Clearly, I haven't been posting here lately. Lots of reasons for that, but one that's worth mentioning publicly is all the work that's gone into revamping and expanding NewAmerica.net.
The new site went live today -- much cleaner, IMO, thanks to Mike Jones' design, and a much-needed shift in emphasis to topics and timeliness.
New America is also moving (belatedly, but aggressively) into the blogosphere. Our Ed Policy program has publishing a great blog since the previous iteration of NewAmerica.net launched, but now the rest of the organization is getting into the act.
We're also trying to do a better job of showcasing good and relevant content wherever it's published. That's something all thoughtful, content-rich sites should do, but New America -- with its freedom from the ad- and circ-based business models that drive traditional media sites -- really has no excuse to be parochial. So don't be surprised to if a homepage link hops you to BloggingHeads.tv, the Washington Note, or some site even more distantly related to New America.
Now comes the hard part, of course: Putting this new design to good use and filling it with compelling content of stripes. But it's a nice step forward, and should be a good hub for what's become quite a network of New America sites. (See also the Federal Education Budget Project, AssetBuilding.org, USintheWorld.org and the GlobalAssetsProject.org.)
For those who care about such things, the site is run with Drupal 5. (As are all the sites in the previous graf, with the exception of USintheWorld -- and that one's in the works.) The new blogs are technically a separate sub-site, running off the same codebase -- the main site was complicated enough without adding everything a groupblog setup requires. And knock wood, but the rollout has actually been fairly painless. Of course, now we get to see just how many glitches got overlooked in development...
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