Empire Avenue adds public profiles, revamps search engine, simplifies trade system
Empire Avenue is "really hunkering down ... we're examining everything we've learned in the last six months to create a better site for the future."
As a result, Empire has added and tweaked some features. First up is public profiles, which allows non-Empire users to view the basics of your account. By default, it's disabled (so unlike Facebook!) for those who created their accounts before September 21st. New accounts will have a default setting with minimal stuff displayed publicly.
Empire also rolled out a new search page. "You might note that you can pretty much type in anything into the field and it will give you results based on relevance, which you can then narrow by the location folks logged in, your lists, and more," their blog post reads. It, like much of the site still, is in some form of beta.
Finally, they're actually removing a feature:
As of Tuesday, September 28th, 2010, we will disable the ability to trade shares in others - that's the specific "trade" function, not buying and selling, which will remain, of course. Trades accounted for less than half a percent of transactions, added unneeded complexity, and didn’t add much to the site. However, we are leaving the API calls. We believe that a third party application developer might come up with a very interesting App using the ability to trade shares between Influencers. For now, however, you will not be able to register or monitor trades from within Empire Avenue's Web Site.
Check out their full blog post for more.
