Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes…Introducing Notas And Other Handy Improvements on Guanabee

You may have noticed that your favorite Latino website, Guanabee, looks a little bit different today. More streamlined and better organized. We have added various new tools to make it easier to comment and register. But the best improvement of them all is our new user feature: Notas. With Notas you can now submit your very own posts in the forms of links, images and videos for all Guanabee readers to see. Actually, your submission has to be quite good to hit the homepage. Let’s take a closer look:

(If you are having problems seeing our new design, please make sure you clear the Cookies in your browser.)

Design

The most obvious aspect about our new design is that it houses a lot more content on our homepage. Stories are better organized: features pop out to let you know, “Read me!”; regular stories provide an informative excerpt for you to decide whether its worth your time or not; and clips, or Notas, show up as simple headlines. Additionally, our individual article pages showcase pictures in their full splendor, away with those puny thumbs.

We have also added a couple of shortcuts for you to cross-post articles you like to Twitter and Facebook, you can find these buttons below this article. We have also added buttons on the right column for you to fan us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter–we are constantly updating those pages with the most popular stories. Also, did you know Guanabee just won “Most Humorous” in the Glam Web Awards? We added a badge to display this accomplishment. More details on that later today.

Notas

This is the biggie. All users can now post a link, image or video on Guanabee. These contributions, or Notas as we call them, live in the Notas section and the most fantastic, witty, insightful ones are moved to the homepage where they will get extra exposure. To submit a Nota go to your profile page, which you can access by clicking on your username on the top right hand corner of Guanabee (you must be logged in for this to appear), click on the options under “Submit Your Own Notas,” fill out the appropriate fields, and ya está! You are now a Guanabee editor. Please make sure you follow the rules for posting when using Notas.

Facebook Connect

Registering or linking your Facebook account with  Guanabee user is now uber-simple with Facebook Connect. Simply go to the login page and click the Facebook Connect button (you can also find the button on the login shortcut on the top right hand corner of Guanabee ). The main advantages of registering or linking your Facebook account with Guanabee is that you will have ONE account, creating many profiles is a hassle. And with Facebook Connect you have the option to share your comments or Notas with your Facebook friends. (Please note that Facebook Connect might not work at the moment with Safari browsers, we are working to resolve this limitation.)

Avatars

A couple of weeks ago we added avatars, or profile pics for those non-techies. We highly recommend that you upload an avatar if you have not done so already. If you register or link your profile with Facebook Connect your avatar will load automatically.

Voting (Puntos)

Every time you submit a comment you get one Guanabee Punto, and if someone votes on that comment by using the “Vote Up Arrow” you get another Punto. Your Puntos total is displayed in your profile page –its the number in parenthesis next to your picture. We use Puntos for contests, last week some lucky winners got free concert tickets to see the band Zoe in Los Angeles, and in the future to reward those Guanabee users who are most active. We will soon implement this feature for Notas as well. So vote away!

Feedback

We have implemented a Feedback form, found as a tab labeled “Feedback” on the left hand corner of the website. We would love to hear from you with any ideas, questions, problems, or praise (that last one is always nice) that you may have. That said, we are launching many of these features in Beta so you might experience certain difficulties with some of these new enhancements. If you do, please let us know via the Feedback form what the problem is and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Well, that is all, for now. We hope that you enjoy the new changes.

Saludos y abrazos!

The Guanabee Team.