Recent updates and plans for early 2012

Over the last few months there have been a few minor updates to the site mainly focusing on performance and content.

You’ll notice that the map for each venue and area page has been moved into the top section of each page. This allows the user to see the location immediately without scrolling down. I’ve also added a new venue feature list. For example, each pub can now specify whether they offer free wifi or play background music.

One update I’ve also implemented is bringing more adspace to the top of each page. The site now costs a lot to run. There’s a lot of processing power needed for some pages and likewise bandwith costs are considerable too. However with the new page layout I still believe our adspace does not detract from the user experience.

So… Plans…

2011 was a great year for BigRedDirectory. Seeds have been grown in Canada, New Zealand and the US for sister sites. But my immediate focus is to build on the success of the UK site and then export those new features to the sister sites. At the moment we only host a handful of venue categories, pubs, restaurants, cinemas etc. We can definitely expand these to new and popular categories like accountants, department stores, hairdressers, sushi restaurants and just about everything else! As always, my time is a huge limiting factor in a way that imagination and hope can never may be.

I hope to bring news on the development of these plans in weeks and not months.

Happy New Year!

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