OK, we launched the new MaineToday.com design exactly 6 weeks ago today.

Now that you've had some time to use it, what do you think?

I know it was a shock for many to see news "disappear" as a central function of the MaineToday.com brand. If you're a news-oriented person, hopefully you've found yourself spending more time on our sister sites of the Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, where the newsrooms are really kicking butt with news updates and interactive features.

If you're not a news-oriented person, hopefully you're finding the new MaineToday.com to be an easier place to find things to do, to post your own photos and stories, to see what other people are sharing. Admit it: sometimes you check out Shannon Bryan's blog just because you need a reason to laugh out loud at work.

OK, have at it. What do you like? Hate? Post your thoughts below:

I'll be away on vacation until July 30, but please use this space to post your thoughts about the new MaineToday.com, or other aspects of our sites. There's a brief explanation of the changes
here.
Rest assured that I'm not the only one in our organization who is paying attention to what you say here, so speak up. If I can get internet access where I'm vacationing, I may post something. (Or not -- hey, I'm on vacation.) See you on the 30th.

Getting to a couple of points raised in comments to this blog, and privately:

Q: Why is the new MaineToday.com logo just on the home page, but the old one is all over the place elsewhere?
A: The new logo will roll out over the next few weeks. There are over 200,000 pages on the entire Blethen Maine Newspapers network, so some pages could have the old MT logo for a month or more.

Q: If the MaineToday.com brand is separating from the newspaper brands, why the continuing dominant MT branding on the newspaper sites?
A: That will change this week. Check it out and send feedback.

Q: Why make it so hard to "bounce back and forth" between MT and the newspaper sites?
A: Good question. The intention isn't to make it hard, but the design challenge is to work within a small space. We'll be listening to feedback to see if there's a better solution.

Keep the feedback coming ....

Thanks to you all who have been sending feedback, individually and to this blog.

A few themes come out:
1. The Press Herald is making a big mistake in not highlighting news
2. Love the new design
3. Hate the new design
4. Something is not working

Taking them one at a time:
1. The Press Herald is not MaineToday.com, and vice versa. The biggest reason for making these changes is to refocus and expand our journalism under the PressHerald.com brand, and refocus and expand "non-journalism" under the MaineToday.com brand.
2. Thank you for writing. It's a group effort. Axon Marketing helped us develop the new logo, and the overall look-and-feel is by our designer Wendy Clark, with lots of other folks involved in the planning and development.
3. Thank you for writing. We take all feedback seriously. I can't promise anything will change, but the more specific you are, the more we can take it into our decisionmaking.
4. There are a few bugs, so please keep reporting them, and we'll keep fixing them.

Cool, huh? The MaineToday.com home page is totally redesigned. (Remember, if you're looking for news, go to our newspaper sites.) This design eventually will extend to the other MaineToday.com sections, though not the newspaper sites, which will get their own fresh looks. Share your impressions below. Tomorrow I'll write a bit about the thinking behind this, and answer some of your questions.

Jeannine Guttman, editor of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, used her column today to explore the changes happening to the PressHerald.com and MaineToday.com sites, both public and behind-the-scenes.
The occasion: today is the first day that the Press Herald newsroom is fully hands-on and responsible for the PressHerald.com site. Jeannine asked me for some thoughts about this period in our evolution, and I'm quoted in her piece.
Your thoughts?

I received a thoughtfully composed email from a longtime user in the Portland area, responding to the upcoming changes. I think this will be a reaction of many people when the new site launches, so the issue is worth exploring here. Here's the writer's key point:

Since the last "re-design" of your site I have found it much more difficult to find news and information useful to me.... After reading your blog update about re-design, my reaction is that there is some useful information that will be more easily accessed (trails, entertainment schedules, etc) but I hope that these will not take the place of the news.

Here's my reply:

Thanks for taking the time to write.

What you're describing is one of the big reasons we're making this change. News is important to us as a company and obviously to you as a web user. The role of local news on the www.PressHerald.com site will become stronger as a result of this change.

The things you're describing that currently overshadow news on the MaineToday.com site? Actually they will become more prominent.

The idea is that people like yourself will want to make PressHerald.com your home page, and check MaineToday.com for upcoming events, community connections etc. People who are not very oriented to news, who represent a good chunk of the population, hopefully will find material of interest on the new Mainetoday.com, and will then move to our news sites when they want local news.

I realize we've been telling you for 12 years to "make MaineToday.com your home page" and now we're changing our story. I hope you'll consider changing your home page to PressHerald.com (if the new MaineToday.com doesn't meet your news needs)

Again, thanks for writing, and thanks especially for your loyal usage of our services.

Joe

Don't get attached to MaineToday.com as it looks today.

Here's a mockup of how it will look later this week. (Update - now it looks like July 8) Dude, where's my newspaper?:

Today I'm starting a blog to help describe some of the changes we're making here at MaineToday.com. The title of the blog "Green Line" is internal shorthand for "don't stop innovating!" If you want to know more about that, click "more about the Green Line" above.

Anyway, beyond the upcoming changes, I'll use this blog to talk about new developments, point out some good work, maybe even talk about stuff happening elsewhere in our industry.

By this time next month, you'll be looking at a whole new MaineToday.com. It will have less duplication with our sister web sites of the Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. It will have more "places to go, things to do, people to see." It will have a new logo, new design, more modern feel.

If you want the best, most complete report on the day's news in Maine, you'll want to set your home page to www.pressherald.com, www.kjonline.com and www.onlinesentinel.com. Pick the one that best suits your interests, and check it throughout the day. If you want the best ideas for how to enjoy Maine -- today, tonight, this weekend -- set your home page to MaineToday.com. By the way, here's the new logo:

Why are we making this change after 12 years of building up MaineToday.com as a more comprehensive brand and site? There are three main reasons:

First, we hear you. Newspaper readers increasingly expect to go online and interact with their newspaper brand. Our newspaper newsrooms are now moving rapidly with blogs, breaking news, photo galleries and more. So the newspaper brands will be the focus for news and related information.

Second, we found that the weight of news was overshadowing many of the cool, useful tools within MaineToday.com. Did you know we have a searchable index of hiking trails, movie times for every theater in Maine, the biggest entertainment calendar in Maine? Our research showed that many of you are not aware of these features, but you'd like to have them!

Third, we have ambitious plans to create even more of those useful features to help you enjoy Maine more, and we need a larger canvas to display them on. By moving some pieces onto their proper locations on the newspaper sites, we can make room for the new stuff.

This is a blog, so I'll keep this first entry short, and post another entry soon. In the meantime, post your thoughts, questions, ideas below. What features of MaineToday.com do you enjoy most? Have you seen features elsewhere you'd like us to consider? Any questions you'd like me to address in a future blog entry?