Hello!

We are proud to show off the latest Press Coverage on GirlsAskGuys. I had a wonderful conversation with Kurt Greenbaum, Director of Social Media at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and he has published a review on GirlsAskGuys.com.

Check it out here!

Jen

It has been a little over a year that GirlsAskGuys has launched and it is stronger than ever. We constantly work on getting new features out the door, and since these are rather subtle changes than, say implementing a brand new functionality, we usually release these changes without the fireworks. I will mention a few of the recent changes here this week.

Hot linking: We thought that it was irritating each time when someone writes a link it would show the full URL, which you cannot click on but instead have to copy the whole damn thing and paste it into the address bar. Instead, whenever you insert a full URL into an answer or a question, it will turn the URL into a clickable link and will name it as “Link”. Example: when you type http://www.abcd.com, it will appear as link and clicking on it will take you to the URL you have typed in.

Now the spammers might think that it is an avenue for them to spam the site in order to get some back links, however, these links are ‘no follow’ so don’t even bother.

Spell Checker: There is now a spell checking option both when submitting a question and an answer. This might especially be useful for those members who ask “Why are my entries removed due to grammar”. Now remember, the removal reason (or reporting reason) “grammar” encompasses all grammatical violations, but by far the most use of this specific remove reason is due to misspellings. And I am not talking about using one abbreviation here and there, or honest mistakes, but those that are so poorly written that it hurts my brain cells to understand what is going on! So feel free to use the spell checker if you think you need some help with spelling errors.

On a side note, those of you who use Internet Explorer as their web browser might want to take a look at Safari or Firefox as they provide built-in spell checkers that underlines the misspelled words as you type along.

Added the title to the URL: We also have added the title of the question to the URL so it makes more sense when you see the URL.

For example; the URL used to look like this:
http://www.girlsaskguys.com/Other-Questions/25130.html

And now it looks like this:
http://www.girlsaskguys.com/Other-Questions/25130-how-has-girlsaskguys-helped-you.html

We are always here thinking of ways to improve your experience with GirlsAskGuys. And the times when we are not doing that, we are implementing what we have thought so far. So keep on sending us your feature requests to help us improve your experience, too.

Welcome to the GirlsAskGuys blog! For all of our existing members, thank you for your valuable contributions; without your participation, we wouldn’t be where we are today! For visitors and newbies, welcome to GirlsAskGuys and we hope you’ll find it as informative and entertaining as we do!

To kick off our fist blog posting, we wanted to share with you the vision we have for GirlsAskGuys and highlight the features that make us the best place to go when you need answers or advice about relationships.

As our name indicates, we are first and foremost a Q & A  website that helps you better understand the opposite sex. All of us, at one time or another, have wondered about the opposite sex. Many of us have worried about what they are thinking, how they are feeling or why they are acting a certain way. Some of us have agonized over the same. By creating a community of caring men and women eager to offer their insight and share their experience, we can help one another build better relationships; be them in love, friendship, family or work.

In addition to standard social networking features such as create a profile, upload pictures, and comment on existing content, at GirlsAskGuys you can:

• Ask Questions (anonymously, if you prefer)
• Give Answers and Advice (short and sweet or long-winded – we’re all ears)
• Get Quality Info (moderators remove offensive or, frankly, stupid content with no value)
• Create Polls (let people vote on the question and 1-5 answers you create)
• Send Messages (private messages to your new friends)
• Read Articles (written by our own members about their insight and experience)
• Earn points (awarded based on participation)
• Much More…

We recently celebrated our 1 Year Anniversary. With 8,000 members and 50,000 pages of relationship advice under our hat, we are very excited and hopeful headed into our second year. Our plans include design enhancements, navigation improvements, Facebook application and the addition of videos including a GirlsAskGuys VJ! If you have any suggestions or requests (http://www.girlsaskguys.com/feedback.html) for us, don’t hesitate to let us know. We take all of your feedback to heart (and often to brainstorming meetings!) so please keep the comments coming – both good and bad.

For more information about GirlsAskGuys, please visit our About Us page or just ask a question on our site!

In closing and on behalf of the GirlsAskGuys team, thank you to everyone who has helped make GirlsAskGuys such a great place to go.

Sincerely,

Jen Heil
VP Business and Development
JenH