Last week we launched a few exciting new features – here’s a bit more info on this latest site update.

The first feature is our way of re-thinking the real time element of radio. We’ve seen the emergence of Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and Google Wave but it’s clear that this is only just the beginning of the world going real time. Next up is real time radio. Hold on – hasn’t radio always been “real time”? Apparently not!

Radio has historically been about listening to what’s on now, which is fine for certain occasions and types of content, but sometimes listeners want a bit more control over what they listen to, how they discover it and how they interact with it.

The new Mixcloud home page contains a real time stream that shows what everyone across the site are listening to, favoriting, commenting on and uploading.

Instead of listening to what the broadcasters decide, listeners can now see what’s happening across the community – dynamically updated in real time – and discover a whole new world of content. If you’re a registered user of the site you can click on the “friends” link and filter the list to what your social graph is interacting with – a targeted list of social radio recommendations. Ever wondered what your friends are listening to? Now you can find out on Mixcloud – in real time, of course.

If you’re not following many people on Mixcloud, then the next feature should help solve that…

Click here to try our new “friend finder” (you can find it by going to “account” and clicking on “social networks”). It will search your contacts to see if any of them are already using Mixcloud – and if they’re not, you can easily invite them to the site. Remember – Mixcloud is better with friends 😉

We’ve also made some changes to email notifications, so you now receive updates when people you’re following upload great new Cloudcasts – a feature that a lot of our users have been bugging us for! This is an easy way to keep up to date with new content on Mixcloud. And remember you can easily turn the notifications off in your settings.

Last but not least, we’ve given your profile page a facelift so you all look a bit prettier. And it’s not just an aesthetic change – you can now easily access your full listening history and favourites from your profile. Why not visit the site and check out your profile now.