All New Chimpomatic
If you remember the Ronin battle cry of 2007, you'll be well aware that this new version of Chimpomatic has been in the pipeline for a very long time. That doesn't mean it hasn't been an evolving blueprint however - and we're happy to launch today with a raft of new features.
The new layout opens the site up more, with the homepage featuring a run-down of all news, reviews and articles. From there you can filter down to just news, reviews or articles - and from each item you can follow links to see related items, other items by that author, similar ratings, record labels and more. Tagging is also a new feature, letting you call up all items under a particular franchise or tag (e.g. Trailer Park) and there are also more links out of each item - including Last FM and Spotify for reviews.
The site now features a vastly improved search engine, with more ordering options for filtering results - and more features coming for that throughout the year.
Surveillance has probably seen the biggest overhaul, leveraging the power of Flickr to upload more photos, quicker - and then sort by sets (e.g. Mudhoney @ The Forum), tags (e.g. Dead TVs), dates and more. Video is also at a higher res and we'll hopefully be using that more thoroughly.
You might also notice the occasional ad here and there - but most likely if you arrive from a search engine (or maybe you left a comment on The Hunches review).
And finally, update your RSS feeds as we have a whole host of new feeds for different aspects of the site: All Content + Comments, News, Reviews, Articles, Comments as well as Comments for each specific item.
The site might run a little slow while we get up to speed and there's still some lumpy code behind the curtain, but over the next few weeks we'll be finessing that to get the site running as fast and smooth as possible. We're also working to get as many of the new features as possible compatible with all browsers. Firefox and Safari will always get the best response though, thanks for asking.
If you're on the chimp team and have feedback, drop me a line. If you're just an angry civilian, leave your hate mail in the comments.....
Enjoy!
C.S.F.
15th Apr 2009 - Tumblr