Just what the world needed - an RIA blog

Well, I figured I'd try this whole blogging thing out.

The RIA blog will be used to discuss RIA news, highlight interesting stuff on the site, and try keep RIA'ers up to date on what's happening on "the inside."

Of course, there are no guarantees about daily postings - as we know, the newsletter has been a little on the sporadic side - but I'll do the best I can.

So what's new?

Well, the big news is the launch of the new item submission tool, that lets RIA members add new listings to any section of the site, AND (and this is the important part) leave a review in real time.

So here's an example. Let's say I'm browsing a list of Western Europe Attractions and I notice that the Louvre isn't on there (it actually is, but bear with me). What I can now do is click the fancy lightbulb icon, create the listing (just like you would with a Weblist), AND leave a review.

What happens on the back end is even cooler. This new Louvre page gets created as soon as you hit submit, but does not yet go live on the site. All we have to do to activate that item and review is to click a button - this automatically generates an email to the submittor that alerts them that their listing is live. And yes, we are currently activating virtually ALL new item submissions within minutes.

One more thing - anyone who submits a new item is given credit. Check out the link to Adios' page here. Don't be surprised if we start keeping track of top contributors just like we do with most helpful reviewers.

If you want to read the PR spin, click HERE.

Of course, it wouldn't be RIA unless there was a bug involved. Currently, new item submissions for Weblists work exactly as described above. Anybody can add a new listing to a Weblist, and fill in a review.

The problem is that Weblist creators don't currently have item activation capability. They still need to do things the old way - read the new item suggestion and manually add the item. BUT, by doing it this way, all the other info - item description, review, rating, etc is ignored.

So, the way I'm going to handle this is that for the time being, I'm going to do ALL the approving for Weblist suggestions (unless it's totally ridiculous). You, as the Weblist owner, will of course be able to decide to leave the new item on your weblist, or disable it. I would recommend that everybody IGNORE new weblist suggestions for the time being until we get this fixed, in order to avoid duplicate postings.

I expect to have this fixed within 2 weeks so that weblist creators can make the approval decision themselves without losing all the associated data.

So, that's it for the new feature. If you have questions, you know how to reach me.

Speaking of Weblists - new Weblist Buy Back winners announced HERE.

Other news - I've been invited to speak at a big Webmaster conference in New Orleans in two weeks. If any RIA regulars are in town and want to catch up, drop me a line.

And finally, some stuff that's going on in the news: for you hoops fans out there, Manu Ginobili had a heck of a fourth quarter last night. Does anyone else get the feeling that he is somewhat constrained by Popovich's system (like Jordan in Carolina), and if played somewhere else he could average 25 points a game?

Also, big goings on in Bolivia. Supreme Court head Eduardo Rodriguez has been named transitional president. The US Supreme Court seems preoccupied with issues like Medical Marijuana and Federalism.

Tyson is fighting some guy named Kevin McBride this weekend. For some reason, I still care.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is back in the news with the US dropping its objections to Mohamed ElBaradei serving another term.

And Mrs. Robinson has passed away. Here's to you Anne Bancroft.

Signing off for now, feedback welcome.