(Monday/Tuesday note from Doni: Normally we publish something new every day except Friday and Saturday. This week we’ll hold things for a few days until Wednesday, when we roll out Food for Thought’s remodel. Your forums and comments are fresh, as always.)
Spring is the ideal time to introduce Food for Thought’s newest growth spurt. The surprises will begin Wednesday, and continue for the next few weeks.
If you can believe it, this makes FFT’s fourth complete overhaul in just five months. As you might recall, our online magic began with my first “baby” blog on Nov. 2, 2007, a few weeks after my forced “departure” from my decade-long newspaper job.
Five months later, I’m here in a much better place – with you.
You might recall my very first blog on Nov. 2 and my next one on Nov. 4.Those maiden-voyage blogs were before our mid-November debut of a one-story format of donigreenberg.com; before the present multi-columned Food for Thought that includes space for advertisers.
Here are the hightlights of Food for Thought’s upcoming Generation-4 remodel:
Format: Food for Thought has a new look, new colors and is better organized for easier navigation to the new sections, which includes Village Voices (guest speakers and Q&A experts), Food, Events and Doni’s Thoughts, the latter of which will replace “Doni’s Blog.” (What’s the magic in calling my column a blog? Let’s face it, I’m still writing in newspaper-column length. Maybe someday I’ll stop that. Not today.)
The new format will include two prominent places for lead stories, which will be ever-changing, depending upon what’s happening. It could be a news story, feature story or photograph. It could be an announcement about a special event. We never know.
A dedicated Food Section: , with our new, expanded food section. This new section will continue my food-related stories, as well as “Food Goddess” Andrea Charroin’s wonderful recipes and insights and Chris Corbett’s wine Q&A column.
The new food section will introduce the talents of Fred de Picciotto, a north state culinary mastermind. (You’ll learn more about him Wednesday.)
Among other food section features are a local “mixology” column and a local cooking tips column.
Events: This section has two parts: 1. community calender and 2. movies. You’re going to love this. In fact, I predict it might become one of your favorite new sections. It’s already one of my favorite places. When it comes to events, “community” is broad and encompasses the north state region and beyond.
Tabs:“About Doni” will become “About Us” – something I’ve wanted since November. This tab will pull down a list of everyone who’s contributed their talents to Food for Thought. The list is long and impressive. You’ll be amazed to see that FFT has dozens of local writers who’ve graced FFT pages since Day One.
The “RSS” tab allows readers to reach all the comments,starting with the most recent, even on older stories.
Yet another tab will feature my cooking class schedule.
Bloggers:This won’t be ready for another week or so, but stay tuned, because this will be great. Bloggers commonly list links on their sites to their favorite bloggers. At Food for Thought we’ll go beyond the traditional blogger list to an entire page filled with “friends of Doni” bloggers, their blog titles, descriptions and whatever graphic image they desire, whether it’s their personal photograph, an avatar (graphic element that represents the writer) or another image.
As always, know that this is your site, and, not to sound like Brian Adams song, but everything we do we do for you.
Here at Food for Thought, we don’t just mildly welcome feedback.
We BEG for it. Please, let us know what you think about the changes. Please let us know what works and what doesn’t. Please let us know what you like and what you could live without.
Pretty please.
By the way, April 2 is a significant roll-out day for Food for Thought’s Generation 4 because this date marks exactly five months since I embarked upon uncharted waters into this strange new online journalism world.
Was that just five months ago? Food for Thought seems such a good fit for me that it feels I’ve been here much longer.
It’s as if we were meant for each other.
