We here at Sepia Mutiny are always working (especially our sleep deprived admin Chaitan) behind the scenes to improve the site’s features, interactivity, and addictiveness. Thus, just in time for the Democratic National Convention, we are introducing two new SM features. The first is the new SM “shorts” site on our Tumblr page. This is the place where you can go to find small tidbits like quotes, pictures and videos that we are interested enough to want to blog, but might now have the time to write a full post about. It is in beta testing right now which means we are aware of a few issues (e.g. font colors, permalinks, etc.) that need to be worked out but we are on it. Both Ravi and I will be using this site A LOT while reporting from the convention so please visit it often this week. If I get to meet Fergie in Denver, for example, there will be a picture of us (but not of me touching any bumps) on our Tumblr site accompanied by a brief quote about how the meeting was a step forward for South Asian Americans in politics. Check us out:
The next feature we have added is an SM Twitter page. What’s Twitter?
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. [Link]
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p>Whenever there is an event of interest to the South Asian American community (and we have a blogger there) we will microblog the event with “tweets.” Anna has been doing this already for a while now. More importantly, if a group of you are headed to an event (independent of each other) SM can “follow” your Twitter pages. Thus, we hope to be able to capture and post a diversity of reactions to the same event via our new Twitter feed. If you are going to be at the DNC or RNC in the next two weeks and want to participate then please create your own Twitter page and then email us (abhi at sepiamutiny dot com). We will “follow” you through SM so other readers can virtually attend through your microblogging.
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Lastly, we are finally, seriously, working on a major site re-design. We hope to seamlessly incorporate all these new features and a re-vamped News Tab into a new accessible (yet still mutinous) format.
My first reaction when I read this was – First t-shirts, now shorts?
Differentiation of news on the news tab from the tidbits on Tumblr ?
On the news tab registered users can post a link to a news story and a small blurb about it. On Tumblr only the bloggers can post and it will be more media rich (especially pics and movie clips). We will be working to make the news tab better for readers as well.
Nice additions! One suggestion about the Tumblr site though – why is it scroll horizontally? Makes it difficult to navigate with the scroll wheel.
Good point Patrix, but we thought we’d experiment with something new. This gives better separation between each post and lets each one stand out a bit. If over time many feel it to be burdensome then we will switch it up accordingly. Thanks.
good stuff. I’ve used tumblr before and loved it for quick mini-blogging. And twitter is great for micro-blogging, when its up.
The problem now is, to integrate all three, so people dont have to go everywhere. I come to SM via the RSS feeds i read, so Im just going to put all three feeds onto one folder in google reader.
Hope she’s wearing her Depends on stage this time
Yep, SM is working on a total re-design to address this issue.
I am so 2004 in terms of online technology. Sigh. I suppose I must Twitter? Must I? I avoid Facebook. I am an introver, after all. That seems like the extroverts part of the web.
What’s the next thing after Twitter, techy-types?
Abhi – lots of your trademark funny from the convention, please 🙂