Explore Some of the Latest (Major) HackerNoon Product Updates!

At HackerNoon, our developers are busy.

They are so busy, that our marketing department is having a hard time keeping up with all of the awesome new features they are creating and improving.

They also seem to like deploying something and releasing it as ‘yours to discover.’ In other words, very low-key and covert. Which is adorable, but also much too discreet. 

The rest of the team at HackerNoon wants to change that up a bit.

We want to honor them, and show gratitude that we appreciate their hard work. But also to make sure our users (and certain non-dev team members) are up to date with everything that is happening. 

About once a month or so, we will publish a list of new (or occasionally some we forgot) product features, and highlight some of the biggest ones at the top.

Please be sure to follow this account to keep yourself posted, or check out the About Section's: Software by HackerNoon.

Small disclaimer: You may already be aware of some of the ones below, please allow an adjustment period for this new process. Thank you!

The Notable 4

1. Individual User About Pages:

The about page is the second most visited page on the average site (after the homepage).

With this user about page, we are validating writers’ expertise and perspective, and giving readers a page they can be proud of on HackerNoon.

So far, 6,635 About Pages have been created.
Some people are very psyched.

2. Editor 3.0 has YouTube Embeds! Thank you for your patience. 

3. The shop.hackernoon.com launch!

We partnered with Stackcommerce to build an online shop to sell HackerNoon branded merchandise, and provide users with discounts on valuable tech tools and online courses.

4. The Email Subscribe Options are as Nuanced as You Are: Users can now subscribe to different types of emails. Check out more information here.

Other Awesome Improvements/Creations

1. Writing Prompts Templates: With a few simple clicks, users can now select a topic/prompt of choice (such as writers-exclusive interview, opinion on the news, or knowledge on a niche such as data science).
   
   They then will be directed to a draft page on app.hackernoon.com and simply start answering the questions. Since its launch, this initiative has resulted in 483 quality stories from all corners of the web.
   
   
2. NFTs in Blog Posts: Have you heard? You can embed NFTs in your blog posts! Read more about that here.
   
   
3. HackerNoon Pixel Font 2.0: The HackerNoon Pixel Font 2.0 is now open-sourced and available on brand.hackernoon.com and GitHub.  Read more about it here.
   
   
4. A total revamp of the Noonies Voting Software backend: We migrated our database for the Noonies to Firebase, both for current and previous years to ensure our award links remain evergreen.
   
   The front end got a new lick of paint, a dark mode, and several speed improvements over past iterations. Last but not least, we resolved several SEO shortfalls from last year to boost organic traffic.
   
   
5. Cleaner URL Structure: Story URLs now no longer have random strings of letters at the end, which makes them more user-friendly and good for SEO.
   
   
6. The Plagiarism Checker was built into the editor system.
   
   
7. Abandoned Drafts get the love they deserve! Users who left a draft open for longer than x days now get an email from Natasha reminding them to take care of their mental health AND finish the draft.
   
   
8. Slogging Back-End Improvements: Elements such as the welcome message, and the ability to drag and drop convos around have been improved and/or implemented. 277 stories are currently published and counting!
   
   
9. Choose Your Color: A more colorful HackerNoon FTW! Users can choose from 4 default color palettes. Users who do this stay x time longer on site. Read more about that here.  
   
   
10. Verified Writers (invite-only, for now): Certain trusted, highly qualified users are now able to bypass the editorial process and publish their own stories.
    
    We are working up to our desired rate of publishing by empowering the top contributors to earn and leverage the publish button.
    
    We are flattered that some users still choose to submit to the editors anyway because 'we have better headline practices' <3. Examples here and here.
    
    
11. Editorial Dashboard 2.0! We're proud to announce a revamped Editor Dashboard and in-app workflow to match our evolving and expanding editorial team. It has WoW stats on stories published, scheduled, rejected, and more!
    

Read more about the overall growth of HackerNoon in The State of the Noonion: The Year of Profitability and Product Renaissance

This post was written and compiled by Linh Dao Smooke and Ellen Stevens.