Muzli 2: What’s New?

A few highlights of what’s new in Muzli’s latest version

Over the last year we’ve been meticulously collecting user feedback coming in through various communication channels, both public ones like Twitter and contact forms, message boards and product reviews, along with somewhat more personal ways including email, IM conversations, random chats with friends and Muzli users.
A few months back, when we finally felt that we could turn our attention back into evolving Muzli further, adding stuff, removing stuff and trying to address some of Muzli shortcomings, we naturally turned into this super valuable database of all the feedback we’ve ever gotten.
After some consolidation, analysis, prioritisation & debates we’ve compiled a list of the stuff we want to address, fix, enhance and add.
Muzli 2 is the result of this process, or rather the start of it.

How to get the Muzli 2 update right now?

Here are a few highlights of what’s new:

1. Minimal view on load

Many of you had pointed out that loading the entire Muzli feed on every new tab is not optimal in certain cases, takes too long or too busy.

By default, Muzli will load only the bare minimum of content and wait for you to show interest before fetching the entire feed. In addition, you now have access to the normal stuff available in the default Google new tab; like quick links to your most visited website and a regular ol’ Google search.

For those of you who prefer seeing everything, every time, like you’re used to- the option to disable the minimal view is accessible through the options in the user menu on the to right corner.

2. Smart feed mashup with a new layout

Users upgrading from our previous version will instantly notice a change in how the feed is laid out.

The first thing you’ll see is what we call “Must see”: the freshest content from the hand picked, professionally curated “Our picks” feed.
Just below it we are introducing a new, dynamic magazine-like mix of all your favorite publications, sorted by recency and popularity.

3. More sources

We are introducing many popular websites that could be added
to your source list.
While only some are enabled by default, adding others is super simple using the source’s list “Edit” mode.

4. Customizable, sortable source list

Simply hover over the sidebar to reach the “Edit” menu and enable, disable or reorder your favorite sources.

Another awesome thing is that the choices you make on the sidebar directly impact the content that you’ll see on the smart feed (“All your sources”)- we will make sure that you’ll get only the content you’re interested in.

You can fine tune your source list at any time and the changes you make are reflected immediately.

5. (Almost) endless feed history

You can now scroll back in time almost forever, both for “Our picks” and essentially any other feed.

6. Virality score

Every post includes a number which indicates how viral/popular it is. We aggregate the number of social media signals from almost all of the relevant sources including Facebook, Google, Pocket and many more.

Super popular items are marked as “Hot” by making the virality score light up. These are posts that perform significantly better than other on the same vertical.

7. Designer News, Sidebar and Product Hunt: Beyond text

Designer news, Sidebar & Product Hunt are super popular in the design and tech community, and were not available on Muzli in previous versions. But they are now, with a vengeance!
Muzli 2 includes them and going further by adding a visual flare to an otherwise text-based feeds.

8. Play videos right inside the Feed

Videos are great, and you can watch them right from Muzli.

9. Keep an eye on unread content

No point in visiting a website if nothing had changed…
Feeds will indicate if they hold content you haven’t seen already, by a small badge right next to their logo.