Propeller 2.0 — Jul 22nd 2008

By Tom Drapeau

Our long awaited upgrade to Propeller was released this morning. As mentioned previously, the Propeller team has been hard at work incorporating features in response to many months of your feedback and our own observations. Our goal was to make Propeller easier, faster and more fun to use. To accomplish this, we incorporated a new design, new technology powering the site, and new features.


By now, social news sites have been around for several years. Yet they are still relatively novel to most of us. The idea of you or I being able to post news we are interested in, and having that news served up to a global audience, gets at a core need: We all want to be heard. The Propeller platform should be the place where you are heard, and to pave the way, we have brought the site's features up to date.

Of course, we recognize that not everybody will start his or her day reading stories on the Propeller home page. There are still many folks who prefer a more traditional, top-down approach to the news. But even among this crowd, many enjoy certain aspects of the social news experience-the sense of community, the discussions, the long-distance friendships. We have designed the new platform with this audience in mind, too. And we have simultaneously begun a deeper integration with AOL News and AOL.com (where Propeller posts have begun popping up in the top box). The future of social news, we believe, will consist of a fusion between these two approaches: the freewheeling community and the fact-gathering capabilities of traditional media.


Now, let's take a closer look at the new Propeller. The new design is likely to be noticed first. The Propeller mascot, who is part professor, part citizen journalist, beckons any and all to visit Propeller and sample our wares. He is placed strategically throughout the site, pointing out features and offering help to new members. The logo has changed as well, which shows our community and stories as moons orbiting the Propeller planet. We also decided that Propeller needed a new engine to keep up with our growing community and increasing traffic levels. With this new power, performance should improve, in some cases dramatically. Here are some other changes you will notice:

• New Ranking Scale: Instead of seeing an absolute count of votes next to a story, you will now see a Popularity Rating from 1-10. The scale is based on a new set of ranking algorithms, which take into account many more aspects of participation when determining popularity.


• Prop It!: We thought that "Vote" seemed too serious, especially with the elections coming up. So we took the root of Propeller and will now encourage our audience to "Prop" stories they find interesting.


• Groups: Users now have the ability to join groups and form groups of their own. Groups can be open to the public, or membership can be limited. Once you have joined a group, you can share stories and start conversations on topics of interest.


• Help!: There is a new Help Central area, where we consolidate Frequently Asked Questions and explain a bit more about Propeller.


• New and Improved Search: Not only has searching for stories returned, but new features allow for searching members and groups. Looking for that long-lost Propeller friend, or for some esoteric group? Now you can find them!


• Featured Groups and Members: To reward the movers and shakers in our community, we will feature members and groups on the homepage. This is an improvement on the old Top Propeller Contributors, since the featured member will have his or her avatar and biographical info displayed front and center!


• This Just In: The Propeller Tracker has a new name, This Just In.


• No More On Shift Icons for Editors and Scouts: Rest assured, we're still on the job! We're always here. But although we love looking at ourselves, we thought we could use the space for something new.


• Category Consolidation: Our categories are now Arts & Entertainment, Business & Finance, Family, Humor, News, Science & Technology, Sports and Style. By reducing the number of categories, we hope to cut down on clutter and ease the story submission process.

These are but a few of the changes in Propeller 2.0. We hope that you come to visit us, give our new features a spin, and let us know what you think. We're all ears!

Tags: 2.0, Propeller, social news, SocialNews

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