BioGPS update for April 2, 2009

[Andrew Su]

Dear BioGPS users,

 

Welcome to the biogps-announce mailing list, especially to the many new users who have joined in the last few weeks.  As promised, we'll be sending out periodic emails here to keep you up to date on the latest happenings with BioGPS.  As always, you can check out the more frequent updates on our blog at http://biogps.blogspot.com/.

 

We've had two pretty significant changes over the past month.  First, we've redesigned the front page of BioGPS to make it more friendly to new users, and also redesigned the plugin library to make it easier to navigate.  And there are still many planned improvements that will be continuously rolled out as we get them implemented.

 

The second major change involved our SymAtlas user base.  Users going to http://symatlas.gnf.org are now redirected to BioGPS (with the "back door" option to return to SymAtlas).  Reaction has been very positive, as described below.  And in the coming months, we hope to draw all of the remaining SymAtlas users to BioGPS with its improved functionality, customizability, and usability.

 

As always, feedback is very much appreciated by emailing bio...@googlegroups.com.

 

Cheers,

-andrew

 

 

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From the blog...

 

BioGPS usage metrics

 

It's been one week since we started redirecting SymAtlas users to BioGPS, and we've been thrilled with the response so far. Comparing the seven days after the change with the seven days before, we see a 55% increase in BioGPS page views (25,871 vs 16,726) and a whopping 88% increase in BioGPS visitors (3269 vs 1740). And although we provide the options for users to go back to SymAtlas, over 75% of users choose to use BioGPS.

 

A few other metrics that may be of interest:

 

·         There are currently 111 registered public plugins in the plugin library, including several plugins registered by external users in the last week. (Anyone else care to register their own?)

 

·         There are 675 registered users of BioGPS, including 112 who have registered in the last week. Those registered users come from at least 342 unique institutions (judging by email address).

 

·         There are a total of 499 custom gene report layouts created by 267 users.

 

It's metrics like these that keep us excited and working hard. (And as always, feedback is appreciated...)