When vita.mn first debuted, I just casually glanced at it. Since then, I’ve taken a closer look at it. I shared my thoughts with Matt Thompson at vita.mn and figured I’d share them with you all as well.

Here’s what I like:

1. The guides. And the lists. At best, they’re actually useful (like what to do with your parents when they visit). At worst, they’re a good starting point for discussion.
2. RSS feeds. Not only available (now), but clearly visible. And different feeds for different pieces of the site. Excellent. A feed for events at a venue? Outstanding.
3. Expand/collapse on the calendar. Details and further actions readily accessible.
4. The prompt for what you can do on a page when you haven’t saved/tagged anything.
5. The website is not just a rehash of what’s in the print edition (I say without having a print edition handy to compare). When you come to the site, the articles are readily accessible, but it’s clear there’s plenty else to see besides those.

Kinda there:

1. Once you get the hang of the tag thing, it’s pretty cool. I like how you can click on a tag and it’ll take you to a page with all the items in all the categories. To someone unfamiliar with the concept, it can be a little baffling. Although someone completely unfamiliar with tagging might not be your target audience.
2. Ads. I guess you gotta have ‘em. They’re styled well to match. But they’re pretty obvious.
3. That featured tag thing is really neat, but the blip on the front page about the featured tag isn’t compelling enough to make you want to click through. I’d like to see tag-specific RSS feeds.
4. I’d also like to see an RSS feed for the articles.

Don’t like:

1. Topics. What are “topics” in this sense? I couldn’t find where to post one until I stumbled upon it on the about page. Under the heading of “metablog.” Confusing. It’s also confusing to click on a topic from the front page and get taken to the topics page that says “tags” at the top.
2. While there are prompts on various pages, the “How to use vita.mn” link should be somewhere on the front page, in case someone doesn’t know where to start.

Overall:

1. It’s generally pretty easy to navigate, and the tag thing really encourages you to click around to other things that you may not have been looking for in the first place.
2. It’s really pretty to look at.
3. I haven’t quite figured out what it is that would make me want to come back every day. If I’m actively searching for something to do or trying to find a happy hour or maybe look up a restaurant review from a real person who’s not a restaurant critic, I’ll look here. I see it as more of a reference tool than a destination spot.
4. That said, I like the way vita.mn presents all that information way better than, say, City Pages.
5. I said that I like that there’s more to the website than the articles, but the articles might be what gets me to visit in the first place. If I had the article feed in my Bloglines and I saw an article that I like, I might actually click through about one-third of the time, but once I click through in the first place, I’ll click around and check out the other stuff. Also, I live by my RSS feeds, so even just having it visible on my list would send me over more often.

Related posts:

1. Monitoring Metropolitan Minnesota Monthly Magazines in Minneapolis
2. Roundup
3. Southwest Journal gets with the times!
4. MinnPost Usability Issues
5. Public Sex: Cool for the straights but not for the gays?