Suggestions: short list of new members, some Twitter integration, a map to show where bloggers are, wrappers for Microsoft gadgets, posts you have recently commented on, responses to comments.

Oh, and a photo stream.

Search, that is a definite need...There are some cool OS projects that will help on this one.

I'm with Scott, especially the map idea!

I like the map idea, and of course, search.

i like customizing the main page to only show the bloggers or topics of interest to me.

I like being able to click on a blogger that bores the crap out of me, or just regurgitates other peoples stuff, and never see that guy again.

You can make an argument that this could/should be done at the client end, but I'm wondering if it would be a worthwhile service to have "grouped" rss feeds for blog posts.

So for instance, let's say that Chris and George post a bunch of stuff on XNA development. Maybe we have an XNA feed from GWB that has all the posts flagged to be part of htat feed (so when the post is made, the poster determines where it will show up)...that way if anyone wants the XNA "Channel" at GWB, they just need to subscribe to one feed instead of hunting through teh membership to see who posts on that.

That way people are getting even more customized content, and we have the ability to specify where our content will be seen.

D

I think that all these ideas are good. I'm not really interested in search (that's what Google is for), but Jeff's ideas are grate and Chris is on the right track. I think that tagging or site categories would be good.

More integration so I can use Live Writer or Word 2007 to make posts with images more easily.

The ability to put custom Meta tags for description and keywords on you bog is a must!

The content for the site, i.e. the blog posts should appear first in the HTML and the navigation and sidebars second.

Everything should be accessable through web services so all us geeks with blogs can write cool apps that do stuff!

Oh, and the green monster MUST go and "less is more". No crowding, we can all spoil a good site by putting too much on the page. Just a warning, not that I think it has got that far yet!

And lessons on how to spell for all us dyslexic bloggers!

Oh, martin has a great point there:

"Everything should be accessable through web services so all us geeks with blogs can write cool apps that do stuff! "

Now, my preference would be to have a mobile-device targeted version of the site, where we can review our blog info on the go...however I can understand some of the hurdles on this since creating a mobile-targeted platform adds extra dev time for a feature only a few may use.

However if the feeds are accessible via web services, I'm not sure how that plays into the ad revenue model for GWB (i.e. if companies placing ads find out everyone is just accessing the feeds without goign to the site...although you could argue that people technically do that right now through rss...they might not see the value in putting the ads up).

I dont know what the model is though, or if this is even a concern or not...just throwing it out.

D

and please bring back trackbacks.

Of course you need a search and site map. Also i propose to you remake your design, I don't like it realy. And add some new pictures and fhotos!