Our Web site is still CalhounTimes.com, but we have a new content management system that offers more stories, more pictures and photo galleries and more opportunity for videos of local events, as well as chances for our readers to get into the act through comments and self-publishing.
If you have CalhounTimes.com bookmarked on your computer and you are still directed to our old site, link to http://www.calhountimes.com. That will take you to our new Web site, and you can bookmark it.
The old Web site served us well. We saw on-line readership soar, especially during breaking news events. Just this year, Chief Photographer Jackie Seger won a Georgia Press Association award for best Web new package.
Why the change? When the Calhoun Times and the other newspapers in the News Publishing Co. chain, there were few options open to smaller newspapers, and many papers chose a one-size fits all content management system.
But we have outgrown our old site. Technology evolves daily, and it certainly has changed since www.CalhounTimes.com was launched almost a decade ago. When the original site launched, there were no iPods, no YouTube, no Facebook, no MySpace. Google was just becoming a key player in the digital world and the idea of streaming video, audio and great multimedia presentations was bordering on science fiction. No longer.
You will see a new look at the new CalhounTimes.com, but there will be a lot of familiar things on the new site, including the popular Prep Central site, which brings you the latest high school sports.
The new Web site offers expanded content and an added level of multimedia to our stories few sites in Georgia can match. Now we have a better platform for showing it off. We have award-winning writers and photographers who deserve a site that’s good enough to showcase their talents and keep you informed. My hope is that the new CalhounTimes.com is up to the task.
The site was designed with our community in mind. This isn’t the newspaper’s Web site. This is the community’s Web site.
We want to hear your opinions through comments about stories and other content. We want you to let us know about your events in the online calendar. And we openly invite each and every one of you to post articles or photos to the site though Get Published. Of course, we’ll also soon offer video posting as well.
Much like we’ve seen with prepcentralonline.com, we want the community involved. Don’t be surprised to see writers, editors, photographers and even videographers sometimes respond to posted comments.
I truly hope that we get so many submissions to Get Published that we can create mini-publications showing off the incredible talents I know exist in Calhoun and Gordon County.
So why just read this? See for yourself. There is a deep, rich, dynamic Web site waiting for you. And guess what? On the bottom of this column on the new site, you can tell me what you think about it.
I promise to read each and every comment.
The new site is an improvement. Keep up the good work. As for content, I appreciate your attempts to cover local stories. That's what I expect from my hometown newspaper. If I wanted to read national and state news with a far left bias, I would subscribe to the AJC.