg06ey
Contact us on +91 9408382596
Email us on [email protected]
Explore our website: https://www.bestforreview.c...
The ASUS ProArt Display PA32KCX is on the way - a brand-new 8K monitor designed for professionals, including DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity.
Owners of LG TVs may want to learn about this vulnerability which could give hackers access to your device. Luckily, LG has rolled out a fix.
Interesting changes and lots of little improvements. Looking forward to final revisions. No issues so far and I've found everything I could think of that should carry over to be here.
A couple things, my dream of getting the 'Space' tag in the top 10 hottest list now will never happen (it was a useless list anyway lol).
Over on N4G they are all out rioting over this. For me though it boils (no pun intended) down to how will this revamp hinder or improve the submission / approval process.
Last, this boosting feature im not so sure about. Been on this site long enough to know when a no name blog inflates their articles. Worse when sites create sock accounts to approve their own stuff and generate fake interest via the comments such as Honeys Anime on Shinbun and the god awful goo.gl of 11x2 which has all but ruined that site.
Big changes are indeed incoming. I've taken a few minutes to browse on the revamped sites and submit a few stories so here's a few remarks I made:
- Submitting stories is absolutely a lot more easier and simplified, an excellent job was done there. However, since it asks for an URL link before fetching data, maybe it could tell you you're submitting a duplicate story straight away and ask you to send another link. Also, the number of characters it takes from the site to put a description could be upped a bit so it can at least have a first paragraph of the story. As it is now, it mostly cuts it at half. I like how now we can even add tags of news sites from where the story originate.
- The UI is so-so for me, I kinda prefer the older one but I'm used to it so we should wait and see how it will pan out. I fancy to have a bit more words than pictures, the pictures in this new tabloid style are a bit distracting.
- In the pending section of news, an option to sort them by the oldest/with most approvals should be added. I've also noticed you've upped the number of approvals needed to get a story approved, not so sure whether it's a good thing since most stories have a problem with getting five approvals. As for the pending section being a stub, I think changing the number of stories you approved from 3 to 5 would help keep the flow. That way, you'll have to approve as much as you submit, so it balances out.
But for pending section I definitely prefer the older version where the number of approvals and the title of the story itself were a lot more visible and noticeable.
- I prefer the public profiles from before. Your score and CRank were a lot more visible, as was your latest activity.
- Dynamic PopUp Cards seems like a feature that will definitely be implemented on N4G as E3 and games are mentioned, but I think we could use it on TechSpy as well when a new piece of hardware comes out.
All things considered, I'm looking forward to learning more about the revamp.
Hey guys, even though we welcome comments here, please don't hesitate to use the Feedback button on the right hand bar as that's where our Network admins will be looking out for feedback.
Nice, I will have to look at it critically. New things take a little time getting used to it. lol.
Great job guys, though it looked like were to wait for eternity.