JTVGossip.com

Well finally we see some new updates from the JTV crew. The first and most noticeable change is the top bar. It has been changed quite a bit. At the top there is the JTV logo and next to that are 3 buttons, Directory, Highlights, and Challenges. We will get into those in a second. Below that is the caster bar. As you can see from the picture above they have really reduced the image size in order to fit in more people on the top bar. I’m really not sure if I like this. First off the caster images are extremely small so it is really hard to see who they are. I think JTV should make a scrolling caster bar if they are concerned about fitting more people in the top bar.

The next big thing is the new Challenges feature. I’m not sure if this feature is going to be used that much, but it will be interesting if it is. If you go to the challenges page you can create a challenge or see what current challenges there are. If you create a challenge you can subscribe to it and when someone attempts it you will get an e-mail with a link to the attempt. If you are a broadcaster you can search through the challenges and if you see one that you want to do you can click on do it and it will be added to your challenges. In the broadcaster there will be a challenges tab with all of your challenges on it. When you want to do a challenge you can click on it in the challenges tab and it will alert everyone that has subscribed to the challenge that you are attempting it. Now I’m not sure how this works if you are using the Flash Media Encoder to broadcast.

Also the broadcaster has been updated. When you first open it up there is a tools tab that has Safety Tips, Episodes, Design, Profile, Challenges, Schedule, Share, and Webcam. All of these are self explanatory, but I like how they actually look nice.

Finally the JTV crew has added ratings to highlights and episodes so you can rate them on a scale of 1-5 stars. You have to be logged in to submit a rating. They have also made the highlights and directory a lot cleaner. Search is built into both and in the highlights you can now organize by episodes and highlights and also see challenge attempts.

Overall I think they new JTV updates are good with exception to the smaller caster pictures on the top bar. What do you think? Let us know!