If you were to say click that “Collection” link at the top of your navigation bar on IHM, you may notice a little something different.  Try out what you see and let us know if you run across anything strange.  We’ll provide full details shortly as well as a list of all the new things that come with this shiny new feature.

If you have any problems or want to get a hold of us, you can contact any of us via: support@iheartmovies.org You can also leave comments to this post with any problems you run into.

If I’m at the computer, I’ll also be offering quick support.  You can reach me through the following methods:
email - mike@iheartmovies.org
aim - mike@iheartmovies.org
gtalk - mike@iheartmovies.org

If you use something else and want to chat with me, send me an email and we can arrange a way to chat and support any of your needs.

If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas to better the collection, please let us know.

Always wanted to link to your collection on IHM or your IHM profile but didn’t know how?  Well, now we’ve simplified that for you.  If you’ve got a myspace account, blog, website or you want something in your forum signature, we’ve created a tool that allows you to choose an image (we’re calling them flare) and it gives you the code to put it wherever.  You can choose your flare image, where you want to link and even the text that shows up when someone hovers over the image.  If you’re interested in putting some buttons around, check out our Flare page.

Also, as a small side note, we’re wrapping up the last bits of collection as we speak.  We’re hoping to have it finished with bug testing and final features by the end of May for an early June release.  If you’re interested in helping test, please let us know.

For those who haven’t entered into the IHM beta testing for the new collection, we’ve put together a bunch of pictures highlighting some of the newer features and design ideas we’ve created for it.  It’s getting closer and closer to completion everyday and so far we’ve received lots of good feedback about it to make sure it’s the best it can be for you all.

A quick highlight of some of the big features of the new collection:

• It’s all done using Ajax.  This means that your entire collection downloads temporarily to your browser when you visit the collection.  Once downloaded you’ll never have to wait for a page to load as each update or change you make happens behind the scenes.
• Lists.  We’re going to introduce a new feature that allows users to create lists of films (or tv shows) in whatever ways they’d like.  This will allow you to share those “best things to watch at 2am” or “movies for first dates” ideas you’ve always wanted to.
• Mass rating :).  Tired of rating films one at a time?  You’ll be able to select as many titles as you want and rate them all at once.
• Mass management.  Tags, deletion, lists, etc. will all be able to be done in a mass mode so that you don’t have to do it on an individual basis.
• New rating tips.  Ever confused on the difference between a 7 and an 8 when it comes to rating?  We’ve setup a guideline to help you know that while a 7 is good, an 8 is great.

Anyway, I don’t want to give away too much from it.  We’ve got some other things up our sleeve and we hope you will all enjoy it.

Those wanting to check out the screenshots of the new collection can visit my flickr page.

We’re going to be splitting out the movie reviews and lists and whatever else that’s unrelated to IHM from this blog into a new blog that we’ve created called the IHM Movieblog (we’re so creative). So, if you’re looking for a blog about movies (which coincidentally will be completely published and written by your fellow IHMers), you should check it out. We’ll be posting news, articles, reviews, lists and whatever else pops into our heads.

Also, if you’ve bookmarked or saved a post from this blog that’s non-IHM related, it will be stripped from this blog in the next few days. You can head over to the new blog to find it and rebookmark it or whatever you trendy kids do.

Also (part II: the awakening of a new beginning), if you’re looking to write about movies or would like to join in on the fun, let me know and we’ll see about getting you in as a writer on the new blog.