Dear Friend and Reader:
Good morning.
We’ve just finished an upgrade of Planet Waves. We’re now back to our regular blogging schedule. We’ve spent the last three days cleaning up a bunch of little presentation issues that were getting in the way, and added some features that were long overdue. Coming out of Reality Check, the 2012 annual edition, we were in “build website mode” and this seemed like the time to do it. I love how the Reality Check site works, so we took that as inspiration.
Just to orient you on some of what we’ve done — nothing too shocking really — the first thing I did was get rid of a lot of unnecessary clutter. That felt great, to work from a blank sidebar and a clean page template. The Daily Astrology feature will still update at midnight five days a week, and you’ll recognize that by a little section of an astrology chart that accompanies each edition.
Then you’ll notice the slide show that’s going to stay at the top of the site. This will showcase the most recent feature from our subscriber series, as well as some classics. This way you’ll know just what’s in that mysterious subscriber edition you keep hearing about. That’s where the horoscopes are; we remain the only one of about 113,000,000 astrology websites to only offer horoscopes only to paying subscribers. These come with the feature articles you see illustrated above and other benefits as well.
We’ve also added sign homepages on the right, which give a basic extended sign description and provide a space for discussion of themes related to your sign. Those are open to everyone. Audio materials are easy to find. Our whole audio channel is linked from the top, as Planet Waves FM. Along the sidebar, there’s welcome message for new readers, the special 2012 series is featured and you can access my podcast directly.
If you’re a subscriber, your point of entry is “Member and Subscriber Login” on the right. We’re developing the whole “membership” concept for those to whom it’s a more appealing idea. Our next project is a revamp of the Subscriber Homepage, which will take a couple of months to complete. But we’re on it! We’ve added a Customer Service page, so that you can find Chelsea, who handles that side of things.
If there’s something you’re looking for, or if you have any ideas for improvements, please let us know in the comments below. If you’ve ever done a website, you know how these things go — it takes forever to figure out how it’s supposed to be, then you figure out what you need to change and…good thing it’s all so flexible. Special thanks to Anatoly, Chelsea, Amanda and Jessica for putting together the new look, and to David Arner (my astrology teacher) for helping me figure out when to launch it for maximum benefit.
Thanks for your patience as we reworked the site, thanks for visiting and thank you to our customers and subscribers, who help make our publishing experiment possible. No car insurance ads here! We much prefer you as our sponsor.
Lovingly,
THANK YOU for putting back the “recent comments” part! This site is so clean and wonderfully easy to work with. Thanks to everyone for all your hard work and most of all, thanks for always listening to your readers and responding to us. That makes me feel so welcome here.
I love the pictures too; nice to see faces of those who work so hard here.
Love, love, love it!
Beautiful, folks, just beautiful! Feels cleaner and soothing and yet exciting like my birthday has just come. The previous format was quite nice, don’t get me wrong. 🙂 The evolution is very very pleasing to me. Nice organization, very friendly to click around and explore.
I just stood up and applauded, so consider that a standing ovation for all of you.
Cleaner & leaner! Virgo Venus LOVES that.
Must have been a lot of work. I just have to take one glance at my work files, or my desktop on the laptop, for that matter, to shudder at the thought and admire the virtuosity and work that must have gone into this. 🙂
Can’t wait for the time to EXPLORE!!
xxm
i’m not seeing time stamps… there’s a date stamp under the titles, though.
The articles still have bylines and time stamps…at the bottom of the first page, before you click “continue.”
Ah, yes, the long dark nights and days of the PW Daily blackout are done! Life is good again. PW is back and lookin’ better. The coffee will taste richer and bolder in the morning.
Still exploring, still looking and pokingt around the site but like the cleaner, leaner look. And Eric’s audio intro on the side. Do miss the bylines and time of postings of the daily articles, though. And it’s kinda weird in the comments that the name of the commenter is followed by “says:” which is immediately followed by the date and time. Maybe the “says” can say “bye-bye”? But I’m being my usual tickety-boo self, and I apologize. It must be the withdrawal of the PW withdrawal symptoms.
Glad the comment sidebar is back. I, too, have become quite attached to following the comments and the wit and wisdom of the commenters. Congrats to all. And many, many thanks.
JannKinz
Comment feed is here: http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/comments/feed/
Recent comments adeed to the sidedar too.
Yours,
Anatoly
Many thanks to Eric, Anatoly, Amanda, Chelsea, Jessica and others involved for all the hard work and good taste. Looks like the “recent comments” side bar is back – thanks!
I ,too, like the uncluttered feel of PW. One addition I noticed right away was the slideshow featuring archived articles. A revolving list of “favorites” will be welcomed as I dive into the archives. I am one of those wanderers who do get lost, searching things with keywords. A favorites list is a place to start.
I am also an avid reader. A booklist might be a nice addition. I have read a few of the books mentioned in PW articles here and there- but a list of titles, categorized by subject would be really cool. So, as not to clutter up your new look, perhaps a list could be tucked into a corner somewhere, as an addition to the archives page or something.
Yesterday, I spent a few hours, looking into astrological sign descriptions(some of them were incredibly canned and not very… fresh) Here they are,exactly what I was looking for, waiting in the sidebar of my favorite website this morning… Wishes granted. Boons abound :o) That happens often, here. I say “I wonder…?” to myself, and moments later someone validates or elucidates the subjects of my wondering mind.
Comments from readers have yielded nuggets of wisdom,time and time again. I agree with Greene and Carrie- visible comments are a lively,inclusive feature that I would miss if they were stowed away, out of view. This is one website where the comments are actually helpful and life-affirming. Lets keep them visible, if for no other reason than, to serve as an example of what internet comments can be. “Be the change you want to see in the world” seems an apt motto for Planet Waves. Keep it all out there for others to see. …shining and brilliant and visionary.
I have a question: on some blogs, after I comment I can subscribe to follow up comments so that I stay in the conversation by getting notices in my email. That way I don’t have to manually recheck the post I’ve commented in to see if anyone responded to me or furthered the discussion. Am I missing something? Is there a place I do this?
Cheers.
oh it all looks so shiny! Nice work all!
Daniel
The refit looks nice. It’s cleaner, fresher.
Dare I say that I had some major PW withdrawal symptoms while it was offline? Yep. I dare. 🙂
Oh, this is just lovely…a past template expires and a new one shows up clean, subtle and so inviting. I’ve clicked on every feature like a giddy kid with a new toy, and have to say how delighted I was to see Chelsea’s photo on her very own Customer Service page….this is a great addition! I suspect that us “old” subscribers will be seeing many new names in the comments section as it feels you have presented a new invitation to ride the ‘wave’. Applause from up here in Nova Scotia, to all the team for their creative strokes! Hey, I just saw a “Howdy, Lokta” up in the right hand corner…..well, howdy back! It’s great to be here.
Oops – and I didn’t feel a thing when I logged out! very sleek.
Welcome back! You’ve done a grand job – it’s a beaut…
Yay! PW and breakfast is back on. 😀
I love the new look but I second Green’s comment about the recent-comments ticker on the right side. I will miss that as well because I also liked reading certain commenter’s comments.
Congratulations on the re-vamp! I love the new features and layout. I know how much work these site changes take, you all have done an outstanding job! I will miss the little ticker-tape tally of recent comments however….there are some writers/contributors/members who’s words I liked trying to catch since I don’t have time to read every comment to every article. Over time in this community one does develop a sense of personal connection to some of the people who post to the blog… I liked and used the widget which tracked the most recent postings. Bringing it back will clutter the look though so maybe it no longer fits with the over-all presentation….but I liked that feature and used it frequently….AND I can enjoy PW just fine without it. Just sayin’
BEAUTIFUL job, well done everyone! It’s great to have PW back and looking so sleek and fine!! 🙂
Well done, PW, fetching, fitting, and fantastic! Love the fresh look and ease of navigation. The new sign feature on the right will be a new favorite.