Shelfari's new look

That time has come again, and Shelfari is getting a new facelift.  We launched a new design a few minutes ago and we're excited for you to try it out.

We spent a lot of time talking with our members, seeking to understand how they use the site and what appeared to be missing in their experience.  In those conversations, we found a very passionate group of members who love Shelfari and regularly use its sharing and expression features.  However, in those conversations we noticed that we could do a better job of serving users who simply want to see what is hot at this very moment.  Those users want to know what are the most exciting books, members, authors, and groups on Shelfari, and give our members a place they could simply browse and discover.  We responded to that request in this redesign.

Tim wrote a very detailed description of what has been updated, and I won’t duplicate that here.  Do check it out to see all of the things that have changed. But let me share some of my personal highlights
You will notice right away that tucked up near the new wood grain header is a new top-level navigation.  We took all of the personal sections from our last header and placed them neatly in the My Shelfari drop-down menu and on your home page.  The new sections—Books, Authors, Members, and Groups—each have their own new discover sections.  

The Books section has a new By Subject tab, where you can dive down into books by their genre.  On each Subject page (such as Romance), you can see which reviewers are getting the most votes for review in that subject, top reviews for that subject, and the top books.  

The Members section has a Just For You tab, where you can see members reading the same book as you, friends of friends, and members with similar shelves.  Time to make some new friends.

The Groups section has updated leaderboards, showing what’s hot in our groups.

There is also a lot going on under the hood, which is really worthy of its own post.  Suffice it to say that the CSS is completely new, the html is a lot lighter, the site loads a lot faster, and the development team feels refreshed at the opportunity to build on this new platform.

We hope you like it.  Please send us your feedback and we’ll do our best to respond quickly.

Dave

Comments

[Candace Salima]

Here's an idea. Make it possible for our posts on our personal blogs to posted on Shelfari as well. I think that would be a wonderful addition.

[Dave]

Great idea Candace!

[Valentin Jacquemin]

What would be great is to be able to retrieve books from all amazon's store (fr, ca, com, uk, de and jp)..

For my shelf for example I can't add the majority of my books because I can't find them with your search engine. Too sad.

Otherwise, your design is really bright and beautiful!

[Nicole Reising]

Looks great!

Cole

[Mike]

There is too much control of the profile area.

Why not allow the use of HTML?

[Anne Bradshaw]

How do you uncheck a book that got checked in error on the "Books I've Read" page? I've tried clicking on the check, and doing everything else I can think of, but nothing works.

Great site, by the way. Thanks for developing it.

[Jaclyn]

Hi! It's really great that you continually improve the site and at such a rate that's really impressive. I was excited when I first found out about shelfari only to find that it lacked some things that I found essential then. A few months later you made changes that was almost like an answer to all my wishes from the site. And now, I'm really, really satisfied with the site.

Kudos and more power!

[Fabiana]

Hello Dave! It me takes pleasure to know that you esten trying to improve day after day with the interfaz of the page. Particularly it wanted that the page this one in Spanish also.
Fabi

[Sarahs]

I am in a Shelfari book club and I read Taylor Wilshire's THE BOOK OF MOM and loved it and had lots to say. The funny thing about this book is that you gain knowledge and wisdom, (all the self-help-spiritual stuff) as if you are reading a self help book but the book is a funny fictional story. We all loved this combination--blended genre. The book is a very quick read, funny and moving. One woman in our group felt like it saved her marriage, (the main character goes to marriage counseling). I don't know if it was the reason she stayed in her marriage but I will say this, I was moved to take care of myself first and live a more balanced life.

[jc]

I am a member of Shelfari and joined a group that read Taylor Wislhire's Mom book and I loved it and have shared with other friends. It is the idea of conscious parenting that created the most amount of discussions with us. How we can be connected and present with our kids when we feel so overwhelmed.

[Stephen Bess]

I'm loving Shelfari. It gives my page a feeling of home. Thanks for this and the updates.

[Angry Member]

How come I haven't been able to login for the past few days?

It takes forever to login then it times out.

Fix it guys. Thanks.

[Barbara Anne]

It would be a great idea to give an option of:

Borrowed the book from the Library.

Along with
I own it
I read it etc. etc.

[Barbara Anne]

It would be a great idea to give an option of:

Borrowed the book from the Library.

Along with
I own it
I read it etc. etc.

[nehark]

I cannot use the site since the changes. I cannot add books, import books, or even send an email using the feedback form. Everything times out. From the comments here, it looks like this is my problem alone. Any hints on configuring my browser. I've tried using IE 7 and Firefox 2.0.0.14 with the same results. Nothing works. Any ideas would be helpful.

[Jason Shen]

I just found your site and immediately fell in love. I love books more than anything and I was pleased to find a bunch of friends already on it. Can't wait to see where this goes!

[Not An Angry Member Anymore]

I was able to login after two weeks of boredom. Thanks to Amanda and the entire team!

SHELFARI ROCKS!