Despite the torrential downpours, earthquakes, and hurricanes of late, the Salsa Labs crew managed to find time to put the finishing touches on the new-and-improved SalsaCommons, the online hub for Salsa's user community.

There are over 30,000 campaign managers who log into the Salsa platform to organize, fundraise, and ultimately change the world around us.  Here at Salsa Labs, we strive to provide you with the state-of-the-art tools you need to succeed. Changing the world is hard work, though, and it takes more than just tools. It takes a community working together and learning from one another, and that's why we built SalsaCommons.  We're so excited to share the newly-updated SalsaCommons with you, and we hope that you will continue to find it to be a valuable resource in your organizing efforts.

The success of SalsaCommons depends on one thing: your participation! We invite you to jump in, create a profile, view a tutorial, ask a question, or share an idea.

Here's the rundown on SalsaCommons's new features:

Single Sign-on
There is no longer a special Salsa Commons login. Users can now log in using identity providers like Facebook, Google and Yahoo. You'll have one less password to remember, and now you'll get an automatic profile on the site.

New forums
SalsaCommons' new forums are easier to navigate and provide a few new options, such as being able to leave a note on a question or answer and a new star system for rewarding useful or constructive posts. There's also a badge system "underneath the hood" that rewards users for their behavior and expertise.

New developer documentation
We've added a bunch of extra developer documentation and tutorials as well as re-written some of the old stuff. More documentation for both developers and partners is in the works.

Geek-a-Leek
There's a host of cool things under the hood, like the use of MongoDB and cloud-based servers with Amazon Web Services. There's also the new universal User object and new Web Editor.

New UI
There's a new visual design coupled with a change to how we handle pages, allowing us to easily get content by tag or topic regardless of type. The new Javascript libraries should also keep the new design fast and smooth to use.

Be sure to let us know what you think by clicking on the Forum tab and giving us your feedback or sharing an idea for the future of Salsa.

Note:  The re-launch of Salsa Commons marks the first major feature release of the year for Salsa Labs and lays the groundwork for a series of upcoming product enhancements that you'll see over the next year. Stay tuned!