"Listen to Article" ToolMultitasking users are always looking for convenient ways to access a site's content. Partnering with ReadSpeaker, the IHT was one of the first major news sites in the world to allow visitors to listen -- rather than read -- with this Flash-based mini-player, allowing them to explore other parts of our site or others. For more information, visit http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/technology/lab/?p=15.

Homepage SnapshotEvery day more and more users arrive via search engines instead of directly to the homepage. To compensate for this shift in usage patterns, I created this module which appears at the bottom of every article page, giving visitors a preview of what is featured on the homepage. The end result is an increase in both retention among new visitors and the number of pages viewed per session. Read more about this at http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/technology/lab/?p=8.

Google Maps IntegrationThis module takes an article's dateline city or country and uses the Google Maps API and jQuery to display a layer with its geographic location. If a particular city is not found or is unavailable, the map will automatically zoom out to country level. The map's marker balloon offers a search query-based link to read more articles from that location. More at http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/technology/lab/?p=4.