Hello and welcome to the first issue of the IrishHomeTruths.com monthly Newsletter.

Each month the newsletter will bring you up to date on what's been happening with the site and plans for the future.

In this issue:

* The New Year
* New Features
* The Coming Month

THE NEW YEAR
2010 will be an important year for the site as we move beyond providing static information like guides and links to news stories. During the coming year we'll be working hard to build a community of users. To that end we need to implement the features that will make the site worth returning to on a regular basis.

In this issue of the newsletter we present the first batch of features that have been added to the site in preparation for the new year.

NEW FEATURES

The following are the latest features that have been added to the site. Let us know what you think of them.

Bookmarks
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How many times have you found something interesting on a website or a forum, and then promptly lost it again. You use the website search featuers or browse the site to no avail.

The New Bookmarks feature will ensure that this is never a problem on IrishHomeTruths.com. Any piece of information from a News Story to a Forum post to an individual comment from another user can now be bookmarked with a single click.

You can view your collection of bookmarks at any time and when something is no longer of interest you can unbookmark it.

Private Messages
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IrishHomeTruths.com now has an integrated Private Messaging system. Send and receive messages to and from other members of the site. Manage your messaging within the site with no need to reveal your email address.

Friends
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You can now flag other members of the site as friends and they can do the same. You can even post content that is only visible to your friends.

The Forums
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Perhaps the most important additions to the site are the new Forums. Registered users are free to start or join discussions.

THE COMING MONTH
During January we'll begin the process of growing the site membership. We'll also be cleaning up and adding more content to the various guides.

Happy New Year.

-Richard