The SB Nation tech team just finished redesigning some things and among some of the new features introduced today were enhancements to the FanPosts, and even FanShots.
FanPosts, as most of you already know, are basically a blog within the blog for fans. Fans can use them to write about whatever is on their mind assuming it's relevant to the Detroit Pistons (when done on this site).
Since this community is rather small for the time being (I hope to change that as next season approaches) I don't really have many rules about the FanPosts. I just ask that, whatever you write, it be thoughtful, somewhat organized, edited, and relevant to the Pistons.
As for FanShots I'd prefer that links to other sites with only a few lines of thoughts be done through that venue. If a FanPost or FanShot is really good I'll promote it to the front page.
Well, with SB Nation's new features, I think FanPosts and FanShots might be a lot more fun (and easier) for fans to try more frequently, especially if you have a Twitter account.
Here is a rundown of the redesigned FanPosts and FanShots editor taken directly from our SB Nation Blog Huddle.
Share on Twitter
When you publish a FanPost or FanShot let your friends (or followers as they're called) know via Twitter. We've built an easy tool into the FanPost and FanShot editors that automatically creates a short URL back to your post and lets you send that to your Twitter stream along with a quick message. You can set this all up from your account settings screen, or right within the FanPost and FanShot editors. See more detailed instructions below.
Redesigned FanPost Editor
We've made a few changes to the layout and features of the FanPost editor:
1) Bigger textarea - more space to explain why ranking systems can't be objective or your GM should be fired immediately
2) Spellchecker - this isn't a spelling bee, it's a sports blog network
3) Draggable jump bar - we combined the intro and extended entry sections of a post and made it easy to decide where to split them
4) Sidebar inserts palette - tools to insert images, videos and quick, relevant, timely links in your post
5) Easy status + save - we made the auto-save message more obvious, combined it with the post status and made the whole thing a big button you can click to save as often as you want (without reloading the whole page)
6) Autotagger - adding player, team and game tags to your post helps everyone find your opinion on those subjects; we just made it super easy: write your post, click that 'run autotagger' button and we'll tag your post the most relevant players and teams + link them up as well. if you don't feel like clicking that button, we'll run that process for you when you publish.
A help box that explains all of this in more detail will open up the first time you try out the new FanPost editor. Now go fire it up on your favorite blog and try it out!Twitter Instructions
1) LINK YOUR TWITTER ACCOUNT: Login to SB Nation, click your screen name in the network bar up at the top of the page, then click 'Edit Account'. From there click the 'Associate a Twitter stream with your account' link and follow the instructions to hook it up.
2) SHARE FANPOSTS + FANSHOTS ON TWITTER: Now when you click 'New FanPost' or 'New FanShot', you'll notice a checkbox at the bottom of the screen that you can click to reveal a text area to write your tweet. We take care of generating the short URL. All you have to do is click the 'Publish' button. BTW, if you skipped step 1 you can link your Twitter account directly from the FanPost and FanShot editors. And we make sure you won't lose your work in the process.
Please, feel free to take advantage of all these really cool tools SB Nation provides. FanPost and FanShot away.