Over the past week, we’ve been collecting feedback on the redesigned Macworld.com with a test beta site. We listened closely and made adjustments where possible. Now it’s time to put it all into action.
We plan to launch the all-new Web site on Thursday. That means there will be numerous pieces up in the air, and we’ll be working hard to ensure all those pieces land in the proper location. So here are some things that may/may not be functioning as we do our last bit of work:
• The Macworld Forums will be locked around 5 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, Dec. 12, and will remain locked for about 24 hours. We’ll be migrating all users and content into a new software package, so we have to freeze the system before the move. This applies to posting, registration, changing settings, everything involved with the forum software. You’ll be able to read posts, but that’s it.
• Maybe you’ve already noticed, but Playlistmag.com is being incorporated into the new Macworld.com. That means Playlist will basically become the iPod section of the new site. As a result, the Playlist Forums are going away. They are already locked and will remain as read-only.
• You will likely notice Thursday will be a slow news day. That’s because we’ll be posting all content to both locations. There will be some news updates on the existing Macworld.com, but we’ll also be posting those same articles over to the new site to ensure fresh content appears once we make the switch. During that time our development team will be moving all existing content into our new CMS.
And, of course, once the big changeover does occur, there will almost certainly be bugs. We’ll leave the redesign forum category active (linked above). Please let us know about problems, dead-ends, bad links, etc. and we’ll get them ironed out as soon as we can.
Needless to say, it’s going to be a huge task to get this all done in 24 hours. Every article, image and table will be transferred from one CMS to another. And same goes for the forums. That’s a ton of content. So we appreciate our readers providing their constructive feedback on the new site and pointing out issues that we’ve overlooked.
It’s a big step for us here at Macworld. Personally, I’m equally excited and nervous. But we know we’re moving to a more robust and flexible system that’s long-overdue.
Thanks in advance for your patience and I’ll see you on the other side.