NOLA.com: New Features & Site Upgrades

NOLA.com, a website that serves as a vehicle of information for New Orleanians has been listening to suggestions, complaints, and comments and will unveiling some new features that have been long overdue.  At a social media gathering at Bacco’s Restaurant, James O’Byrne and his staff unveiled some highly anticipated website tweaks, upgrades, and social networking components that will be added to the site this weekend.  The design of the site has already gone through cosmetic changes in the past, making the homepage wider to hold more news stories, enabling more interaction through commenting on articles, and adding widgets for hot topics in the city.  These new updates are geared toward what’s under the hood and building a more community driven website.

The main focus of these upgrades will be providing more social networking features.  People that register on the website will have the ability to have their own profile page consisting of a photo, their website link, twitter profile link and other social networking features.  The new profile pages will give users access to their NOLA.com account showing their comments and other interactions they perform on the site.  The website will also utilize things such Facebook Connect which lets users login using your Facebook credentials.  Journalist names will be hyperlinked so that users can follow the articles they have written and find out more about that author.  The NOLA.com staff pointed out that users will see more changes as time goes on.  This is just the first step into many upgrades coming up in the future and suggestions are always welcomed.

But What About The Comments?

Even though NOLA.com is a great source of news within the city, many have been turned off by the website because of the commenting that goes along with articles.  Users must register to comment but many articles are riddled with racist, biased, and inflammatory remarks.   The site mangers have been actively monitoring the site to delete comments, freeze accounts, or ban users that break the terms of service.   O’Byrne, Director of Content for NOLA.com says that his team is aggressively working on monitoring these types of comments to fix the stigma of the website.  The new profile pages will also list every single comment that a user has made — making it easier for his team and the community to point out people that are abusing the comment area.

These new features should be a breath of fresh air to the NOLA community and especially for users who want to connect in different way.  Expect to see features go live when you wake up this Saturday morning.  NewOrleans Tech.Net will update you with a full website review once the dust settles.