In case you hadn’t noticed, the redesigned version of Nature’s homepage went live last week, and Nature Network is featured quite prominently. We’re already seeing a big uptick in new users as a result.

With this, along with a couple of new features that we released in the last week or two, we’re looking forward to seeing activity take off on NN!

• personal messaging: we heard from you, our users, that you wanted to be able to get in touch with individual members of Nature Network. Now you can. Just look for the “send user a message” link on their profiles and you’ll send an email directly to their inbox. But first, you’ll need to opt in to being contactable via NN. To do that, go to your profile, click on ‘edit your profile’ and you’ll see a new checkbox to tick off.

• group/forum email alerts: when someone in one of your groups on NN posts a new topic to the forum or to the notice board, you can now receive an email notifying you of the new content. Again, you’ll need to opt in to receiving those emails. Go the group’s page and click on the “receive email updates” link to specify what kind of content you want to be alerted to and how often.

Our developers are working on more new features. Let us know what else you’d like to see developed on Nature Network by posting to our What’s next.