Goodbye CBS4.com; Hello CBSMiami.com

MIAMI (CBS4)- Just in time for the last day of Hanukkah and in plenty of time for Christmas, CBS delivered a holiday gift to the residents of South Florida, with the launch of CBSMiami.com, a new Web site that combines the best of CBS4 news with a host of new features designed to share the best of South Florida.

The new Web site continues to feature the winning news produced by CBS4 reporters and South Florida's largest team of digital journalists, who create content 18 hours a day every day of the year, but it enhances that news content with a number of new features designed to make you smarter, more knowledgeable about your community, and to get information to make your day easier. CBSMiami.com delivers that information with the help of local experts, who get their information from living in the community.

"It's been a tremendous amount of work," said Dave Game, Executive Producer for Digital Media at CBS4, and the local manager of the Web site project. "CBS Local Media in New York developed the concept, and our local team of Web journalists executed it. It takes the best that CBS4.com had to offer, and enhances it with a lot of great, interactive features we think South Florida residents will really like."

In addition to the news, which will be featured front and center on the CBSMiami home page, these new features will be showcased by a rotating, eye-catching banner designed to lead you easily into the Web site.

"One of the problems with a large, complex Web site, is that we have so much to offer people sometimes have trouble finding it," Game said. "With CBSMiami.com, we've simplified the design, added clear graphics, and developed ways to give you peeks into the richer content inside."

When combined with easy-to-use search features, visitors to the site should find it easy to get what they need fast.

CBSMiami.com offers a number of great new features:

BEST OF SOUTH FLORIDA
The CBS Web team has evaluated literally thousands of shops, businesses, restaurants, and attractions as it created hundreds of 'Best of" lists that are searchable, and which let web users quickly find a great place to eat, the best beach for kids, our best pick for second hand shops, and the like. This is an ongoing and growing project that will make us the go-to place when people want to know the best of what South Florida has to offer. To find them, just click the "Best Of" tab on any page.

SOUTH FLORIDA LOCAL EVENTS GUIDE
CBSMiami offers a comprehensive listing and calendar of what's happening in one of the most vibrant regions in the world. The web team is reaching out to publicists, clubs, organizations, and event venues to gather and sort the largest online listing of things to do, kept constantly up to date, in South Florida. As our contacts grow, we will lead the way in keeping people up to date with fun things to do.We are also making it easy for organizations and individuals to post their own events, right on the Web site, and share them with the millions of people who visit CBSMiami each month. Visitors can upload pictures, share meeting agendas, and even offer details about ticket prices and parking. Every event has a map showing right where to go.

DEAL OF THE DAY
This is an exciting new feature that will let visitors to the website purchase, online, everything from spa visits and great restaurant meals to clothing and furniture at up to half-off, and sometimes more. You can sign up for e-mail notice of the time limited deals, which like most good things, are here for just a short time...only to be replaced by another great deal the next day. People love to save, and CBSMiami is going to help them. You can find the deals, and sign up for e-mail notices of the specials, by clicking on the Deals tab on every page.

BUSINESS DIRECTORY
Looking for a plumber? Carpenter? Can't find that Chinese restaurant a friend told you about? Our online directory will help you locate it, and when found, you'll get the location, contact info, and even a live map you can use to navigate there. Once you go, you can even rate your experience online to help the next person. Look on the Directory tab.

FAN SHOP
South Florida has a lot of great teams, and CBS4.com wants people to be able to show off their fan support. That's why we've teamed with one of the most comprehensive on-line sports companies to offer gear for just about any team in the nation at great prices. If you're a 'Canes, fan, you'll find literally thousands of Hurricanes items online. CBS4.com offers gear from more than 500 colleges nationwide, and if you prefer Pro sports, every pro team playing is represented in the Fan Shop. You can click, point, and score some great gear in the same visit where you checked the news, decided which restaurant to try for dinner, and got a great deal on a trip to the spa. Click the Fan Shop logo

ENHANCED FEATURES
--We've simplified the menus. so there are fewer places to look.
--We've added "tags", on-screen keywords you can use to create your own custom pages of information based on a tag.
--Our new video player allows you to bring the video full screen, to share clips, and even embed our video in a blog or another site. The video is embedded right in the story, and is larger than before.
--Our weather page will keep our custom Zoom Radar, realtime info from Weatherbug, and great animated, continuously updated maps and weather info direct from the CBS4 Weather Center
--Our new Traffic Tracker shows you jams by color coding. You can zoom into your route, drag the mouse over the roadway, and get near real-time information about traffic speed every tenth of a mle. It's almost addictive to use. You can even sign up to have traffic text alerts sent to your phone.
--We've made it easier to comment on just about everything, and integrated facebook and twitter into almost every page.
--We've added 2-way texting, so not only can we send out news alerts to cellphones, we can have users text us with news tips, to enter contests, even respond to news stories.

Even with all of those improvements, CBS Local Media is continuing to explore ways to make it's websites around the nation more interactive, more useful, and more fun to use. CBS is committed to providing the best web experience to people in South Florida, combining the expertise of local news and web professionals in South Florida with the power of CBS News and the diverse offerings of other CBS Web sites like CBS Sports.coim and CNET.com.

We'd love to know what you think! Just comment at the end of this page.