Now there are some great new ways for you to find the best content on OpEdNEws.com.
We've taken The OpEdNews.com Popularity navigation system to the next level with a new page layout and more advanced control panel features. We believe the OEN Popularity Navigation System control panel sets a new standard in website architecture design
Earlier in the week we replaced the old, not at all popular article ratings system we had with a new, much easier, and faster to use one. You'll see the clickable text links below the author byline for the article. You'll see icons and the number of votes for them to the left of the rating text links. Mouse over the icons to see what they represent. (If you're not clear what one represents, we should probably come up with a better icon. Help us by suggesting an image or creating one.)
We're now using the results of those ratings as another way to measure popularity. You can sort for popularity by any of the separate rating categories or by a sum total of all of them-ALL RATINGS and check the findings for all kinds of content, not just articles..
This is another way that OpEdNews applies our bottom-up approach to you, our members. You get to play a role in determining the rankings, the navigation tools others use to find the best content on the site. There is NO other site on the planet that lets members get so involved in shaping the presentation of the news.
All Ratings, Must Read, Well Said, New, Touching, Funny, Supported, Interesting, Inspiring, Valuable
We're not done with these yet. I know we could have better icons and I'm hoping some of you will find or create some we can use or adapt. Also, we'll be studying the reader responses to see which ratings are most used.
I'm not sure, frankly, if INTERESTING is different enough from VALUABLE or MUST-READ.. Maybe we should have a different one-- SMART, for example and should we use NEWS, NEW, FRESH or BREAKING?
What else? Try these out. Check out INSPIRING for a different perspective. And please, use the ratings for the articles you like. This is how YOU get to play a dynamic, participatory role in YOUR media.
And don't forget, if you use an RSS reader, we provide RSS feeds for all of these, as well as RSS feeds for every tag, every directory level on the site.
Bottom line, OpEdNews.com, using the technolog developed by populum.com, is taking web 2.0, social networking technologies to the next level. We have a lot more plans on the horizon and will be rolling them out every month.