Anime-Planet Gets a Makeover

Yesterday, one of the main sites I use regarding anime especailly for keeping track of what you've watched went under it's version 3 update to the site. To be honest I'm a little skeptical of this new layout. I'm not sure I like the layout as much as the previous ones atleast.

If at any point during this rambling that you want to know what I'm speaking of, head on over to the site at http://www.anime-planet.com/.

The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that it is much more vertical based then the previous versions. You need to scroll down a little bit to reach the bottom of the page. It seems the reason for this is not because it was shrunk horizontally but because more stuff was added to the page. For some reason, the newest reviews and the manga related stuff is towards the bottom of the page and you can't initially see it just by visiting the site without scrolling down. I somewhat wonder why they did this as I personally would have probobly included it towards the top. I guess the arguement that there manga section of the site isnt as popular yet so having it in the spotlight is a waste could be valid, but if their going to try to promote it they should really TRY to promote it.

As for the new features they're quite a few supposedly (List taken from http://www.anime-planet.com/forum/site-announcements/23744-announcing-anime-planet-v3.html)

Blogs – you can now add blogs, complete with embedding video and audio. You can tag blogs with official entries (anime, manga, and site tags), as well as custom tags. The benefit to using site tagging is that then, you’ll see the blogs in the anime/manga/tag pages. However, don’t abuse this feature! Only tag when appropriate.

Custom Lists – the other major feature of V3. To add a custom list, go to your profile and click the custom lists tab. If you previously had a top 5 anime, you now have an auto-generated custom list for ‘My Top Anime’. You can change this at any time (the title, and the entries in there). Custom lists can be either manga or anime, and you can only add things to a custom list that you have in your list already. Drag/drop is possible with the custom lists, as well as the advanced filter bar.

Advanced Filters – This is a big, big new feature. It’s currently available on the anime/manga browse pages, as well as your personal lists. You can include/exclude tags, and filter by a ton of other stuff including your anime status, year range, episode range, studio, and more!

General sorting/pagination – in addition to advanced filters, you’ll find way more instances of pagination and sorting throughout the site. Browsing has never been easier!

Profiles – profiles now have tabs and you now have very easy access to all your info. You can browse your recommendations and filter by moderation status and editing status, amongst other things. Site reviewers have a reviews tab that you can browse through, and there are tons of other tabs as well. The profile homepage is now much more robust, and includes rating averages.

Tags – tag pages (ie, horror or comedy) are now like profiles, with their own tabs.

Average ratings – anime and manga now store an average rating. Avg ratings are weighted depending on the user. For example, users who only rate 5 on everything will have less of a ‘vote’ towards an avg rating than someone who has a more balanced set. Avg ratings were fully funded by the community!

Relations – relations are also back, and also funded by the community. Right now the relations are very basic, and show up in a table (without a solid relation reason yet). Coming soon we’ll have a better relation view with suggested orders of viewing again.

Review Ratings – you can now vote for what you thought of reviews, and also filter by those rating types (funny, cool, helpful) on the review home.

Comments – reviews and blogs have comments, just like profiles! Profile comments are now paginated as well.

User Browse – you can now browse users and get better info such as what’s in their anime/manga lists, number of recs, and more. Go to the users home and click browse by username to see more.

Themes – themes are back! Only two are up at the moment but more are coming soon.

Appearance – V3 is slick as ever with a much prettier, cleaner and functional design.

Delete account – not like I’d want anyone to leave, but there’s now an easy to use delete option.

Friends – are back! Add friends easily from various parts of the site, and browse them in your friends tab. As with the old site you can also see who has friended you.

Recommendation filters – in the recs area of an entry, you can filter by a few options including ‘only friend recs’

Anime/Manga list compare – in someone else’s anime or manga list you’ll now see a compare. You can easily see your lists side by side, and filter based on what you share or don’t share.

New features are almost always a good thing, so I can be happy about these in the newest updates. The ability to add your own blog to the site is great, but kind of useless for me since obviously this is my blog. Custom lists are something I will almost certainly use at some point. Only being able to have a top 5 list was a little depressing sometimes. As for filters... Meh, I never had much trouble finding what I wanted but I'm sure some people will get a big kick out of it. It might be cooler to me in practice then just how it sounds as a feature. The only other two things that really catch my attention are the Themes and ability to compare anime/manga lists. I love the idea of being able to choose your own layout for the site encase you don't like the original and the ability to compare anime lists is great for teasing friends.

Anyway, new things are always interesting at the least and it'll be fun to see how all these features come in to play to make the site better. I'm sure atleast some of you were wondering by now about my personal profile on the site. Mine would happen to be http://www.anime-planet.com/users/Darkskeleton.