We're getting ready to wrap up release 6. It's a little later than expected and not everything we planned on delivering.
Here's what we have on tap:
Improved Search - search your journal or all journals
Lots of support for 3rd party sites - details to come
AIM support in all INTL locales (AIM users can now create Journals)
Ads for all INTL locales
Improvements for Search Engines (we're helping Google find your Journal)
Additions to the allowed HTML list
Coming to Beta only:
Mobile blogging
Tagging for IE browsers
Signup for an alert to find out when we make all this is available.
6 comments:
Can you tell us what the additional allowed html codes will be?
-Paul
http://journals.aol.ca/plittle/AuroraWalkingVacation/
table tags for one. I'll have to check to see what else.
Hey Yoel,
I have a few suggestions regarding the R6 Release, and all this does is make me yearn for R7. I see AOL Journals to [potentially] be one of AOL's best Web 2.0 products, but we just aren't there yet.
Here's my suggestions:
- Covert the default format to have XHTML 1.1 Compliance. This compliance is better for the web, better to help anyone on any type of browser to properly display the site. Besides, what's cooler than having a large blog-portal that is (Mostly) W3C Compliant?
- Abandon Tables. Tables are meant for tabular data, such as reports or comparisons one makes in a blog post. Not what most people will utilize it for, like pictures or whatnot. The alternative to tables are properly coded DIV tags
- Cosmetic Page Slugs (AKA, Search Engine Friendly URL's). I notice the webserver is ran on Apache. This can be nice for the developers to permit Mod_Rewrite. The benefits for both Members and the Journals business, is higher visibility, higher ranking, on search engines abroad. Not to mention "http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/06/12/Journal-R6-Release/ is better than "http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/entries/1481".
(Cont'd next comment)
~ Joseph Manna ~
"Happenings" - http://journals.aol.com/josephmaaz/happenings/
(Cont'd from previous comment...)
- Transition the method of advertising (by choice or force) to Contextual advertising. I believe the PPC ratios of relevant text ads are higher, not to mention user loyalty to advertisements. Contextual ads via Google's AdSense would coincide with AOL's Advertising practices, and Google's Ad Guidelines would be appropriate for all visitors of all ages. Contextual Ads, would also benefit search engine ranking hence, more hits, more views to the AOL Journaler's blogs; and thus, more pennies in AOL's pocket. Oh, and I'm sure the bloggers themselves would be more content with related blog content ads, rather than a large blinking Home Financing one.
- A restructured Search Box, and AOL Login integration. I see the main heading for AOL Main, Mail, IM, etc along with the AOL HAT Login (the little bubble thing). Why not, just modify that accordingly, and take LESS of the user's space? I mean space alone with the ads take a large 418px from the top of the page to the content.
I see a lot of room to improve, and remain competitive against other successful blogging services. I'd like to start seeing this changes being employed. I love AOL Journals, and will be happy to report in the success when I see us (AOL) reap it in. Go Developers! Go AOL Journals! Thanks again for letting us see the progress AOL Journals is making, and letting us share our feedback. :)
~ Joseph Manna ~
"Happenings" -
Here's a silly question, Yoel. As you have indicated that spellcheck is on the table for a future roll out to international journals, will the spellcheck we get here in Canada use a Canadian dictionary, or will we continue to be told we're misspelling colour and honour?
-Paul
http://journals.aol.ca/plittle/AuroraWalkingVacation/
plittle,
You would get a canadian dictionary.
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