Welcome to the first post from the product team. We have been hard at work building new features for the site and we will be updating the blog weekly to keep you posted on the exciting things going on with the site. First and foremost I want to welcome Michael LeBarron as our new developer. He will be joining Justin Leider and myself to round out the product team and needless to say we will be working long hours to make the CitySquares.com experience grow and improve on a regular basis. Without further ado I would like to present you with the most recent roll out of features.

• Faceted Search: This feature allows users to refine their search results after an initial keyword search. You may refine these results by distance, rating, reviews, location (city or neighborhood), category and alphabet. Not only does it make it easier to find what you are looking for but it also lets you explore other parts of the site with ease. Check out the screenshot below. We’ll be expanding this over the next few weeks as well, to include things like cuisine type, payment type, hours of operation, and more. Be on the lookout for that!
• Favorite Neighborhood: Users can select a favorite neighborhood. Each time you login or return to the site, while still logged in, you’ll automatically go to your saved favorite neighborhood. The “Make This My Favorite ‘Hood!” button can be found on the top of all neighborhood home pages – see the South End, for example.
• Send messages to businesses: Users can now send a business a message using the quick note feature in the business profile. On the profile page of our customers you will see a text area where you can send a question or inquiry directly to the business.
• RSS: We now offer syndicated feeds that are available for businesses on our site organized by location (city or neighborhood) and category. Please grab a feed or two for your site or subscribe to get the latest business information from CitySquares in your blog reader.

Along with these features we are always improving things behind the scenes which includes making the site run more efficiently and fixing the small things that make your browsing experience more pleasurable.

Furthermore, we have some great features coming over the next couple of weeks including enhancing the homepage to display featured categories, reviews and deals from local merchants along with an amazing new mapping feature that lets you browse the cities and neighborhoods of Greater Boston in visual manner. We’re proud that CitySquares.com is your Boston destination site. Please tune in each week for more updates on the new things we have cooking in the oven.

If you have any feedback or ideas I’d love to hear from you! Just drop me an email or drop us a comment on this blog.

– Bob

Bob Leland is Co-Founder and VP Product at CitySquares. Email this author | See all posts by Bob Leland

Tags | Faceted Search, Favorite Neighborhoods, Features, Products, Quick Note, RSS