Laaik.it, 24.com‘s social news site, unveiled a new look and feel yesterday with layout and visual styling changes. Elan Lohmann, one of the brains behind the project, noted to me when they launched late last year that the project is still in early stages of development and the new interface update is evidence of that.
Some of the new additions include the news categories moved to the top of the site in a horizontal navigation which makes it easy to find popular or upcoming news in your category of choice. They have also added a ‘how to’ area to help educate users on how to use Laaik.it.
Down the right side of Laaik.it, ‘Top 5 today” have replaced categories and features the top stories for the day to quickly determine popular breaking news as you arrive.
It’s exciting to see social media properties in South African being continuously improved and redeveloped on – it shows social networking is alive and well in South Africa.
When asked about the new release Elan had this to say
The first cut was rough and there were many constraints on resources. We took a step back, listened to what our users had to say – as well as the local blogging community – and implented a percentage of it. We still have a features list as long as my arm, so Laaik.it will continue to develop over the year. We have some other great projects lined up for 2008 and are focussing on those now. Watch this space” Uptake in this space in the local market is slow but we know it’s a marathon and I still believe that Laaik.it will crack the local market over time.