Pocket-lint gets new look

13 October 2006 1:33 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Welcome to the new look Pocket-lint that should be faster, bigger, better and more feature-packed than ever before.

As you will have noticed we have got a shiny new look to the site, but wait, that's not all, over the last 6 months we have been rebuilding the entire site from the ground up to make it considerably faster.

We've also used the opportunity to add a host of new features, some of which are launching today and some of which we will be launching over the next couple of weeks.

So what is new on the new look Pocket-lint?

Speed: Hopefully, you will have already noticed that the speed pages now load at has vastly improved. Following a massive rise in traffic since our launch 3 years ago, we've been struggling to keep up. Now, with a new site and a new all-singing all-dancing server, pages should load within seconds rather than minutes regardless how many people are viewing the site around the world. Better still, with our ad free option (see new membership details below) pages will load up to a whopping 3000% faster than previously.

Design: Following lots of feedback from readers, we have been working hard to create a site that is easier to navigate and hopefully after you have had a bit more of a surf around the pages, you will agree with us. Part of this redesign has meant removing the left hand navigation bar to give more space to the all important news and reviews. Other big changes include the introduction of a "related" column that features things like "Tags" (see below) a "You may also like" box in reviews and details on the "latest" news and reviews on the site. Useful links, but ones that don't relate directly to the story, like learning about the Pocket-lint awards or using our Feedback form are now at the bottom of each page.

Membership: Standard membership to the site is now free with the option to upgrade to get advert free content for a one off payment of just £9.99 for the year. Standard membership includes loads of stuff from getting access to our reviews 3 days ahead of non-members to getting News and Reviews Alerts so you can track what is going on around a category or specific keyword. Everyone that signs up to become a member will automatically get Premium membership for the first 5 days free.

Tags: With "convergence" being the word of the moment, it has been harder and harder for us to categorise where to put things; are camera-phones phones, cameras or MP3 players for example? That is why we've launched "Tags". Each review and news story will now have a series of tags associated to it so you can find collections of things easier. We have still kept the bigger categories such as Photography or Home Entertainment, but it should now be considerably easier to find stuff related to what you are looking for. We've also launched a tag cloud so you can find which ones are getting the most buzz on the site, as well as the ability to view all the tags on the site alphabetically. Our search engine on the site has been vastly improved.

Business, Gaming, Phones, HomeCinema, CarAndGPS, SportsAndFitness: Following some reader feedback we've renamed some of our channels to best explain what they mean as well as launching a new section called Business. Games has become Gaming, Portables has become Phones, HomeEnt has become Home Cinema and Car has become CarAndGPS.

In the new Business section you'll be able to find stories of a more business nature about companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft and many more. This will stop us bogging down the other categories with anything other than all the latest product launches.

What's to come?
Today's new look Pocket-lint is just the tip of the iceberg with loads more features coming over the next couple of weeks including forums, the choice of daily or weekly newsletters for members, personalised homepage, polls and much, much more.

I can't access a certain link, is it me or a Bug?
We have done our best to make sure the site works using a crack team of testers, however there are bound to be a few pesky bugs that have slipped through the net. Please bear with us, however if you can let us know if you find any, that would be great. You can do this via our feedback form.

I hope you enjoy your new look site as much as we have creating it.

Stuart Miles
Editor, Pocket-lint.co.uk

Full tags

Software, Online, Site news, Pocket-lint, Gaming events, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, Car And GPS