Suzanna Stinnett wrote about radical acts that transform culture in her book, "Little Shifts." Her next book is about Web 55.0 - the emerging influence of Boomers online. She writes about brain power, innovation and new paradigms of online communication at her Web site, www.GreatAdaptations.org.

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BlogCatalog's new search interface is brain-friendly

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October 7, 1:39 PM

by Suzanna Stinnett, S.F. Boomers Examiner

Now and then I teach an introductory course for online communication. One of the things I try to make clear to people who are baffled by all the social media, software, terminology, and general mystery of online activity is this: Tech innovators never sleep. They’re constantly scrutinizing and analyzing and re-inventing aspects of our user experience, trying to make things work more smoothly and be ever easier to understand. Sometimes they accomplish this.

BlogCatalog is launching something helpful today. It’s a new search interface.

BlogCatalog is a melting pot of blogs and discussions among members. It’s very interesting, and now with the new search interface, I think it will be more obvious how they intend it to be used.

One of the things I like about the new interface is that it doesn’t give you too many places to go. You can see the most active topics in the cloud-like square called “Trending Topics,” and right there above it, you have one place to type in your search. But you can also narrow the search very easily by clicking on any of the options directly above the bar.

Even better, I discovered that when I click on the options above the bar, I can see popular searches in different categories. This is really cool because it gives me a window into the community of BlogCatalog. It’s like being able to read its mind. The “cloud” format, in case you don’t know, uses large and bold fonts to show the more/most popular topics, and the fonts get smaller as you go down the scale of popularity. This is along the lines of a mind map, and works kind of like the human brain. This is my favorite kind of innovation to see: one that clearly mimics the way our brains work. It also tells you that BlogCatalog has some brilliant minds working together very well. (Hey - that sort of sounds like a stock tip!)

Useful search options are among the most highly prized tools in social media. A round of applause for BlogCatalog’s clean new interface. Chocolate for everyone!

Suzanna

Topics: social media , BlogCatalog

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