November 2007

We have some important information to share since our previous newsletter. Please read on...

1. Useful Info and Tips
2. Celebrating 10 Years at AAJ!
3. Website Improvements
4. Digg Your Articles
5. Musician Profile Editors Wanted
6. Pump Up the (Interview) Volume!
7. October Traffic
8. AAJ's Jazz Mobile Service

Useful Info and Tips

We've compiled a handful of contributor tips that explain how certain processes work and will save you and our editorial staff time in preparing your articles.

• ALWAYS ENTER THE ARTIST/BAND NAME: Enter the artist or band name in the "Artist name" box on all article submissions. We associate the artist's name with their profile page upon publication so that a link to your article can appear on the musician's profile page under "Related Articles".
  
  
• ADD A STAR RATING: Please add a star rating to your CD reviews. It helps the editorial staff determine what gets featured on the home page.

• REMOVE LEADING PARAGRAPH BREAK: Please do not open your article with a paragraph break. It alters the spacing and we always remove it.
  
  
• UPLOADING CD SLEEVES: Check to see if the CD sleeve exists in our directory prior to uploading your version. If not, click here to access the page to upload the sleeve.
  
  
• CHECK YOUR PUBLISH DATE: Check your article's publish date by going to your profile page and clicking the "View Your Pending Reviews/Articles" link under "Private Contributor Information." You can also view the new Editorial Calendar.
  
  
• VERB TENSE: Use the past tense when writing a live performance review. Past tense establishes the performance in place and time and reminds readers that it was a unique, one time only event.

• COMMUNICATE WITH EDITORS: A new box on the article submission form allows you to pass along special notes or instructions to the editors.
  
  
• USE AN EMDASH: Do not use a single dash to separate a sentence (ex: " - "), rather use a double dash ("—") with no space between the two words. The website will automatically convert the double dash to an emdash when the article is viewed by the readers.

Celebrating 10 Years at AAJ!

We'd like to recognize the efforts and longstanding commitment from the following contributors who are all celebrating ten years of service at AAJ. That's right, ten years!

Collectively, they've submitted over 6,000 articles, so thank you Chris Slawecki, Jim Santella, Jack Bowers, C. Michael Bailey and Glenn Astarita. It's been a pleasure working with you all.

And here's to another ten!

Website Improvements

We're always looking for ways to improve the website and we've made some recent changes.

We upgraded the News Center, the Guides Center, MY AAJ, the Musician Center, how we serve banner ads, how we manage editors, and have developed two new Live Content widgets (Calendar and Birthdays) that should help boost traffic and increase AAJ's awareness beyond our website.

Readers (and contributors) can now view All About Jazz's upcoming article and CD review release schedule by visiting our new Editorial Calendar page. Get a glimpse up to 30 days out and see what's on our immediate editorial horizon.

And we finally corrected the character set problem that plagued our older articles. Those unsightly "?" have been converted back to rich-text characters or international symbols.

Digg Your Articles

We leverage new technologies to maximize exposure for your articles, whether it's syndicating your content through our live content feeds, RSS, or WidSets (thanks for the suggestion, Eyal!).

You may have noticed a "Digg" graphic (like this one) to the right of your articles.



Digg.com is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web, and you can make your articles available to a growing Digg community by clicking the "digg it" graphic. You'll have to register as a Digg member, but once you sign up, you can recommend your articles or other articles at the site.

Musician Profile Editors Wanted

Building the Musician Center has become a priority and we're looking for help from everyone to create profiles.

If you've written a review of a musician or band that is not listed in the musician center, please add their profile. You can create a new profile by clicking the "Submit Profile" link on the Musician Center landing page. If you can copy & paste, you can create a profile in a matter of minutes. Take it from someone who has created over 2,000—it's actually fun, and helps make the site that much more comprehensive.

Pump Up the (Interview) Volume!

Thanks to the herculean efforts of John Kelman, the interview center has become the hottest section at AAJ. We're now publishing three interviews a week and plan to expand to four. Sounds crazy good!!

If you're interested in interviewing artists or more importantly, becoming an interview editor, contact John to find out what's involved.

We've expanded the RECENT INTERVIEWS box on the home page to accommodate this increased volume and to make sure everyone receives proper exposure.

October Traffic

All About Jazz reached 1,483,819 visitors (47,865/day) and generated 7,395,693 page impressions in October 2007. All record-high figures for AAJ, which has seen its web site traffic grow by 54% since October 2006.

Here's a look back at October visitor traffic over the last four years:

2004 - 431,092

2005 - 800,552

2006 - 964,133

2007 - 1,483,819

Interested in the numbers? Click here for 2007 year-to-date traffic.

AAJ's Jazz Mobile Service

Jazz Mobile gives you everything you expect from a major wireless provider:

• Service through the nation's leading wireless network.
• Wide choice of the latest phones and popular calling plans.
• Superior Customer Care—No waiting. No transfers.
• FREE holiday shipping.

As always, we welcome your ideas and input. As AAJ continues to grow and reach more jazz fans, musicians, educators and industry people, your support becomes even more and more important. Shoot me an email if you have a question or suggestion.

Thanks for reading!

Michael Ricci

P.S. Missed our previous contributor announcements? Click here to read them.

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