Site Updates

Wanted to update everyone on the site and some of the more obvious changes made within the last few days.

Starting with the site itself, I’ve added to the affiliate sales in place with Amazon, Crunchyroll, RightStuf, Play-Asia, and AnimeNation with JBox/JList and Best Buy, as you’ll see their ads cycle through at the header, footer, sidebar and comments area.

Speaking of comments, the deployment of the Disqus comment system has proved to be successful with more people speaking up and saying their piece, especially on the Shojo Beat closure so lets keep it growing everyone.

The relevant links concerning the site itself have been placed below the header ad for better visibility to assist PR/Media organizations and readers looking for more information. The links for the rest of the MechaWorks site network have been moved to the navbar for better visibility.

The main body of the article section has been overhauled with complete timestamps (month/day/hour posted) and contact information for myself, just in case there was something I missed or something needs to be corrected.

Topics and Tags are now displayed for easy archive navigation in each article. Options for printing, RSS subscription, sharing, and posting/voting on AnimeBlips are conveniently available at the footer of every article.

I’ve also gone ahead and deployed the AnswerTips service throughout the site. What the service does is pop-up a window with information on any word highlighted via Answers.com and Wikipedia. This makes it easier to grab information on anything you might not be familiar with in an article and can even give additional in-depth information, making the articles easier to read for first-time site viewers.

The footer (bottom) of the page has also been improved with sequential pagination just in case Tags and Topics search isn’t enough. Going forward, I’ll be deploying an RSS feed showcasing the best DVD/Blu-Ray deals on the market for quick access and purchase with an ETA sometime this week.

As far as articles and features, I’m working on my first batch of anime/manga reviews and I’m also working on a feature that bridges my work at PhoneNews.com with the popularity of Japanese cellphones.

That’s it for now, follow the site on Twitter and RSS for up to the minute updates and EMail for daily digests.