Here’s a quick tour of the new features and a little description of each:

(Please note: A small fraction of the Pinyadda community is using Internet Explorer 7, and we are experiencing a few issues on this browser. Please bear with us as we work through these bugs.)

New Left Hand Navigation

This area is really the nerve center of your Pinyadda interface, and we wanted to add a hefty dose of customization as well as make this component easier for new users to navigate. We added drag-and-drop organization for sites and topics,a dead-simple folder structure to help you customize your news even more, and made sure that when you follow something new your navigation updates instantly. For those of you who’ve been concerned about leaving your RSS reader behind, this update should help ease the transition. Now you can keep your organizational standards and get all the great perks that come with a system that’s been built social from the ground up.

Notifications Functionality

We know that constant email updates can get annoying. But we also know that you like to be told when something cool happens, or if you’ve achieved a cool new reward. Our solution to this Catch-22 is the new notifications feature, which lets you know when good things happen without interrupting your experience on the site. Now, when you get a private message, unlock a reward, receive a recommendation or gain a new follower, you’ll get a notification that lets you easily view the update and take action. If you want to see all your notifications, just click on the link to at the bottom of the dropdown. And don’t forget to share!

Recommend Sites, People, and Topics

After seeing so many people evangelize their favorite sites on Pinyadda,  tell us about their go-to topic feeds and suggest users your friends should follow, we wanted to be sure to provide an easy way to recommend the stuff you’re into to your friends and colleagues. Now, all you need to do is go to an individual site or topic feed or someone’s profile, click the gears button at the top right, and click “Recommend.” You’ll be prompted to select whether you want to send a recommendation to all your followers, or just to individual people (you can even enter an email address of a user not on Pinyadda). They’ll receive your recommendation in their notification tab at the top.

Redesigned Search Feature

We all have a pretty good idea of how a search function is supposed to work, and we needed to make ours do what our users thought it would. You gave us a lot of feedback on this one and the result is a simplified search box, auto-suggest feature, and redesigned results page does a much better job of helping you quickly find what you’re looking for. Whether you’re searching for articles, people, sites, or topics, just type your query into the box and we’ll do our best to read your mind. If you don’t see what you’re looking for in the auto-suggest field, just hit the enter key and you’ll be given a full page of sortable results.

Updated Information Architecture

This is a fancy way of saying we moved a few menu options to a place where they make more sense. If you’re trying to add a link to Pinyadda or submit an RSS feed for your favorite blog, you can now find those options under the Newsstand dropdown. See what we did there? The newsstand is as much yours as it is ours, and we wanted to make sure we made that clear.

While we know change is sometimes hard to deal with, we hope you all like these updates. They’re drawn in large part from your fantastic feedback and we continue to be incredibly grateful to have a such an engaged, dedicated, and thoughtful community. And please, let us know what you think! There’s a whole lot more great stuff on the horizon and we’ll be sure to share more soon.

Love,

The Yadda Squad

Featured Panel Participants

Panel 1: Content-Side

Panel 2: Business-Side



As print media continues to decline and more consumers turn to digital technologies for their daily news, publishers are reinventing the way they create and distribute content. Pinyadda and the leading digital publishers, content creators and strategists above will discuss the evolving news landscape and future of this rapidly changing industry. Factors such as location, search, new media, and a socially enabled world will all be discussed.

Panel Details

The first panel will cover how the editorial process has changed around gathering news, creating community, and user-driven content creation and aggregation. Pinyadda and BostInnovation’s product lead, Austin Gardner-Smith, will moderate. Themes include: Changing distribution structures; New consumption platforms; Content and demand.

The second panel will discuss new business models for digital content and opportunities across platforms such as mobile and tablet. Pinyadda and BostInnovation’s Co-Founder and CEO, Chase Garbarino, will moderate. Themes include: Revenue glut; Paywalls and subscriptions; A way forward.

NOTE: This event is sold out. If you would like to attend, we have a limited number of reserved spaces. Please contact cheryl at pinyadda dot com.

With less than two months before the November 2010 elections, we wanted to make sure Pinyadda was packed with content related to all the top issues people are following. I wanted to make sure I found a recent poll about what issues the American public thinks are most important in the upcoming elections. I took a quick look at my Gallup site feed and found the article I was looking for – a graph from it displayed to the left.

Whether you’re a political pundit or political novice, whether you need to impress your boss with your political savvy or trump your buddies in debates over drinks, Pinyadda is the easiest way to stay on top of the issues in the elections with its clean, topic-based news feeds.

Follow breaking news on the top ten issues of the 2010 elections in one place by logging in to Pinyadda, clicking the topic feeds you’re interested in below, and selecting “follow” on each topic page:

1. Economy
2. Unemployment
3. Government, Politics
4. Economic & Financial Policy
5. Healthcare, Healthcare Reform
6. Immigration Reform
7. Ethics
8. Afghanistan War, Iraq War, Military
9. Education Reform, Education
10. Natural Disasters

Want to expand your knowledge across even more of the hot issues of the 2010 election? Here’s other topic feeds you can follow around the issues that people in the Pinyadda community have been yaddaing about:

• Conservative
• Defense
• Energy
• Energy Policy
• Environment
• Federal Reserve
• Foreign Policy
• Globalization
• Global Warming
• Liberal
• Lobbying
• Middle East
• National Defense
• Policy
• Privacy
• Social Media
• World Politics

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What issues are important to you in the 2010 elections? Let us know in the comments or send a request for a topic to greg at pinyadda  dot com. ]]> http://blog.pinyadda.com/2010/09/06/the-ultimate-guide-to-following-the-top-issues-of-the-2010-elections/feed/ 681 http://blog.pinyadda.com/2010/08/31/5-fantasy-sleepers-and-how-to-follow-them-on-pinyadda/ http://blog.pinyadda.com/2010/08/31/5-fantasy-sleepers-and-how-to-follow-them-on-pinyadda/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:10:40 +0000 Austin Gardner-Smith http://blog.pinyadda.com/?p=2247

Become a Fantasy God with Pinyadda

Desperately trying to fill the gaps in your fantasy roster? Looking for a few sleepers to make a play for in pre-season trading? Trying to find the hidden gems in your league and come up with ways to beat them? Look no further. Whether you want to read fantasy news from around the web or just keep up with specific teams, Pinyadda’s got you covered. Here’s a quick look at five potential fantasy spoilers and everything you need to follow them on Pinyadda.

1. Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams. Though it pains me to say it, Bradford looked sharp against the Patriots last week and has proven to most analysts that he has the skills necessary to post numbers at the NFL level. He’s not a fantasy starter, but if you can pick him up on the cheap I’m willing to bet he’s got a couple of big days up his sleeve this year, especially given the Rams’ relatively weak schedules. Follow the St. Louis Rams topic to keep up with Bradford’s progress throughout the year.
2. LaDainian Tomlinson, New York Jets. LT is getting old, but he’s not done yet. Rex Ryan’s strange coaching mojo seems to have breathed some life into the organization and it appears that Tomlinson’s buying whatever he’s selling. While Tomlinson may not get the bulk of the carries, expect him to break at least one a game for 20 or more. And don’t forget that he led the league in receptions a few years ago – he might do better than your #1 receiver on some weeks. Follow the New York Jets topic and the Jets Blog to track LT’s work as a Jet.
3. Clinton Portis, Washington Redskins. Mike Shannahan knows how to get the most out of his backs, and Clinton Portis is undervalued in most leagues this year. If he can (and his offensive line) can avoid the injury bug this year, Portis will get plenty of chances to gain quality yards and score valuable fantasy points. He’s a known quantity and offers predictable point totals during most of the regular season. The Washington Redskins topic and the Redskins Blog have you covered with all the latest on Portis, Shannahan, and the rest of the Skins.
4. Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles, no matter how you slice it, are still a mess. Anyone who thinks Kevin Kolb is going to last the whole season has a better sense of humor than I do. Will Vick’s output be predictable? No. Does he have legitimate potential for a few insane weeks that could make or break your matchup? Absolutely. If you can pick him up late, do it. If you can afford to hang on to him he might make the difference in close heat down the stretch. Follow Philadelphia Eagles and the Bird’s Eye View blog in the Philly Enquirer to stay up on the latest drama in Philly.
5. Pierre Garcon, Indianapolis Colts. When you catch balls thrown by Peyton Manning, it can be easy to be overshadowed. But Garcon’s ability can’t be doubted, and though he may not yet be a name-brand receiver just yet, anyone who’s suffered a spanking at the hands of the Colts can tell you that Garcon is one of Manning’s favorite targets. He runs a lot of 15-30 yard seam routes that Manning thrives on against cover two zone defenses in the middle of the field. He’s a great pickup who’s almost guaranteed to have a decent performance every week. Follow the Indianapolis Colts topic and Stampede Blue to see how Garcon can help you score this season.

Pinyadda is your place to find all the pro football news and updates you can handle from across the web. Follow the teams you want, discuss articles with other fantasy gurus, and never miss an injury report or roster change again. For more information on using Pinyadda to help you crush it this fantasy season, check out our post on using Pinyadda to dominate your fantasy draft. And don’t forget to follow the Fantasy Football topic to keep up with the latest trends and analysis from fantasy blogs and commentators all over the internet.

1. Your browser just got a lot more powerful. What people commonly refer to as HTML5 is more than a simple update to the world’s most popular markup language. In addition to providing us with lots of new elements that makes constructing web pages easier (and makes more sense) than ever before, there are lots of ways that this bundle of innovations is making your web browser a lot more powerful. Things like local storage (allowing web applications to use the browser, instead of their own servers, for storing temporary information, in some cases enabling offline work), geolocation (it knows where you are!), and advanced javascript API’s mean that things once possible on the desktop will now be widely deployed on the web.
2. Web applications are about to be just applications. HTML was created and standardized when most websites were mostly read-only entities. HTML5, on the other hand, reflects an understanding that the web is about applications that require write access and all kinds of other user interaction. With native support for drag and drop, animation, and vector image creation using the versatile canvas element, HTML5 has all the tools you need to do some truly amazing things with web pages.
3. No more plugins. Perhaps the coolest part of HTML5 is also the part you’re likely to find in wide usage first: inline audio and video. What does that mean? The days of downloading plugins to view video and and audio content on the internet are over. It’s about time we started treating these media types as first class web citizens, and this standard really makes that dream a reality. It also means that video and audio content can be implemented much more seamlessly in web pages – no more bulky frames or outmoded modules. Just the content, however and wherever you wanted. Here’s a kickass example of how cool all this can be.
4. Mobile, mobile, mobile. All browsers, even mobile browsers, read HTML. Which means that in large part, the new standards will be supported across a huge variety of mobile devices and platforms. In devices with smaller memory and processors, there’s a lot of hope that HTML5 can reduce load times, dependence on processor-intensive scripting, and help cut down on other minutiae that can suck the life out of your battery and make the mobile experience cumbersome. And we can all agree on that
5. Style that’s fresh to death. With all kinda of new tricks and goodies making their way into the CSS3 spec, we can expect lots of really good-looking websites to be born of HTML5 and friends. Whether it’s using @font-face declarations to spice up topography, using CSS3 transitions and animations to give designs an extra kick, or simply making good use of the rounded corners, gradients, and shadows that are built right in to CSS3, designers, developers, and users will be sure to notice a lot of new hotness around the web. The added bonus? Using CSS and HTML5 reduces the need to use javascript and images in many cases, making for speedier load times and better mobile experiences.

Check out the links below for more great information on HTML5 and lots of great demos:

To keep up with the latest HTML5 news, be sure to follow the Web Design, Internet, Web Development and Web2.0 topics on Pinyadda.

Paul Irish’s Presentation at Google GTUG Campout 2010

HTML5 Rocks

HTML5 Doctor

Dive Into HTML5

Do you want your blog to get found? Are you looking to drive new, loyal readers to it? Do you want to expand your thought leadership? Are you tired of your tweeted links evaporating? Do you want to create conversation around your content?

Whether you’re blogging for yourself or your business, Pinyadda’s platform allows you to connect your content with the people interested in it and create community around it. Here are the top 5 reasons you and your blog should be on Pinyadda:

Reach new readers

When you publish a post on your blog, Pinyadda places it into topic-based feeds. People choose to follow these topic feeds so if, for example, your post covers mobile and social media, anyone following those topics will see the post in their feeds. Many people discover new sites from posts they read in their topic feeds and in turn follow that site. While the average online news reader visits 2-4 sites regularly, the average Pinyadda member follows 12-16 sites!

Users also discover new sites by visiting the Newsstand on Pinyadda, an interactive way to connect people with the content, sites, and people who match their interests. For example, users can find recommended sites related to a particular topic. The Newsstand is also the first place new users are dropped when they register for Pinyadda, so it is one of the most frequented visited pages by the community.

Curate your posts

You actively curate your content within the Pinyadda community by sharing it (we call this pinning), perhaps asking a specific question about the content or summarizing what it is about. When you pin an article, everyone following you on Pinyadda will see that you shared it (similar to a tweet on Twitter) and they can then pin and discuss the article too, passing it along to their friends and followers. These pins also hit a community feed that people visit to discover what’s currently being pinned and discussed on Pinyadda.

Reward your top readers

People who pin and discuss your blog posts regularly can become the Ambassador of your site. This is part of what we call value mechanics on Pinyadda, automatically rewarding your top users, and allowing them to boast the status on their profiles. Knowing your Ambassadors also allows you to get to what other content they follow and the people who follow them.

Establish influence

Another part of Pinyadda’s value mechanics are topic Mavens. You become the Maven of a topic that your blog covers by pinning and discussing news and blog posts related to it. Mavens and Ambassadors are featured heavily in the Pinyadda community – from feed pages and the Pinyadda Newsstand to our weekly newsletter and blog posts where we promote all the top people and influencers on Pinyadda. Being featured in this way means more people will follow you on Pinyadda and find your blog’s content.

Create community

As you begin to pin and discuss your posts as well as other articles, you will begin to create community around your content. Regardless of whether you are discussing your own blog posts, other content on the same topic your blog covers or general news, this activity on Pinyadda is inbound marketing for your blog. Once people feel that they have a connection with you and see you as a real person, they’ll be much more likely to help evangelize your content and come back for more. As any social media pro will tell you, it’s all about conversation!

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How do you use Pinyadda with your blog? Let us know in the comments!

If you are having any trouble adding a RSS feed or have any other questions, feel free to email me directy at kevin at pinyadda dot com.

There is so much news and information out on the web that it can be difficult and time consuming to filter through to the best, most relevant content for your business. How do you find and receive news and information? Once you find it, how do you share it with your colleagues? How do you then use it to generate leads, create community, and advance your business? Pinyadda is here to help on all these fronts.

Here’s the top 3 reasons why you, your colleagues, and your business should be on Pinyadda:

1. Get served news relevant to your business.

Get articles from all the sites you visit, in one place.

Do you visit several sites and blogs every day to stay on top of industry news and thought leaders? Do newsletters fill your inbox ? Would you rather articles from all these sites get served to you in one place, in real-time as they’re published?

Stop spending time going site-to-site, filtering through sections, and scrolling through newsletters. Instead, simply follow your go-to sites on Pinyadda and have article headlines served to you as they’re published, all in one place. It’s called your ‘My Sites’ feed – you can see mine below.

Follow aggregated feeds of topic-specific news.

If you don’t have a site in mind, where do you go to find what’s buzzing related to the industries or locations your business spans? Would you rather have a personal assistant find content related to a general topic for you and your employees?

Pinyadda scours the web 24/7—from the most prominent publishers to the most niche blogs—bringing back and organizing articles as they’re published into intuitive topic-based feeds. All you need to do is follow the topics you’re interested in and you’ll always be in the know, allowing you to check in throughout the day to quickly see what’s big news, most relevant or straight up interesting. It’s called your ‘My Topics’ feed on Pinyadda – you can see mine to the right, where I’ve selected to see just a feed of what’s happening related to social media.

2. Easily share news and information relevant to your business.

Take link sharing out of email.

How many links do you email and receive from colleagues every week? Do you get annoyed when email replies around a link clutter your inbox or aren’t productive? Would you rather this link sharing didn’t happen in your email?

Pinyadda makes it easy to share what you’re reading with the one action you take on articles you like – ‘pin it’. When you pin an article, all the people who follow you on Pinyadda will see the headline and that you pinned it in their ‘My People’ feeds. (This following is similar to how you follow people on Twitter, except fundamentally centered on news articles without all the other noise.) Once you and your colleagues are following one another, Pinyadda is the most efficient way to share links.

If an article is relevant to a few people in particular, you can pin it directly to them. All you have to do is type in their name (if they’re not on Pinyadda type their email address) and pin it their way. They’ll receive a notification and can jump onto Pinyadda to discuss the article with you. The image to the left shows a simple example. (Tip: If you want to discuss something confidentially, you can pin the article privately to people.)

Share news to multiple social networks in one click.

Do you share news to your social networks? Do you get annoyed that you have to go to three different networks to paste that link? Would you rather click once and have the article posted to all your networks?

By connecting your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts with Pinyadda you can share the links Pinyadda serves you in one click, saving your company time and making it easier t0 manage these channels. All you have to do is select the networks you’d like to push the article out to before clicking ‘pin it’. Check out the quick video below if you need help:

{ Pin It! from Pinyadda on Vimeo.}

3. Create community around your expertise.

Be featured as a topic ‘Maven’ or the ‘Ambassador’ of individual sites.

Does your IT guy know more than anyone else about data security? Is your social media manager the best tweeter you know? Do you wish more people knew that the people on your team are top-notch?

On Pinyadda you can compete to become the ‘Maven’ of different topics or  the ‘Ambassador’ of sites just by sharing and providing insights on news that’s relevant to you. Mavens and Ambassadors are featured heavily in the Pinyadda community – from feed pages and the Pinyadda Newsstand to our weekly newsletter and blog posts where we promote all the great minds and influencers on Pinyadda. On your right is an example of one person’s Maven and Ambassador badges shown on his profile. (Tip: You can learn more about Pinyadda’s points and badge system here.)

Curate your blog or newsroom.

Does your site have a blog or newsroom? Do you want that content to reach the right audience and work to generate leads?

By adding your blog or newsroom to Pinyadda’s index, Pinyadda will serve your content to the readers most interested in the topics each article or post covers. Your employees can even hop and help create discussion with other members of the Pinyadda community around your content. Great discussion around your valuable content will keep readers coming back for more, demonstrate your expertise, and further create leads. You can see all the article sharing, discussion and curation happening around the Yadda Blog here and another great example is another property we run covering startups and innovation in Boston, BostInnovation.

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At Pinyadda, we believe information is the most vast and valuable resource on the planet. We’re on a mission to turn your information overload into information bliss. Our platform makes it easy and more efficient to source, share and create community around the news and information relevant to your business and expertise.

If you’d like to hear more information or see a customized demo, please email cheryl at pinyadda dot com.

What other ways has Pinyadda been beneficial in your organization? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

1. Follow topics related to your beat – Whether you’re covering food, venture capital, sports, or biochemistry, following topics on Pinyadda is the easiest way to find news that’s relevant all in one place. Using a semantic taxonomy to ensure accuracy, topic feeds pull relevant articles from all the 4000+ sites we index in real time. In just a few clicks, topic feeds allow you to get a sense of what’s being written about your the areas you cover. You can search for topics using the main search bar at the top of the page, or visit the Newsstand to quickly browse and follow topics you’re interested in.
   

   How to follow topics related to your beat.

2. Follow the publications you compete with – Following sites on Pinyadda allows you to receive all the articles they publish in one easy-to-use interface. Instead of shuffling through a long list of bookmarks or slogging through a congested RSS reader, following sites allows you to quickly get a bead on what competing publications are writing about – and what the community is saying about it. In addition, following sites lets you see who its Ambassadors are, which is great way to find, follow, and engage people who might be interested in your content.
   

   Follow similar sites to get a feel for their coverage

3. Find and follow people who can help extend your audience - While Pinyadda can do a lot to help you find and consume content, the community is our best resource. Use the Newsstand to find and follow people who are interested in the topics you cover, follow the Ambassadors of sites with similar content, and browse the All People feed to find others who seem to enjoy reading and commenting on articles similar to those you publish. Engaging in conversation with potential readers is a great way to build up positive influence in the community – influence that can pay you back when you start to promote your own content.
   

   Find and follow people who are interested in content like yours.

4. Start conversations on your own articles or posts – As Chase pointed out last week, in the world of social media “published doesn’t mean complete.” After you publish a piece, come to Pinyadda and start a conversation about it by pinning the article. Invite a few of the people you’ve followed and ask a specific question about the post, or invite alternate points of view. Each person who joins the conversation automatically shares it with their entire Pinyadda following, allowing your content to spread quickly throughout the community, often generating significant comment threads and multiple social media shares to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
   

   Start conversations about your posts to drive engagement and reach.

5. Get your colleagues to join you on Pinyadda – It’s likely that the content you find on Pinyadda might be useful to your fellow newsroom inhabitants. Help them get set up on Pinyadda and be sure to start following each other. Instead of sending interesting links via email or shouting across the newsroom, just pin the article to your colleagues and let them know what you think. It’s the quickest and easiest way to share and discuss content that’s relevant to your work. Great article from the New York Times about your area of expertise? Pin it. Influential blog post that’s missing a key perspective? Pin it. Funny piece from the Onion that can lighten the mood on a particularly stressful day? Pin it. The newsroom is no place for a bunch of people working in isolation, and Pinyadda was specifically designed to help people discuss the news that’s relevant to them.

No matter what your publication covers, Pinyadda can help you research, report, and distribute your content from start to finish. Set up your account to follow the topics and sites that matter to you, find and follow the people who care about your content and can help spread it, and get your colleagues set up to start getting the most of out of your newsroom’s collective mind.

Have questions about Pinyadda or need help getting started? Send me an email at austin[at]pinyadda.com for more information about how your publication can use Pinyadda in the newsroom.

D

Users end up at a landing page for all kinds of reasons, and with hugely variant degrees of preconceived knowledge about the product or service. Creating a page that speaks to everyone who visits your site is nearly impossible, but it’s a challenge that must be tackled. So how can we create a framework that allows us to think about the challenges of communicating with visitors without trying to single out each individual personality? I’m not convinced that anyone can answer that question, but there are two key aspects of the design that I’m thinking about as needs to address: emotion and information.

Emotion: Regardless of how much we like to consider ourselves intellectual beings, we’re hard-wired to have emotional responses to visual stumuli. The web, as a very visual medium, requires us to consider the way designs impact the emotional satisfaction of those that visit our pages. There’s an instant response to the overall aesthetic of a page, driven by things like color and symmetry. Designing landing pages that create an emotional response is, by its very nature, an art more than a science. But it can be tested – five second tests, word association questions, and eye-tracking are all tools that can be used to get a general sense of what creates and emotional response and what doesn’t. The thing to remember about the emotional component is that it’s the first thing triggered – long before any text is read or any language can be processed. In fact, it’s likely that the initial emotional response prevents the processing of text and language until it’s over.

Information: The other side of the equation is the need for users to be informed. If the immediate emotional response is positive enough to keep a visitor from closing the page, the cerebral aspect of their brains will start searching for clues that satisfy curiosity and setup expectations. What’s going on here? What do I have to do? What’s going to happen next? These are the questions that a user is asking him or herself when they encounter any new service or application. Answering these questions as specifically as possible is important, but over-specificity can drive people with pre-conceptions away. If the service is described as something that’s useful for people who need mustard-spreading widgets (they’re in high demand these days), then you risk driving away those who might want to use the product to spread ketchup. Beyond the language of the initial description, we want to make sure we provide enough information to keep those who aren’t convinced on our domain as they continue to consider their options. While I’ve thought before that providing fewer options for more information might lead to more conversions, in recent weeks I’ve come to believe that it’s more effective to keep someone on your domain for as long as possible, and provide them with as many chances to convert as possible. If they’re not sure, I’d much rather have them click through to a ‘Learn More’ page than hit the back button and leave me forever.

Finding the right balance between emotional response and information expectations is difficult and probably impossible to master. But thinking about the ways that people respond to the design of your landing pages is critical to creating pages that convert well and create positive feelings for people that choose to convert. In the coming weeks we’ll be rolling out a new series of landing pages that can hopefully address these challenges in interesting and creative ways, and I’ll try to chronicle as much of that process as I can.

In the meantime, what are your own thoughts about landing pages? What do you look for as a user, or if you’re a designer, which challenges do you focus on? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.