"[1] After registering, users can start blogging immediately as well as rating and commenting on other posts.

The Open Salon home page functions as a real-time magazine cover and is updated throughout the day.

[2] On May 29, 2009, Open Chats debuted--short, 5-minute interviews with OS contributors.

[5] Participants were notified and given two weeks to view their content before permanent closing of the site, which took place on March 31, 2015.

Open Salon was a finalist in the 2009 National Magazine Awards under the interactive feature-- a category that recognizes an outstanding feature or section of a website that uses multimedia technology, tools, community platforms or other interactive formats to deliver or share content such as news, information and entertainment, rather than practical instruction or advice.