Welcome to AustinTexas.gov, the new municipal website for the great City of Austin, Texas. Starting Dec. 19, the site is in public beta and ready for your feedback. Let us know if you encounter broken links, a mispelling or if something seems like it isn't working. You can do this easily by clicking the black "Feedback" button on the right side of every page on the site. Fill out the short bug report and describe where you saw the problem. Better yet, give us the URL. You can review the problems that others have seen and even see issues that we have already resolved.

We've implemented a lot of new functionality on the site, and there's definitely a few rough spots. Your feedback will help us create the best municipal website in the country, and we thank you in advance.

Before you dive in and start exploring, check out the list below of 10 of the coolest new things the site offers.

1)  Austin vibes

We’ve tried to build a site that looks and feels differently than other government sites, while offering all the key information, services and resources you need to interact with City services and programs.

2) Get it on the go

Austin is moving, and we want you to access the site wherever you need it. We’ve used responsive technology to create a platform-independent site viewable on smart phones, pads, netbooks and desktops – no app required.

3) Find it faster

AustinTexas.gov features a powerful search engine that will find just what you’re looking for. Searching from one of the big engines? AustinTexas.gov is optimized with metadata and a directory structure that draws search engines in like a magnet.

4) Navigate

Related and top content on just about every page means you might find just what you’re looking for even if you don’t know what that is. A new user-based top navigation puts you a few clicks away from any other resource on the site no matter where on the site you are.

5) Like it? Share it

See something on the site that inspires or enrages you? Use the sharebar and help the information go viral. City communicators can create, publish and share content to the social web almost simultaneously. Fred Durst would be proud.

6) Open data

Before you open a public information request, check and make sure it’s not on the data portal. From GIS layers to XML streams, you can mash-up, share and suggest open city datasets for students, journalists and app developers. Take City data and change the world.

7) Translation

We wanted everyone to connect with our new website, so we enabled Google Translate across the site. There’s a translate link on every page in the site, down in the lower lefthand corner.

8) All your old favorites are here

People liked to complain about the old site, but it got about a million unique pageviews a month. You were coming here for something, and we’ve tried to keep all the stuff you liked while losing the stuff you didn’t. If you can’t find what you’re looking for let us know.

9) Cutting edge open source

We didn’t want to build a great municipal website. We wanted to build a great website. We embraced Drupal 7, the latest version of what we feel is the best open source content management system available.

10) This is only the beginning.

We’ve worked hard and we think you’ll love this site - but we’re not done yet. We want to hear from you about what you like, what you need and what you think we can do better on the web. This is a work in progress - a technology platform that can grow with your current and future needs. Technology moves quick and Austin doesn’t wait - neither will we. Tell us what you think of this site and what we can do better. You’ve waited a long time for this site . . . and it’s only going to get better from here.