In our continuing effort to make EnergyCircle.com informative, useful and easy to navigate, I'm pleased to announce a number of new enhancements to the site.
We've made our articles and posts easier to find.
We have more content on the site than ever before, from how-to videos to funny and insightful posts about the ever-changing world of energy efficiency. The revamped site makes finding the stories you are looking for easier than ever, with scannable excerpts and tables of contents.
We've made it easier for you to chime in.
Now you can make comments on comments, and use your Disqus, Twitter, or OpenID identities to log in and speak your mind. You can also now follow the ongoing conversation in comments by email or RSS. Chime in. We want to hear from you. (The use of Disqus for comments is a test for now; please let us know if you like.)
We've made search work better.
We've split search results into content and products, for dramatically enhanced and helpful search results. A search for energy monitors, for example, shows all the devices we sell, as well as the full history of our reporting on real time electricity monitoring, in two distinct columns.
We've made it easier to navigate.
Drop down menus, a new Table of Contents in our Learn section, and new categories including "most read" and "most commented" help you click around the site exactly the way you want to, and to be guided by what all users of Energy Circle find most compelling.
We've made it a cinch to subscribe to our content.
Subscribe to your favorite topic of blogs or to your favorite Energy Circle blogger. Not up to creating an RSS feed, subscribe to a daily digest, and our blogs will come to your email every day.
We're showing our (dare we say "exquisite"?) stripes.
We've freshened our brand and incorporated a new tagline that we like quite a lot: Relish Efficiency. We're not just talking pickles here, although there's something to that spice of life piece. We're talking about the verb. We relish efficiency. Meaning, we have "an appetite" for it and "a strong appreciation." The more each of us learns about making our homes efficient, the better we understand that efficient means comfortable, safe, healthy, less expensive, and easier. We relish the life that energy efficiency enables us to live.
We'll be spot-on more often.
We have a new, improved relevancy engine, which means we'll be able to point you to related products and blogs with more accuracy than ever. That means, when you are reading about air sealing and want to know more, we'll make it easy to find articles to help you choose the right kind of caulk or foam, and products that meet your needs, automatically.
We're Faster.
Not to get too geeky on you, but we've made a number of site enhancements that will assure faster page loads and speedier transitions. That means less time waiting, and more time learning, shopping, and checking out the cool stuff we've got going on at Energy Circle.
In addition to these outward-facing improvements, we've also made the back-end of EnergyCircle more agile and flexible. As a result, you can expect more frequent upgrades and features in the coming months.
As ever, I welcome your input. Let us know where you'd like us to take Energy Circle, and what information, products or features you'd most like to see. We count on your feedback.
Comments
Peter, I have to compare your site updates to a bowl of grits. Being a Southern boy I love grits. I like them as they are, bare bones made with just grits, water, salt and a bit of butter. I don't need to be romanced.
Posted by ijustinj on Sep 24, 2009 9:34amYour site updates are like adding cream instead of water. It makes my bowl of good grits even better.
I've no claim to southern anything, Justin, but somewhere along the line I came to love grits too. If cream infused grits is what you taste in the new Energy Circle, I'll put in on the menu. Thanks for the kind words. Oh, and that dinner I owe you....now I know what we're having. ;-)
Posted by energycircle on Sep 24, 2009 5:04pm