Hello Crafters! After 3 months or so of maternity leave, I’m back! I can’t believe it’s already February, one month into 2009 already. I’m happy to announce some new changes that will be happening on CRAFT. We are in the middle of some HUGE upgrades and enhancements to bring you a better CRAFT site.
First off, a big thank you to our CRAFT bloggers Jenny Ryan, Michelle Kempner, and Patti Schiendelman who have been here daily on the blog have moved up to become contributing writers on special projects you’ll see soon on the site. Starting today, we’re changing our format to include more informed articles and how-tos (more on this below). You’ll still see them pop in from time to time with contributing articles, projects, and reviews. We also wish Jenny the best of luck with her new business, Home Ec, partnered with ReForm School where she’s offering a bevy of craft classes at the store in Silverlake/L.A.
We listened to all the feedback in 2008 and we’re doing a lot to make the site even better in 2009. Here’s an overview of what we’re up to now and some of the changes on the site you’ll see soon.
- Number of Posts – The feedback from all the crafters out there is that there are too many posts to keep up with on CRAFT. We re-blogged the everything and more! We’re still going to have lots of posts, just not as many as before. The posts we do have will be longer and filled with more content like how-tos and projects, timely articles, events, and reviews. But don’t worry, we’ll still have quick re-blogging of things we love in the craft world.
- More CRAFT Editors here on CRAFT – You’ll see some new faces here on the site, but they’re not new at all. Many of our print editors will now be writing on the site now too. When you see them here, say hello!
- Guest Authors – We’ll have more guest authors online this year to share their crafting expertise.
- For our Blog: We are upgrading to the latest version of MoveableType (our online publishing system). This should help our performance. We are adding new features to make it easier to do new things. We are also fixing the comments. Right now, it works “most” of the time but during high load some users need to enter in the CAPTCHA twice in some cases. Threaded comments will also be added. We’re also going to have OpenID 2.0 and things like Facebook connect as MoveableType adds support for it.
- Projects Section – We’re re-doing the projects section on CRAFT soon. We’ll have 10 times the projects and new things to do!
- “Suggest a Site” – The form is now updated so you can put where you’re from and if you’re a CRAFT subscriber. We read those first.
- Design Updates, Ads and Changes – Right now, we’re polishing up the site — removing old stuff and working with our advertising partners to get more relevant ads on the site with sponsors who value the CRAFT community.
And that’s just a start for now! We’ll keep you in the loop as things change and get updated. If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to comment to this post or email me at nat@craftzine.com.
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