First of all, I want to thank those of you who've already provided insightful feedback on the new design. And I'd like to extend even more thanks to those of you who've decided to give things time to settle in before making a final judgment on the new look. We're still working out some quirks here and there and are listening to what you have to say, and I'm sure you'll be glad you stick around.

The first thing you've no doubt noticed is the new logo. We decided long ago that the old shadow-men logo didn't really convey our style and wasn't really all that recognizable. Plus it was boring and stodgy for a site like this.

The new logo is simple but fun. It reflects what we're about, which is of course TV. Plus there's a little retro thrown in there with the font for good measure.


Next let's look at the top navigation bar ...




One common complaint from readers (and bloggers) regarding the old site was how obscure the links were for reporting post problems and contacting the editors in general. Now they're up there at the top of the page, easily accessible to all. We've also included an FAQ page that we'll be updating more soon with common questions about the site in general, including some of the information from this post.


Next we have the featured stories section. We can now put some of our more popular posts into this section so they don't move off the front page too quickly, allowing you a place to quickly glance at as soon as you arrive.

Next up, the category organization ...


The categories on the old site were much too difficult for newcomers to see, and much too long to scroll down to get to where you wanted to go. We also had way too many of them, several of which I'm betting nobody bothered to visit. Now we've got everything organized in a more meaningful way and in a spot you can find easily.

We realize there are some small glitches with this feature, such as the trailing comma, the over-the-video issue and the clickability of the top-level menu items, and those are being worked on.

Over to the right you'll see things have changed quite a bit as well. We're giving PVR Wire some much deserved love, for example, so you can see the latest headlines involving PVR and TV technology with a quick glance.


Down a bit more we have the Featured Video panel. This is where we can put up any video we're featuring, which isn't necessarily always going to be Brigitte's TV Squad Daily. So again, a quick visit to the site and you have one spot to look to see what video's buzzing that day without having to hunt around for it.

Under that you'll see a new TV Listings widget. Just enter in your zipcode information and reception provider, and you'll always have a list of what's on primetime TV that night on the top five networks.

The last new thing we've got on the right side is the "tag cloud". This is just something a little extra thrown in that gives you an idea of the trend of TV news and our posts have followed recently. Click on any of those and find all posts we've tagged with those words.

We've also made some improvements with comments, with more to come. For example, if a post author posts a comment, which is many times a followup to what they already said, those comments stick out a bit more with a orange-ish background:



Lastly, a feature that's been asked for by many has finally made an appearance. You can now more easily get to the last page of comments on a post (or one of several other pages of a post) by navigating to the bottom of the first page of comments:



We've got a few other things that have already started to make an appearance content-wise, including rating episodes on a 1-7 scale (you'll see our little TV Squad logo with a 1-7 number at the end of almost all episode reviews from last night on -- we'll explain that rating scale on this page soon) and the new TV Squad Lists. We've got some other great features coming up as well, like 'Standout Episodes' where we discuss incredible episodes from TV past, and a reemergence of TV Squad Polls.

If you're already a fan of the new design, then that's wonderful and we're glad you like it. If you're not a fan and have stuck around to at least have read this far, thank you for doing so. I'm hoping you'll continue to visit and not make a knee-jerk decision based on our site's appearance. We'll continue to provide the same great content you've come to expect out of TV Squad, and hopefully -- if you're not warmed up to the redesign now -- you'll find it's much more intuitive and fun than our previous incarnation.

Please feel free to dish out your comments, suggestions praise and disapproval in the comments below. While we can't reply to every one of you, I'll make sure some sort of future round-up comment or post will be made later addressing what you've got to say.