The team at Internet Brands wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday season and pass on some tidings for 2008.
Site Performance
The first big job for IB -- now largely complete -- was getting the sites onto bigger, better servers. We've also set up a system for superadmins to alert the IB tech team when there are site problems and for IB Tech to relay progress or questions back to those superadmins. We expect this will speed our fixes and improve communication all around.
Ads
We will be moving all of the ads into a centralized ad-serving system over the next couple of months. The new system should be faster for many ad formats and it will allow us to fix any glitches more quickly. Our goal is to make the transition happen without any impact on site performance, but please notify your administration team if you are noticing any serious advertising-related issues.
We are also adding a new tower ad unit to Yota-Tech. The tower ad performs well for our vendors on other sites, like Ford-Trucks.com and Audiworld. It will go in the right margin to minimize impact on reading and posting in the body of the page, while still giving vendors and other advertisers new display opportunities.
Lastly, we will be adding advertising text links to certain parts of the site. These are the ads that open in little windows when you mouse over them. While some sites have had these units for a long time, we're launching them in limited fashion on new sites, on archive and article pages.
Site Improvements
The Internet Brands team has been brainstorming product improvements for our enthusiast sites in consultation with superadmins and former owners. We've now hired developers focused on these sites (in most cases people who were working on these sites before acquisition), so we'll be able to start implementing some of those ideas in the new year.
We are still working on timelines, but some of the top priorities are:
- Search. IB Tech has been testing a new search engine on LS1tech.com, ThirdGen.org and one of our travel sites, FlyerTalk.com. So far the feedback has been positive, so we're refining and planning to begin deployment across other sites early next year.
- Upgrades to vBulletin 3.7 on vB-powered sites. As some of you know, Jelsoft is set to release the new 3.7 version by early January. There are new admin and moderator controls, tagging, improved functionality and, most importantly, strong social-network options like customizable member profile pages with blogs, photo albums and friend management. The new version is being road-tested on
www.vbulletin.com, and you can see a preview at
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249460. We've been in close contact with Jelsoft (which is a division of Internet Brands), and we feel that 3.7 is a terrific stride forward for all vB-powered sites.
- Video. We are in the final rounds of choosing a video partner that would enable users to upload and share their own videos on enthusiast sites. There is strong demand for video and tons of great user-generated footage out there, and we're excited about providing the tools and venue to bring it all together.
Thank you for your patience, feedback and contributions as we roll out these projects. We feel yours is one of the best enthusiast communities in the world, and it deserves the best features and functionality.
Stanley Holt