Hello fellow IHMers,

We’re writing you today to let you know about the release of some new features including one of our best features so far.

Organize your life with our New Collection
The first feature is, of course, the new collection management tool that you have gotten to preview over the last week.  If you haven’t figured out by now, with this tool you’ll be able to easily manage your  entire electronic collection (all the films and tv shows you have rated).  We added searching, sorting, formatting and mass editing to the collection utility.  The new collection tool should also be much faster for those (after loading) with a slower connection as we will be processing updates in the background.  If you haven’t check it out, all you need to do is login and visit the collection page.

Show off your collection with the Flare Page
We have also created some nice “flare” for your personal pages that you can use to link back to your collection or profile.  If you check out the flare page,  you will be taken to the page offering all the different banner and image options along with code to place them on your blog, website or Myspace page.  Feel free to put these on your pages to let people know how much you love movies.

Catch your movie news on the Movieblog
While we have not done much as far as publication for this next addition, it has been around for a few months.  We have been writing about movies and movie news everyday (along with some great contributors) over on the IHM Movieblog.  This blog allows you to get some sneak peeks at trailers, on set pictures or movie news in general.  If you are a fan of movies and like to read or talk about them, you should check out the Movieblog.

Let your voice be heard, Write for Us!
We’re looking to get even more people’s opinions and thoughts on movies heard.  If you think you can write about movies or are that person in your group of friends always spreading movie news, you’re perfect for our blog.  If you think you are up to it, let us know.

Get your changes made when you Contact us!
We spend a lot of time behind the scenes making updates and changing things for the better.  If you are confused or have questions about how something works, feel free to contact us.  We also are always open to hearing ideas or suggestions you have about our site (so much so that we have even created a special ideas email address for you to pass them to us).  And of course, you can always reach us via IHM messages.  See the about page to find the admin’s pages.

Thanks for all your support,
The IHM Staff

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.

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’ve gotten a few steps completed on our new collection and user interface for it. We’re looking for some people to beta test some of the features and to let us know what you think of the updates. If this is your thing or you just want to preview the new changes, email us at beta@iheartmovies.org.