Welcome to Journerdism, 3.0

Welcome Journerdism, version 3.0.

You may notice I’ve made a few changes around here.

Say goodbye to:

• Confusing, rambling 32472389472398 word headlines
• Only one to three updates a week
• Low levels of comments and conversations
• A lack of social book marking tools and half a dozen other utility enhancements

Say hello to:

• Logistical / posting changes - Some of you RSS readers may have noticed this already. I’m moving away from massive-link-dump-entries into a straight feed of links (often referred to as the “jambalaya” on the site), along with occasional longer-form commentary, trend stories, reviews and tutorials. This should benefit all of us: I won’t have to take the time pulling together the entries of links every couple days, you’ll get the links faster and in many different forms (there’s more RSS and email options now — I should note, if you’re already on the RSS feed service won’t be interrupted. You’ll still get everything. I’m just adding RSS options for those people whom don’t want to get the barrage of news links or don’t want my stupid opinion pieces) and, as I said, I’ll have more time to work on larger stuff. These changes should mean that there will always be something new on the site each day (unless I’m deep in the woods AFK).
• Ads - Nope, I’m not really putting ads on the site. But I am offering a ‘recommendations‘ page (in a separate area away from the content) with suggestions for gear, books and other assorted nerd stuff. I get regular emails querying me for info on training and gear, so I figured this would be a good way to get that info out there, while also possibly getting a little cash to help pay the web hosting bills. I’m pretty firm in focusing on this site as a educational news resource (I’m not looking to get rich posting links and snarky comments) and until I reach Kottke status and traffic, I don’t plan on placing ads here. If there is any extra money raised after I pay for my server hosting (about $50 a year), it will be donated at the end of the year to a non-profit(s) that helps protect journerdist causes. These include: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Media and Democracy, The Center for Public Integrity, The Poynter Institute, and SaveTheInternet.Com Coalition. (If this proves to be raise a large amount of money, I’ll split the money between multiple organizations.)
• Connections opened up - I’ve opened up and cross linked a lot of my profiles on various social networks and websites in multiple places on this site. Hopefully this will make it easier to contact and connect with me, while not turning into a full-time job adding friend requests.
• RSS flavors - With the new posting format, there’s now multiple RSS feeds available. Check them out and sign up for whatever tickles your fancy.
• About me / FAQ - In an effort to be as transparent as possible and also not bore you to death telling you every time I mention Medill that I went there for grad school, I broke this down into a FAQ format and filled it out a whole lot, especially with disclosures for companies and issues that I own stock in or believe in. So if you’ve never read it, please check it out.
• Design update - The freshened theme is a Frankenstein hybrid of Hemmingway, Benevolence, Journerdism hacks and bunches of plugins. The graphic design has stayed pretty consistent, largely to reflect what journerdism is about (to me) — long, late nights learning amped on caffeine. Most of my reading/learning/productive time is spent at night. So the color scheme reflects that. The Mountain Dew-stained keyboard. The orange desk lamp light color. The dark background. The muted text, so you can read it when your brain is fried and your exhausted. One of the biggest changes I made this time is making that logo as big as I can.

I’d like to thank the folks that I drew inspiration from on this restructuring and redesign: Khoi Vinh, Rex Sorgatz, (both for the dual linkblog/longer commentary format), Jeff Jarvis (full disclosure-apalooza), Laura Fries, (contact and connect brilliance), the Hemingway guys for the backbone of the site (Kyle Neath and Nalin Makar).

Finally, I’d especially like to thank all the readers, commenters and people who enjoy this blog and share it with their coworkers, homies and other nerds. I really enjoy hearing your feedback and ideas and like I said before (and in the FAQ) I may not beg you to comment at the end of every single post, but I do enjoy hearing and learning from you. Hopefully, these changes will make it much easier for us to connect.

If you see anything acting really funky, please let me know. IE 6 really sucks (it’s dying out though–only 11% of visitors here use it). I’m still making tweaks, organizing and filling out some of the content so you’ll probably hear some jackhammers in the background for a little while.

Thanks for reading!
Will

P.S. Speaking of redesigns, over the past week or so have you seen the new:

• Chicago Tribune (Not bad, probably the best of the Trib Corporate clone sites but … Chicago is way too cool of a town to have it’s biggest newspaper use a rather generic sans-serif font for it’s masthead. I’m not opposed to sans-serif fonts or rebranding the web mast but they need something with more ”dip in the hip”than that.)
• Hartford Courant (Another Trib Corp. clone. Sure looks like the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.)
• TCPalm.com (Scripps continues cutting over to Ellington.)
• International Herald Tribune (One of my favorite news website designs gets a little fresher. I love the story-level extras box with translations to five languages available instantly.)

P.P.S. Roanoke is hiring two multimedia producers, and as you better know by now, they rule. You should apply. When you do, tell John, Meg and Seth I said ‘what’s up.’