Kingstonist Turns Three!

So here we are, just three years after our little project was made available for public consumption. The terrible twos are now a thing of the past! Who would have guessed that Kingstonist would amass 1,500 posts by our 3rd Birthday, attract nearly 1,000 followers on Twitter, or register an average of  300 unique visitors daily?  Did you know that we’re on Facebook now, or that we were mentioned in the Kingston Culture Plan (see page 71)? Over the years we’ve continued to attract exciting contributors, and strived to engage our readers in both light and thought-provoking conversations.  We’ve had some definite hits and this massive learning experience has been well worth the ride.  Before I tell you about some of the changes we’ve made, and what the next year has in store for Kingstonist, please allow me to sincerely thank both our contributors and our readers, without whom, we wouldn’t have made it this far.  Huzzah!

You will likely notice that Kingstonist is sporting a brand new look just in time for our 3rd birthday!  Josie has been working some serious overtime, and we’ve been dropping hints about the re-design for months. While it may not be a massive visual change, the new theme was built from the ground up based on the Genesis framework.  We’re excited to introduce new features including the weather application (see top right on the menu bar), geo-tagged posts (currently limited to our Food and Drink section), breaking news alerts (see the pink coloured bar above), as well as hot topics displayed just under the top menu bar.  We’ve also added some additional advertising space for in-kind exchanges with non-profit organizations, and prospective local businesses.  Content-wise, we’ve cleaned up the post tags getting rid of hundreds of incorrect and duplicate entries, as well as refined content categories for easier navigation, and added a section for important press releases.

Last Friday, you may have noticed that we hinted at a second birthday project we had in the works.  To help us commemorate the occasion, we worked with Ironclad Graphics to get a small batch of stylish tees printed.  We’ll be giving some of these away to contest winners and lucky followers, but we’ve kept a small lot, which we’ll be selling for a low, low price in the near future.  Stay tuned for details on that, as well as the results from our latest contest, which will be announced tomorrow.

As for what the next year has in store, while I don’t have a crystal ball I can assure you that we’ll be doing our best to deliver an even better Kingstonist to you.  While it starts today with our new look, it will continue tomorrow with better content, including more interviews, reviews, and stories from both new and well known contributors.  We’ll also continue to add new features to the site, and refine the content so that you will keep coming back, and do your part by way of commenting and interacting with other members of the local community.  But why wait for tomorrow?  Why not get a head start by helping us blow out the candles with a comment or two.

Special thanks to suzettesuzette for today’s image, which you may have noticed, we slightly remixed.