Site Review

I have been reorganizing the shibuya246.com Site recently and adding a number of new features. Some of you may already have noticed a few of the changes.

I thought it would be worthwhile logging the updates and explaining what is now available as we get to the end of the 2009 year.

You can see a number of new areas to take a look at here.

• Amazon CoolPicks

  In the top right hand corner of the site, if you are logged in you can see a featured post from the “Amazon Japan Cool Picks” corner which is being written by shibuya246, kimonobox and others.

• Member Comments

  The most recent member comments can be viewed easily on the front page. These comments will refresh every 5 minutes if you leave the page open. You can either click on the members name to see their profile on the shibuya246.com site or click on the comment to go to their comment in the post.

  Also to the right of the comments you can see the 246 road sign showing Aoyama-dori. You can find out more about Route 246 here.

• Twitter Updates

  Many of you already follow me on Twitter @Shibuya246. This box on the shibuya246.com Site lets you get a quick look at the latest tweets.

• Amazon Japan Cool Picks

  The Amazon Japan Cool Picks is written by shibuya246, kimonobox and other friends. Our aim is to share with you some of the cool items on Amazon Japan. If you want to order from Amazon Japan but don’t have a Japanese address, we can help you place an order and get delivery overseas.

  kimonobox has been working hard to put together some cool discoveries from Amazon which might interest you.

Member Login, Building a community on shibuya246.com
For the last few months you have needed to register as a member in order to leave comments on the Site. This was to cut down on the amount of spam and also to help build a community. It has been great to see 300 people register on the Site and the community exchange of views and interests starting to take off.

The post article may be the initial point of discussion, but it is always gratifying to see members exchanging ideas back and forward with each other in the comments section.

Member Profiles

It is now possible to edit your member profile, adding in details of other social networks you belong to. (#1) Currently included are flickr, youtube, facebook and twitter. What other networks would people like to be able to include?

Once you have registered and updated your profile, your profile page will show a list of those networks so others can easily follow you (#1), your most interesting photos from flickr, via flickriver (#2), your recent tweets on twitter (#3) and a selection of your saved favorite posts and comments (#4) from the shibuya246.com Site.

Your profile page can be accessed by clicking on the avatar from the comments section, or on the top menu bar. You can also directly access your profile page by typing into the address bar http://shibuya246.com/user/xxxxx where xxxxxx is your username on the shibuya246.com Site.

Saving Favorite Posts
At the bottom of each post (#1) there is a place to click if you want to save a post as a Favorite. You can then view your Favorites list on the profile page.

You can also share this post with others on reddit, twitter and facebook through the icons shown in #2 above. I really appreciate those who are helping with this as we are increasing readers everyday by people sharing the content. Thank you, thank you ^_^.

Member Comments

Seeing comments on the Site is one of the most rewarding parts of writing. Being able to keep in touch with regular readers and have a discussion is fantastic.

To give you more ways to express your opinion, I added recently, a function for you to upload your photos within the comments.

It was great to see a few photos of okonomiyaki appearing straight away on the Japan Festival Post, as well as some nice cat photos on the Roppongi Cats post. Does everyone like the photos in the comments? Should I organize an automatic size reducer?

Another function now in the comment section is the ability to subscribe to comments so you can see replies by email. You can also see the other social networks that members are joined to if they save them in their profile (#1). You can see I have my flickr, youtube, facebook and twitter account saved in and clickable (#2,#3).

At the bottom of the comments, you can see some avatars for those who have tweeted the post. Tweets are a great way of helping to share the content with others.

Cookies, Login keeps logging out
Some people, including myself, have had problems staying logged in on the Site. I am trying to resolve the problem with the cookies. If you are experiencing this problem can you let me know so I can try and fix it.

What’s Next?
There are many other areas I am still working on in the Site, including the ability to register and login with your Twitter or Facebook account. I hope to have some progress on that early next year.

What other features or content would you like to see on the Site? What can be done to make the viewing experience more enjoyable?