As mentioned in this post, blogTO underwent somewhat of a facelift this past weekend. We're still working on a number of things that should be live later this month but the major cosmetic changes are now in place.

For those of you interested in learning more about the new site design, please read on....

The new site design has been in development for a number of months now. As you can see, we have a new logo and a new look and feel to the site. A big thanks to Mark Holden for the site design, David Moussallem for the new branding and Abraham Lopez for the coding.

The main impetus for the new design is to provide a site that makes it easier for you to find the content you're looking for. You'll notice there is now a navigation bar like you'd see in a more traditional web site. It's not final yet. Some of the sections still say "coming soon" so I'll have more information about this feature in a later post.

For now, there are three new features that I'd like to highlight:

1. Email Newsletter - You'll notice a space in the right hand column where you can sign up to our email newsletter. This is a daily email that is sent around the middle of the day that includes a summary of all the posts made in the past 24 hours. It includes photos too. I've been getting this in my inbox for the past week and find it to be a great way to stay on top of the new content being published to the site. I'd highly recommend you try it out. If you don't like it you can always unsubscribe.

2. Audio Player - It's now SO MUCH easier to listen to our line-up of podcasts. We now have an audio/music player in the right hand column that let's you listen to any of the podcasts simply by clicking on the one you want to hear. The audio starts right away and you can control it through the pause/play/stop button on the screen. The player always streams the latest episode of each podcast.

3. Detailed photos in our site header - Some of our resident photography fiends have started us off with some eye-catching photos currently rotating in the header area (at the top of each page). Each photo now includes information about the photo, who took it and a link to the photographer's web site. If you'd like to include one or more of your photos in this space, please email them to me, tim [at] blogto [dotcom]. All photos should be sized to 960 by 175. Please also remember to send me a short description for each photo and a link to your site.

There's lots more in store. I'll have more updates about other new features later.