Things will look a little different around here today.
A few weeks ago we told you something new was coming to Viva El Birdos and today it’s here. Things are cleaner, faster and easier to use. There are the same writers, coverage, comments, and community you’ve come to rely on, now with less clutter and clunkiness.
Let’s dive in. If you scroll down the page on your phone or computer, it’s smoother. You’ll notice that the most talked-about stories have a bigger font displaying the number of comments. You’ll also see a section called Active Conversations to point you to the busiest conversations right now.
But there’s two changes we’re most excited to tell you about:
Fewer ads for logged-in users
Our loyal readers and commenters are the heartbeat of our communities, and with this new design we’re excited to offer them fewer ads when they’re logged in. Specifically:
- Video players will no longer chase you down the page. Just scroll past one and it will be gone.
- Full page pop-ups that would sometimes interrupt your commenting experience have been disabled.
You can log in or sign up here and check it out.
A new feature by the community, for the community: The Feed
Today we’re launching a brand new space for you to come together. The Feed is a running stream of posts and updates from you, the community, mixed in with links and updates from the team and our staff. Think of it as our community’s group text where you can easily grab your phone and share a link to a story, post a question or write your own post on the day’s news.
You can find it in two places:
- On the homepage, adjacent to the top stories. Community participation is core to who we are, so we want it right on the front page to share your stuff.
- A devoted homepage for The Feed where you can see the full stream of posts coming in from the community. You might want to bookmark that.
Log in or sign up here and you can start posting on The Feed and seeing fewer ads immediately.
Today’s launch is a big deal for our community, and it’s also a kickoff of broader efforts to build around the community we have here. Soon you’ll get alerts when someone replies to your comment or your post on The Feed, with more to come thereafter. We want to put the community in the driver’s seat, so let us know what you want in the comments below or in The Feed.
If you want to dig into more of this updated experience, head over to this post on sbnation.com from SB Nation’s Head of Product Ed Clinton, where he expands on the changes in our ads and design. Ed will be responding to questions in the comments. If you have any questions about how to log in to our new system, check out this article from last week.
