You’ve no doubt by now noticed that the sites got a bit of a re-design and some things got changed around last week. We wanted to highlight two changes to make sure everyone knows what changed.

The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

Love,
The folks at MBHQ

Since we haven’t done one in a while and I hear that there’s some sort of festival thing going on this week, please come join us for a meetup of Metrobloggers both current and former from around the country (world?) this coming Monday, March 16th at 6:30pm at Jo’s Coffee on Second Street between Colorado and Lavaca (map).

Austin Monthly magazine (December 2008: “The Cool Issue”) has included Austin Metblogs among the 112 best Austin Web sites and blogs, touting us for “local news, opinion and recommendations” and categorizing content as “offbeat essays.” Thank you, Austin Monthly! The magazine’s search swept up some sites new to me, ones worth of frequent reference. The issue is easy to find even though the new year is here. Note to AM mag’s editors, just for the record: yes; the spelling is “Thelonious,” not “Thelonius.”

Those who want a close-up picture should go to the first-hand accounts of life in New Orleans at the Metblogs site there if you want a true sense of life under the threat, and now in the aftermath, of Gustav. New Orleans is close to Austin, with a place in the hearts of many. I’ve been reading these true-life tales since Katrina days and didn’t think to tout New Orleans Metblogs as the storm approached. But the story continues.

I guessed somehow my interest in my new Austin home town would eventually spill over into my professional life. It happended though in a way I couldn’t have predicted.

One of the people I follow on twitter is IT Industry Robin Bloor. Bloor is also an ex-pat living here in Texas, we only met a few times back in the 90’s. He is currently a Partner with Hurwitz and Associates in the US and also maintains contacts with Bloor Research, the analyst company he founded and established in the UK.

Yesterday Robin posted 10 Green Questions on his Have Mac will blog, blog. My first reaction was this as another green IT blog, but wait the first question was about plastic bags! Oh ok, its broader than just IT… but then I chuckled my way therough the remaining entry, which included Question 8. of interest here since I know fellow Austin metblog Author @lauratex regularly works from various coffee shops around the ‘hood on her bicycle, and I work from home from time to time, and by coincidence my drive to the office is 12-miles and I do bike it from time to time.

Here is Question 8 and Robins analysis, enjoy the rest here.

Question 8: Is it greener to work from home?

Answer: On the plus side you wont be commuting. The average work journey in the US is 12 miles, and each gallon of gas burned emits 25.3 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2). Imagine you don’t own a gas guzzler but a 25 mpg car. In which case you’re spewing about 25 pounds of CO2 into the air per day (6000 lbs per year) melting glaciers, raising the sea level and killing polar bears. However, if you stay home you’ll be using more air conditioning or heating, the extent of which could easily total as much. Don’t work from home, get a bicycle and work from Starbucks.

(We’d like to thank Starbucks and their very green logo for sponsoring this eco-friendly posting, but they didn’t sponsor it, so we can’t. If an offer to sponsor it doesn’t arrive in the next few days I’m gonna calculate the carbon footprint of a Starbucks cup of coffee and post it here… You’ve been warned Starbucks….)

If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

The Metblogs network has added a new…um….country? Say hello to The People’s Republic of Unterzoegersdorf . Ambassador Nikita Chrusov, who made an appearance at eTech last week, is appearing at the Plutopia EFF party at Scholz’s as I post this. I hope that diplomacy will prevail.

We had a SXSW meetup of Metbloggers from Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin today at Rio Rita. The main topic of conversation was the trainwreck Mark Zuckerberg interview that had just taken place. In fact, a website to commemorate the occasion was conceived and implemented during the meetup. I just took pictures.

 

Don’t forget about the Metblog meetup in 30 minutes at Rio Rita. It’s at 1308 East Sixth near Attayac (that’s 4 blocks east of I-35).

I’m Richard Ault, from San Francisco and the SF Metblog. I’m in town with Sean Bonner and Jason Defillippo, collectively the guys responsible for Metblogs. I’ll be guest posting bits of my experience here in Austin over the next couple of days. To get a sense of what I’m interested in, you can check out my previous posts, or my photoblog.

We’ll all be at the Austin Metblogs Meetup tomorrow also, looking forward to meeting the community who read and write this blog!