Strib’s Vita.MN – Twin Cities New Entertainment Guide
I just got word the embargo on talking about the Star Tribune’s new entertainment guide vita.mn has been lifted. (Though, our good friend Matt jumped the guy by just a few hours. Matt…he’s funny like that.)
I’ve been playing with it off and on for a couple months – and there is promise. Two features really stand out for me;
- Lists – Make a list, others add to it, and the repeated items bubble to the top.
- Tags – Like all good sites these days, the interesting bits lay here. I’m using tags to add info that otherwise probably won’t be added, like; which brand of coffee restaurants serve, what dish to order when you’re there, whether or not a place has wifi. Useful things often missing from reviews and descriptions.
Things like iCal and RSS are still forthcoming (same for the yet-to-be-useful Sotanlife.com) and overall there’s a lot going on within each pageview.
Entertainment recommendations are a tough problem to solve out of the gate, telling me what’s going on and getting me to attend are two different things. Vita.mn’s reader-driven tags, lists, etc are a start in channeling word-o-mouth recommendations. I’m interested to see how vita.mn ages.
12 Comments
Gotta love it’s web 2.0 friendly logo, reflection and all. I hope web 2.0 design trends stop soon. Please?
Feels slow and looks like citypages.com circa 2000 albeit with a cliche web 2.0 logo.
But, what do I know? I’m over 30. I’m just a grumpy old internet fart…
Mark: Are you serious? Why do you want them to stop? We were just getting ready to unroll a logo with reflection on sotanlife.com, since all the “cool kids” are doing it…
Garrick: Thanks for all your input/advice/feedback on SotanLIFE the other night at MinneDemo. The various things that we talked about are definitely in the works to provide a better user-experience for all visitors of the site. Of course, it’s no FeedSeeder by any means
But you have to start somewhere, right? Thanks again for your input!
sotanLife looks nice!
If you do make a new logo, consider an apostrophe:
’sotanLife
I was stuck sitting there going “so tan life? Tans? In MN? Huh?” before I finally got it. ;0)
Thanks for your kind words, Darrel. We’ve considered variations of the name to make it more identifiable at first glance, but once people get it, they get it. What did Google mean to you when you first heard that term?
And yes, we are the midst of doing some revisions to the logo, although I was mostly joking about the reflection part!
What’s with the hold-up on the iCal and RSS features?
TaulPaul,
I’m guessing it’s because the site is ad-supported and these days ads are sold and measured on pageviews and clickthrough.
iCal and RSS live outside of those models.
Yeah, I forgot that advertising comes before ease of use. I just signed up, and it seems to have potential. Interesting tags thus far:
Chill Downtown Eco-friendly Martinis Brunch
I could do this all day.
It’s like magnetic crack poetry.
Garrick: Yes and No. It’s partially Ad-Supported, and partially supported by the Featured Establishment Listings and the interactive video commercials that are on the site.
RSS and iCal are definitely in the works, and personally I doubt that implementing RSS would affect the click-thru rate, given that most people who use these features are also probably sharp-enough to glaze over ads anyway.
When I joined the team at SotanLIFE, I was wearing a variety of hats from web designer to web developer to search engine marketer. I was given a product that (I feel) was about 25% complete: there was almost no interactivity at all. (Only last week I added a feedback section for registered users to leave feedback on venues.)
Currently in the works are everything we discussed: Not only RSS and iCal/yCal Integration, but simple features that SHOULD have been implemented at launch such as commenting, customizable profiles, etc.
On top of all that, I need to redesign the entire UI to take better advantage of screen real estate, and bring the content front and center.
So, I promise that all these things are coming, and I appreciate the feedback — both positive and negative — from everyone.
See Garrick, someone thinks I’m sharp. If only just one. I’ll have to look again at SL, since it was only a baby when I looked last.
Derrick, thanks for the background on ’sotanlife.
My speculation was around vita.mn.
Just a side note. Can we all just get past the header photos or illustrations used of the downtown mpls skyline?