Been Down So Long It Felt Like Up To Us

So we're back and there's much to talk about. As you can see the site is markedly different. Besides overall look and feel differences, there are two major new features.

Tags

Tags are basically a 2006 way of saying keywords. They are words and combinations of words that describe blog entries and, more importantly, stores. Longtime visitors of the site will remember that we used to employ categories and sub-categories for this. But sub-categories were annoying to browse and limiting. By tagging stores and blog entries we effectively mix and re-mix our content into interestings collections. Here's a list of stores that carry authentically Japanese wares. Here's a list of stores that focus on products sourced from designers local to their area. We find this to be pretty useful when we're looking for specific types of stuff.

Maps

We've also spent much of the past month building our interactive shopping maps. There are basically two types of maps, both with their own uses.

City maps (pictured above) allow you to quickly and easily get a feel for the types of cool stores in a city. You can look at a city by neighborhood or by tag Here's New York and here's LA.

The second type of map is the "tag" map. These maps just take the list of tagged store we mentioned above and bring them to life. Tag maps allow you to browse, for example, all the women's clothing stores or all the sneaker stores or urban vinyl stores or what not.

Blogging/Articles/Stores

On the content side of things we'll be updating this here blog with interesting tidbits about fashion, design and shopping 2-4 times per day, every weekday. We're also planning on interviewing more designers for our "Features" area. And finally, we'll be continually adding to and maintaining our store guide.

But that's enough talking. Starting tommorrow, expect lots of doing.