Well, it’s the new year. A time for evaluating and making changes for the best, pace Chris Jones.
January does seem to fill us all with zeal for improving our lives and how we live them, and Bluegrass Today is not immune to this urge. Our crack IT team has been hard at work this past few weeks revamping much of the architecture of the site, and rewriting code to make things load faster.
We’ll have several new features to announce over the next few weeks, but the biggest is our revamped Events Directory. Over 2013, we heard a number of complaints about our previous system, and we had been disappointed by some of its internal structure ourselves. So… voila! A new system to handle events.
It is designed to accommodate any bluegrass event from a weekly jam at the local barbershop to a multi-day festival with dozens of headliners; a regional band’s club dates to a meeting of a statewide bluegrass association. Touring bands can post all of their dates, with links to the venue or the band site, driving directions and a text description. Radio, television or webcast specials can be listed, as can podcasts and music camps.
If you had an event in our directory last year, you’ll find it much easier to get your 2014 events listed, and a few minutes to create your listing will put it at the fingertips of our more than 140,000 monthly visitors.
Your free listing can include web and email links, up to five photos, Google mapping to your location, and more. Once created, you can easily push your listing out to Facebook, Twitter, Google + and other popular social networking sites. Our readers can choose to search the listings by date, keyword, or proximity to their location. A large text block is provided for a description of your event, and can include embedded YouTube video. Plus, everything on Bluegrass Today is pumped right into Google’s directory
There is no cost for this service, though you will need to register as a user at Bluegrass Today. We require registration so that events can be tagged directly to you as a user, allowing you to make edits at any time. Registration is also free, quick and easy., and we don’t bombard our users with email or share any information with others.
A few minutes to create your listing will put it at the fingertips of our more than 140,000 monthly visitors.
What are you waiting for?
And don’t forget our Business Directory where any bluegrass-related business can have visibility at Bluegrass Today. We have categories for bands, radio stations, promoters, studios, instrument makers, publicists, associations and clubs, and many more. You can easily get to the directories from the blue navigation bar at the top of every page, under In The Community.
There are a number of other site improvements and enhancements underway. We would love to hear your thoughts about how we can make Bluegrass Today more useful to you.
