The eagle eyed among you may have noticed something a little different about Qype today. That’s because we’ve just launched a brand new version of the site that, as well as looking shiny and new, also contains a bunch of new tools and tricks designed to make the Qype experience even cooler than it was before.

The best way to get a quick acquainted with the new Qype is to go and watch a few of the videos, which demonstrate you some of the major features we’ve added.

These include the Map View option you’ll find whenever you do a search. Click on that tab and you’ll find a draggable, zoomable map which automatically shows the top 10 places you’re looking for and updates every time you change the refine the area you’re looking at. It’s like Qypeing on steroids…with a map!

We’ve also souped up our search, so you can now look for places using the name of an area, a town, a postcode or street name. As long as you spell it right, Qype should be able to find it!

Something we’re really excited about in this new version is the ability to add YouTube videos to your reviews. All you have to do is grab the url of your movie and then click the ‘Add a Youtube video’ button and your clip will appear at the bottom of your review.

Check out some of the videos that have already been added here, here, and here.

You’ll notice that we’ve also added Guides to Qype. Guides are your personal collections of the best and most useful places you know, and of course you can browse other people’s guides to get information whether it’s where to find the top spots for sushi or even the best restaurants to take your Valentine.

We’ve also added Local Chat discussion boards to every single town and city on Qype.co.uk. Just click through to your area and look on the right hand side of the page for a link to see who’s talking in your neighbourhood.

There’s tons of other little improvements and tweaks in this new version of Qype that we don’t have the space to go into here, but the best way of finding them is to go out and use the site. Get involved in the discussions, start creating your personal guides, upload a few movies and photos and just have fun with it.

If you have any questions about how things work then you can leave a comment here or just message me via my profile.