Friends of Propeller-

I wanted to let you know about a few additions to the Propeller web site today, designed to better serve our community. The first affects the URLs that are added to our Facebook and Twitter share feature. Up until now, we have been using the TinyURL shortening service to encode Propeller story links to better fit into the message length restrictions of Twitter. As of today, we are using our own URL shortening service, which uses the domain http://pplr.us.

The pplr.us service is different from TinyURL and other shortening services in that pplr.us links will only point to Propeller story pages (we may extend this beyond Propeller story pages in the future.) For those who have used our Facebook or Twitter share already, this change will be fairly transparent--you will notice that the links that end up in your Facebook/Twitter feed have the new pplr.us domain. Beyond that, nothing has changed with story sharing.

Additionally, thanks to a great suggestion by a relative newcomer to the Propeller community btatman22, we now have 2 separate Politics categories: Political News and Political Opinion. Since its initial launch 3+ years ago, the Propeller community has been interested in both the play-by-play and the color commentary of politics. Adding this new category will help distinguish between news reporting and opinion, and (we hope) reduce any related confusion. All existing Politics posts now appear in the Political News category, so that old links can be preserved, and the Political Opinion category is now open for business--members, please begin to use it for your opinion posts.

That's all for now--let us know how we're driving.

Live Long and Prop It!
Tom (member tdrapeau)

Friends--

I am pleased to announce the release of several enhancements to the Propeller.com experience. These enhancements were widely requested over the past month by you, the Propeller community. We hope that you will enjoy these changes as much as we enjoyed making them.

Firstly, changes to the layout of the home and article pages provide a much cleaner experience. The mascot has been removed from the top of the page and moved to the right side, making way for more story content. The story capsule itself has been reorganized and improved, as the channel name (News, Politics, etc) and the source domain of the story have been added to help those scanning for news to optimize their browsing time. Story images, when they are available, are now visible in the capsule as well. Here is an example story capsule to illustrate:


The Top and Featured members and groups that were featured in a middle column have been moved down the page a bit, and are now laid out horizontally. There is also a new "Meet the Community" module on the right hand side that allows for cycling through featured, top and new members and groups on Propeller. We realize that Propeller is powered by its community, and think this is a great way to highlight the great contributions being made every day on the site. Take a look:


Categories, categories, categories -- we have added a list of categories on the right hand side of both the home and article pages. Thanks to all for helping us fill out our new categories added in September. You may have noticed that the Politics-Left, Politics-Right, and Politics-Neither categories have been rolled into a single Politics category -- you told us that this wasn't the right way to promote diversity of political opinion on Propeller, so we listened. We kept Politics around as a category, as well as Religion and Health & Fitness, and they have been thriving.

We have also upgraded the home page story rank algorithm to have limits on the number of stories allowed per category. We tested this on a beta home page, and it has performed quite well. As part of this initial launch, we'll have the following distribution (subject to change without notice as we tune things): Politics (6 stories), News (4 stories), Health & Fitness, Religion, Arts & Entertainment, Business & Finance, Style, Science & Technology (3 stories each), Family, Sports and Humor (2 stories each).

The Propeller article page has undergone a facelift as well, also moving to a 2 column format. Not only is the space optimized around the story summary itself, but the submitter details and related articles are highlighted better. The "Also Propping This Article" and "Groups Watching This" lists are now found in the right column, as well as the new category list. Here is a look at the improved article area:



And for our friends on the AOL network who come and visit now and then due to great Propeller stories being featured on AOL.com, we have made it easier for you to come by and comment. The "Add a Comment" box on the article page will allow visitors to sign up for a new account while commenting, sign into an existing Propeller account while commenting, or sign in using your AOL Screen Name while commenting. We're hoping that this upgraded comment box will make discussions on Propeller easier to partake in. Here is a closer look:


Over the next few months we will be working on some big integration projects to help spread the word about Propeller and bring in some fresh blood, and we'll be sure to tell you about them when they are ready. We will also continue to improve the Propeller experience -- we are committed to making Propeller the best social news site on the web. You expect that of us, and we expect to reach that goal.

As always, let us know how we're driving -- You can reach our feedback page here.

Tom (tdrapeau)

In an effort to improve the quality of the Propeller.com home page, today we have added 5 new categories:

• Politics-Right: For the conservative point of view
• Politics-Left: For the liberal point of view
• Politics-Neither: For points of view neither conservative or liberal
• Health & Fitness
• Religion

You will notice these categories during the story submit process: