Hey, look at that—a new design
Maybe you noticed — things look a bit different on the front of lawrence.com.
We tweaked a few aspects of the layout in our ongoing effort to better serve you, our reader.
Basically this design tweak does three things...
1
The most obvious is that, at the top, we now have multiple lead stories, photo galleries, podcasts, videos and the like. This should give you a wider selection from what's new on the site. It should also give new visitors to lawrence.com a better sense — at a glance — of the variety of stuff we have on this site.
2
We've incorporated the "Latest," "Most discussed" and "Your bets" (events that are coming up at your favorite places) in the main body of the front page. This used to be a bit hidden off to the side of the site.
3
We've reduced the amount of space that calendar events take up on the site. They will now be below the ad in a sidebar, instead of taking up so much space top and center of the front page.
We hope you like these changes — they were all born out of consistent feedback we were getting from all kinds of readers. As always, we appreciate you taking the time to send us what you think — we've provided a space for doing so at the bottom of every page on lawrence.com.
In the coming months we'll be working on a much more significant update to the site, both in terms of design and functionality. As we do so, we'll be drawing heavily on reader feedback — so let us know what you like, what you don't like, and what your ideal lawrence.com would have that it currently does not.
Adios Larry!
Strange that just 7 years ago we fired up lawrence.com, the internets edition—and nobody wanted to advertise on “just a website.” So we started printing the Deadwood Edition in July 2003.
For 246 issues, we’ve covered the arts and culture in Lawrence and generally loved on this community via the printed page—all with the help of dozens and dozens of writers, photographers, artists, and other contributors.
In the meantime, internet media has come into its own, while printed and delivered newspapers are folding everywhere. It’s sad to become the latest casualty of a dying medium, but we’re thrilled to be able to continue covering Lawrence arts and culture via our original medium — lawrence.com, internets edition.
Thanks to everyone—readers, advertisers, the World Company, and other lawrence.comrades everywhere—for supporting the Deadwood Edition while it lived!
Services will be held 6p.m. Friday on the Replay patio. Come join us for a drink or four!
What’s up with the pop-ups
Dear reader and lawrence.comrade,
You might have noticed that a pop-up advertisement appears now when you first come to lawrence.com (or ljworld.com and kusports.com). Yes, that is a first. Like most businesses, we find ourselves in particularly challenging times, and this is one revenue opportunity which allows us to keep on keepin' on, and keep our sites free. However, some readers—especially those using Safari, and some users of IE6—are being affected in an unintened way. The code supplied by our advertising contractor is designed to distribute ONE pop-under per 24-hour period. Some browser configurations have a problem handling this limit, and we are working with the contractor to fix this bug. In the meantime, if you're able to use another brower—such as Firefox—that is our best suggestion.We are working quickly to solve this problem and sincerely regret the inconvenience it has caused some of you. —homies
Sooo… whaddya think?
There is nothing wrong with your internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are modifying the transmission! You may well be asking yourself WTF?? Why did homies have to jack with a perfectly good website? Well it's complicated-but let's just say we were ready for a change. We really do hope you find the new look as pleasing as we do... We know full well that some of you will find the change a little disconcerting, if not completely freakin' disorienting. For that we apologize, and encourage you to post your desires and concerns in the comments below, or [email us][1]. We'll be keeping a close eye on feedback and trying to help everyone acclimate. You should know that part of this new look stems from an extensive code update-a tightening of the ol' undercarriage, if you will. To keep lawrence.com current with the way you've become accustomed to using the internets, this update was unavoidable. As are some of the bugs you may well encounter in the next few days. We've been working hard to minimize your exposure to these unsightly pests, but should you encounter one, we'd very much appreciate you [sending us the URL to the page in question][1], or posting a heads up below. In the coming days and weeks, we'll introduce you to some of the new features on the site. In the meantime, feel free to explore... we hope you like what you see! -homies [1]: http://www.lawrence.com/contact/
Dear lawrence.comrades…
![][1]
Dunno about you, but we've gotten a little swept up in the whole CHANGE thing lately. Matter of fact, we're so hopped up on change goof balls that we're changing us, too. Yes, indeed, it was about time for a lawrence.com redesign. We'll also be rolling out some new features, too, and we'll use this space to let you know about them. We sincerely hope it's change you can believe in. Check it out later this week, and let us know what you think-either via [this email form][2] or in the comment section below. The transition will no doubt come with some kinks and bugs, but we can work through them with the help of you, our beloved lawrence.comrades. Yes we can! -homies [1]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/special... [2]: http://www.lawrence.com/contact/
State of the homies address
Greetings and welcome to your new internets.[![][1]][2]It's been a pretty sweet past couple years. In 2001, we took a [forsaken spot on the web][3] and turned it into [something more useful, more worthwhile][4]. It was hardly perfect, and you sent us many emails that we tried to address to improve the site.In a short while our labor of love became the lawrence.com that serves over 3 million page views a month. And thanks to the support of readers, advertisers and our family-owned parent company, lawrence.com was named best entertainment site by Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek magazines, and the Newspaper Association of America.But lest we kick back with a fatty and rest on our proverbial laurels (also fatty), we kept at it. And over the next week or so, we'll be unveiling and tweaking a shiny new look as well as a bevy of new, badass features.Central to the new design is an improved navigation, including a [site-wide search][5]. We hope it'll make things you're looking for easier to find as well as uncover features that you've never known were here.We've also given you the ability to post comments on most everything on the site not just [blogs][6], but [stories][7], [music][8], [restaurants][9], [movies][10], [events][11] and more. Comments make lawrence.com a community site where everyone can have a voice, not just a forum for us to talk at you. We sincerely hope you'll contribute to the ongoing discussions.As always, to do so you need a [free log-in name][12] - it's your online id and ego while visiting the site. We've fleshed out the user profile pages to help you better know your online peers. Now you can quickly get an idea of who's behind the comments you're reading and so perhaps know how much stock you should put in their opinions of that new restaurant, movie, etc.There are a ton of other new features that we've added like custom playlists of local music, party pics, a cell phone edition, and more. Below you'll find descriptions of some of the highlights.We hope you enjoy the new site. If you find it still lacking in any way, please [send us your feedback][13]. Thanks in advance, and thank you for reading lawrence.com. -homiesMobile editionIf you cell phone has a web browser (like Sprint PCS Vision or Cingular MEdia Net), point it to mobile.lawrence.com for a slimmed-down version of this site. Only the essentials are there for your on-the-go "lifestyle": drink specials, movie listings, today's events, event best bets and restaurants open right now. It's the perfect utility for when you're away from the computer and need "information" fast.Custom playlistsOur [local music radio stations][14] are among the most popular parts of our site, so we've tricked them out, making them even better. Now, you can [create playlists][15] using any local tunes from throughout our site. You can create as many of these online mix tapes as you like and make them public [so other people can check out your mix][16] (or keep them private -- boo). A lawrence.com account is required (so that we can save your playlists between browsing sessions). To create a playlist, sign into your account and click on your username in the upper right corner of the site.Web feeds (RSS)We've added web feeds (a.k.a. RSS feeds) to many of our site's pages -- including best bets, MP3s, blogs, venues and bands. This is full-blown computer geek orgasm-type stuff. It's incredibly useful, and, in a few years, it'll be all the rage among today's AOL users. Be the first among your friends to really "get it" -- try RSS now! For full information, check out our [RSS page][17].Party picsAnd for all you willfull libertines out there (as well all you voyeurs), introducing...[party pics][18]. What's that? You didn't know Al Gore invented the internets so that the masses might perform many Google image searches? It's true. Now you can limit your online voyeurism to only local pictures! Simply click on the hyper-text link in the navigation 'timewasters' and select 'party pix.' Also derive pleasure from embarassing your friends when you upload incriminating pictures from last night using our [party pic uploader][19]. Thank god for Gore.Improved restaurant searchOur [advanced restaurant search][20] is now even more useful. Click 'More search options...' and find more fields to search by, such as 'has heated smoking porch' or 'aceepts local checks' or 'not likely to catch diner-and-dashers.' (Note the absurdity of that last example and you will realize that we kid.)User profile pagesBy popular demand, we've gone all out and added [user-profile pages][21], where you can fill out a Friendster-style survey of things that are special to you and what not. To fill out your profile, [log into your account][12] and click on your username in the upper-right corner of the sight. You can read other user's profiles by clicking on their usernames either [here][21] or above comments throughout the site. More profile-related goodness (like user photos and icons) is coming soon.All this is good and pleasing, but...New search engineOur wizkid programmers' crowning achievement is the [site-wide search engine][5]. Behold! It actually returns the results that you were looking for! Just throw down search term(s) into the box at the top-right corner of every page, and you should find what you're looking for without the hassle. It searches everything on the site -- including our events calendar, local band database, MP3 downloads and story archive. And you can narrow your search by selecting which types of things you'd want to find -- such as songs, bands, musicians, etc. Believe it or not, this is probably the first site-wide search to appear on a newspaper web site. Why nobody has done this before defies basic intelligence.Again we welcome your comments, criticisms and unmitigated flattery [via email][13] or in the space below. [1]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/special... [2]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/special... [3]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/special... [4]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/special... [5]: http://www2.lawrence.com/search/ [6]: http://blogs.lawrence.com/ [7]: http://www2.lawrence.com/news/music/ [8]: http://www2.lawrence.com/mp3/ [9]: http://www2.lawrence.com/restaurants/ [10]: http://www2.lawrence.com/movies/listings/ [11]: http://www2.lawrence.com/events/search/ [12]: http://www2.lawrence.com/accounts/login/ [13]: http://www2.lawrence.com/about/contact/form/ [14]: http://www2.lawrence.com/radio/ [15]: http://www2.lawrence.com/playlists/edit/ [16]: http://www2.lawrence.com/playlists/ [17]: http://www2.lawrence.com/rss/ [18]: http://www2.lawrence.com/pix/ [19]: http://www2.lawrence.com/pix/upload/ [20]: http://www2.lawrence.com/restaurants/search/ [21]: http://www2.lawrence.com/users/
New feature: Comments on songs
We just added a feature to lawrence.com -- user comments on individual songs.So now you can leave a comment on that ["Willie the Warlock" song][1] everyone's been talking about.You can post a comment on a song via [band pages][2], [the main mp3 page][3], the [top downloads page][4] and a number of other pages. [1]: http://www2.lawrence.com/songs/903/ [2]: http://www2.lawrence.com/bands/ [3]: http://www2.lawrence.com/mp3/ [4]: http://www2.lawrence.com/mp3/top/
Introducing karma
We just launched a new comment-related feature on lawrence.com -- user karma. It's a simple way for the community to monitor itself by promoting insightful comments and demoting the, well, not-so-insightful ones.It works like this. If you're [logged in][1] to your lawrence.com account, you should see a "Was this comment interesting?" note, with Yes and No links, below each comment throughout the site (e.g. blog comments). Click on the Yes or No to instantly grade that comment. It's kind of like [Amazon.com][2]'s user reviews.The site keeps track of how many people voted Yes vs. No. for each comment and displays that info above each comment. Also, each lawrence.com user that has been voted-on at least three times will have a karma bar next to his or her username. That bar represents the user's overall karma -- how often other users have found that person's comments to be interesting. The fuller the bar, the better the karma.The exact formula for how we calculate a person's karma is secret, but it has to do with how other people have rated that person's comments over time, along with a number of other things. We'll be tweaking the formula as time goes on.Note that you can't give yourself karma (for obvious reasons). Also, as we mentioned above, you have to be logged in to give people karma. Without that login requirement, everyone would give everybody else, and the karma system would be worthless.What's the point of karma? It's to help people sort through comments and get to the more highly-ranked ones more quickly. Hopefully it'll encourage more thought-provoking commentary, discourage trolling/flaming and result in an overall higher-quality discussion on lawrence.com. It'll be cool to watch what happens.UPDATE, Monday, Aug. 23: Due to overwhelming feedback, we've removed karma from lawrence.com blogs and kept it on lawrence.com reviews. See [this comment][3] for more. [1]: http://www2.lawrence.com/users/login/ [2]: http://www.amazon.com/ [3]: /behindthescenes/2004/aug/20/karma/#c7322
An invitation behind the scenes
We're starting a new blog here at lawrence.com: A meta blog, if you will.Because we work hard to continually add cool new features to lawrence.com, we figure it'd be useful for us to have a place to announce those new features and other site changes, along with a forum for readers to comment on the changes. A blog is the perfect place for that.So here, on the Behind the Scenes blog, we'll keep you updated with what's new around here. This blog will be updated occasionally by the lawrence.com staff. Everyone on our small team -- editors, developers, our designer -- will write about their areas of expertise when appropriate, and we'll always be looking out for your comments.Anyway, we'd like to start it off by mentioning some changes we've made around lawrence.com in the past few weeks. Here goes...Events calendarOur [events calendar][1] and [events search][2] have been redesigned to be less boxy and easier to peruse. The event listings used to be rather boxy and tabular, with rigid columns for event titles, venues, dates, etc., but they're now (we hope) a lot more friendly.We've also rolled ongoing events -- such as weekly gigs -- directly into the correct place in the calendar, rather than grouping them together at the end. It used to be that all the one-time events were displayed up-front-and-center and weekly events were kinda grouped together at the end of the listings. That was unfair to the weekly events, because they weren't given as much attention as the one-offs. But now, ongoing events are displayed alongside one-time events.On a related note, the [events calendar][1] and [search][2] now have a "Show ongoing events (such as daily activities)" checkbox that let you toggle whether you want to see all the standard ongoing activities, such as museum exhibits, in your search results. This is unchecked by default because we've found that most people use lawrence.com to find out about one-time events such as music shows.Band pagesWe've added more information to band pages, most notably discographies with each album getting its own page. (Examples: [Ghosty][3], [The Get Up Kids][4], [The Belles][5].) We've also linked-up band pages to [Turnpike][6] episode pages, where appropriate, and added a "Past shows" link to each band page that has a link to all the shows featuring the band from our event archive, which goes back to early 2003.This one's for the geeks out there: We've changed the URLs of band pages to be friendlier. For example, instead of calendars.lawrence.com/bands/42/, the URLs now look like www2.lawrence.com/bands/the_danny_pound_band/. We're working on changing that "www2" to "www"...Stay tuned.Historic download statsA popular part of lawrence.com is the [top downloads page][7], which lists the most-frequently downloaded mp3s this week. (The tallies reset every Sunday.) We've been keeping every week's top-25 list, but we haven't done anything with 'em -- until now. Now, you can click on "See last week's final chart" and keep clicking "Previous week" to go back in time all the way to May 2003. You can even click on the "Times in top 25" for a particular track to see its chart history.Coming upWe're about to start going crazy with commenting functionality. In the upcoming weeks, you'll be able to post comments on individual albums, bands, events, movies, restaurants, bars and venues. And speaking of comments, we've been working hard to add improved community features that make it easier to sort through helpful comments and, well, not-so-helpful comments. Of course, all of these new features will be announced right here on Behind the Scenes.Let us know what you think of all this stuff, and let us know what else you'd like to see on lawrence.com. You can post a comment below or e-mail us at homies@lawrence.com. [1]: http://www2.lawrence.com/events/ [2]: http://www2.lawrence.com/events/search/ [3]: http://www2.lawrence.com/bands/ghosty/ [4]: http://www2.lawrence.com/bands/the_get_up_kids/ [5]: http://www2.lawrence.com/bands/the_belles/ [6]: http://www2.lawrence.com/turnpike/ [7]: http://www2.lawrence.com/mp3/top/
