by J.D. Amer

Lopico turns three today, and while we celebrated the big two with a new feature, this year I’m going to take a look back at some of the things that have happened in the past year.

Starting in September of last year, right before the last birthday, Lopico started making a number of changes to how voting is handled on the site. This has been a big theme throughout the year, as Lopico’s greatest commitment is to ensuring the integrity of the site. There have been a number of changes aimed at increasing participation and preventing unfair behavior, and hopefully this has made things better for everyone.

Also in September, Lopico launched maps. This was big right from the start and continues to be very popular. What really helped though, was the addition of directions to the maps this past July. To put it simply – people like this part of the site… A LOT!

Lopico’s looks have been worked on quite a bit this past year, and I had a little fun with the design of the homepage on a few occasions. The biggest aesthetic changes are still to come, and if you’re nice, I might just give you another sneak pico very soon.

Reviews on Lopico have undergone a few small changes in the past year, first with a new look, then with the addition of comments, and just recently the addition of reviewer reliability score.

The vote cloud came to Akron in March, and so far has been pretty helpful… even though I thought it was just for fun. Speaking of Akron, it continued to be the most popular city on Lopico throughout the year, but there’s a small chance that won’t be the case next year as Lopico is moving to Chicago!

I’ve tried to help Lopico users out a little more in the past year, most notably through the Usage Guide, but also through the increased availability of search. Both of these features will be even more prevalent in the next version of Lopico.

And the most important change of all, though you may not realize it yet, was the addition of the Friend Feed. More details about this will come later, but this is going to be pretty important in the shaping of the next version of Lopico.

It’s been a great year and I hope you love using Lopico as much as I love making it.

And if you’ve ever wondered… it’s pronounced Lo-pee-ko. Happy Lopicoing!