Afrigator gets a Rhytidectomy
Ok, ok I’ll stop with the funny looking words now. For the last few weeks, we’ve been quite a busy bunch here at the Gator Pen. With the launch of Adgator, the AfriGreater campaign and my never ending bid to get Justin to buy a new coffee machine, things have been moving along at Cape Town wind speed.
One of the cool things we’re happy to announce is Afrigator’s new look. While it’s not a major change it’s pretty significant to us so we want to share it with you. I won’t list all of the changes here, but even just the major ones are pretty nice.
Seek and we shall find
Our new search logic is Stii’s pride and joy. In the previous version of Afrigator search was trusty and reliable, but not the fastest in the world. Sort of like an old 1600 Corolla. Stii’s new and improved Sphinx Search cuts the average search time from 4s to roughly 0.01s. So now you can find what you want a lot faster (just be careful of speeding fines).
Even cooler than the speed is the integration of search on your home page. When you visit Afrigator, you’ll see media relative to your last 2 search results. So if you were searching for Gummy Bears on your last visit, we’ll go find the info on Gummy Bears and include these on your home page next time you log in. It’s all about returning relevant results.
Local is better </ cliche>
When you visit the site from a country in Africa you’ll see results relevant to your country. Previously, you would have seen all the latest entries regardless of where you live, but this way you can find results a little closer to home.
You still have the option of viewing the content from all over Africa, all you need to do is go here and select which countries you would like to view on your home page.
Snap Happy
Personally, this is my favourite new section on the site – the inclusion of aggregated images on your home page. Africa has amazing scenes captured by amazing photographers, and now there’s a simple way to find and view these photographs.
Just like with the blog posts, you will see the latest images from your country and like with blogs you have the option to view all of the amazig images from Africa. If you use Flickr and would like us to aggregate your images, simply tag them with “south” and “africa” (two seperate tags) or “nigeria”, “kenya” (depending which country they come from) and we’ll include them in the photo results.
My Gator (well technically it’s Your Gator)
MyGator is the easy way to keep tabs on your favourite blogs in Afrigator (sort of like Google Reader does). Using MyGator is simple – when you find blog that you enjoy reading, simply click on the title of the blog and choose to follow it.
Stii’s busy working on an even easier way to follow your favourite bloggers in MyGator, but more on that next time around. I’m a little out of breath from all this copying and pasting, these images are heavy.
As always, we want to hear from you – after all, Afrigator is your service and this is your community. So please drop us a comment if you think of any other ways that you think we can make Afrigator better, we’d really love to know.
Till next time, keep on blogging,
Lester
Norio said,
Wrote on November 28, 2008 @ 11:13
I dig that it only shows stuff from your country now. A lot more relevant! Great work guys
Afrigator Makes More Improvements « TechMASAI said,
Wrote on November 28, 2008 @ 11:53
[...] Official blog [...]
Events | Startup Africa said,
Wrote on November 28, 2008 @ 12:02
[...] post from this site came up 5th. There also seems to be a new change that was not mentioned in the blog post at Afrigator. When following a link from Afrigator, your blog is brought up in an Iframe, with an [...]
Lester Hein said,
Wrote on November 28, 2008 @ 13:31
Glad to hear that you like the feature Norio
Let us know what you think of the other changes too once you’ve had a look around, we’d love to hear your opinion.
Lester
Norio said,
Wrote on December 1, 2008 @ 10:01
Well, the design is nice and neat. Looks way more professional. The blocks-layout on the home page is neat. I’ve done something similar on my article site. Makes it much easier to find stuff.
All in all, she is beautiful
But, looking into the future, is there any way you could do things like, “Top Commenters”, “Top Blog Posts”, “Most Updated”, etc.
That sort of stuff is fun and gets some healthy competition going.
Hmm, now can I ask YOU guys something? What would YOU do to improve MY site?
Norio said,
Wrote on December 1, 2008 @ 10:02
Oh and I forgot to mention, the photos (photo strip on home page) thing is awesome. Love it
ulla said,
Wrote on December 2, 2008 @ 03:31
gator pen … what a fab idea for a promo thingy. i’m thinking violently bright lime green pen with a streamlined aligator shape to it … yummeh.
ulla said,
Wrote on December 2, 2008 @ 03:32
then you’d have a write-idectomy.
Max the Micro Niche Finder said,
Wrote on March 24, 2009 @ 08:22
Hiya, i have seen your site when searching a few weeks ago and i really love the design! I just bought a new 3 character domain (cost me a packet) for a niche review blog, and i was wondering if your design is a free or paid one? I’m new to Wordpress and about to set it up, and i would really like to get something with a similar look to yours. Any ideas where i could download or buy something similar? Thanks for your help!
brian said,
Wrote on September 17, 2009 @ 13:13
Even cooler than the speed is the integration of search on your home page. When you visit Afrigator, you’ll see media relative to your last 2 search results. So if you were searching for Gummy Bears on your last visit, we’ll go find the info on Gummy Bears and include these on your home page next time you log in. It’s all about returning relevant results.
Fuzu said,
Wrote on October 29, 2009 @ 06:21
Ooh shoot i just typed a huge comment and as soon as i hit reply it came up blank! Please tell me it worked right? I do not want to write it again if i dont have to! Either the blog glitced out or i am an idiot, the second option doesnt surprise me lol.
wilma yeung said,
Wrote on October 31, 2009 @ 03:42
Hi just thought i would let you know that i also had a issue with your blog appearing blank as well. Might be chimpanzees in the system.