Pocket-lint launches 4000 homepages

12 May 2009 22:56 GMT / By Stuart Miles

We admit it, we cover a lot at Pocket-lint, everything from cameras to phones, MP3 players to home cinema systems, so making sure you get the information that you are interested in, and none of the information that you are not, is important to us.

8 months ago we launched our modular based homepage that allows you to create your own front page by creating modules you want and dragging them into the order that’s relevant to you. It’s been a massive success with thousands of you opting to customise your homepage.

The homepage is one of the most important pages on a website. It’s like the doorway into our home, giving you access to a world of technology and gadget news waiting to be read.

But, while the modular homepage serves as a fantastic way to give you an overview of what’s going on in the world of technology and gadgets at any moment, it’s not so great for allowing you to see what’s going on, in detail, in a specific area - like phones for example.

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to rework what we call our “tag” pages to make them even better. From today we’ve given every tag page on the site homepage status, so to speak - more than 4000 of them.

Dedicated subject homepages
That’s right, every tag we have in our tag index now has a homepage. As some of you may already know, we have always offered you the chance to access any tag (subject) we use on the site by simply typing it into the address bar after the URL (www.pocket-lint.com/phones for example). But rather than just giving you a list of the latest news and reviews we’ve covered, we now give you what we think will be a definitive place for news, reviews, photos and videos on the web for that subject.

So what’s on offer?
The new tag pages bring with them a host of information and features. You’ll now be able to see what the most popular stories in that tag are right now and the most popular reviews in that tag over the last 6 months. If that wasn’t enough we are also highlighting hot videos and photo galleries for you to enjoy as well.

Some tags will also give you a suggestion for the “Must read” article related to it. So our iPhone tag for example will point you to our review of the iPhone, whereas the DAB radio tag will point you in the direction of our Quick Guide on DAB, all in addition to the latest news and reviews we’ve posted under that tag.

You say popular, but how popular is popular?
We pride ourselves on being as transparent as we can be here at Pocket-lint, so to help you see what is really hot and what isn’t, not only do we tell you what the top couple of stories are in any tag, but then we go a step further than any tech website in the UK and openly tell you how many reads and how many comments it’s got as well. Now you can see for yourself how popular "popular" really is. No lies, no making it up, just the numbers talking for themselves. Some publishers will tell you we’ve gone mad, but it’s our way of telling you that when we say it’s the “Most read” story, it really is.

Searching for something
We believe we already have an amazingly good search function on the site that lets you search via date and relevancy as well as break out the results into News, Reviews, Photos, Video and Deals through our shopping comparison service. From today via the new tag homepages you’ll be able to search within your favourite tag in the same way.

Want to find information about Sony cameras? Easy: just go to the Cameras page and type Sony. You’ll even be able to go to the Sony page and type cameras as well if that’s what you prefer.

To make it even easier, where appropriate, we’ve added related tags we think you’ll be interested in to give you an extra hand surfing to parts of the site you might not have realised you can go. So the Cameras homepage will offer you quick links to camera manufacturers for example.

How many subjects do you cover?
There are currently over 4000 tags in our database covering plenty of subjects as you can imagine. Some have thousands of stories associated with them, some have hundreds, and there are some with just a handful of stories. We pick the tags based on key subjects, companies and hot products like iPhone for example. You can view a full tag list to check out ones that suit you via a link below.

What’s the catch?
Well that’s just it, there isn’t one. We realise here at Pocket-lint that you want your news and you want it how you want it, not necessarily how we tell you you want it. You might be a fan of the Xbox 360, and hate the PS3, in that case check out our Xbox 360 page (www.pocket-lint.com/xbox+360) or you might want all Gaming news, in which case you’ll want (www.pocket-lint.com/gaming).

What now?
Well if you are as excited as we are about this, after all we have just launched over 4000 homepages today, we suggest you go off and have a play with the thousands of new tag homepages we’ve just made live.

We love feedback, so feel free to let us know what you think.

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