Fuel for the Ride!

Dear fellow contributor,

We're picking up where we left off in 2011, adding new features and making rapid improvements to the website. Though we're pushing full speed ahead on our technology, we need your help to keep the content flowing. Please read on for the details.

Index

1. Content Shortage
2. Article Submission Form Improvements

3. Website Changes

4. "Reassessing" and "Building a Jazz Library"

5. New Column Concepts Wanted

1. Content Shortage

Content volume typically drops off around the holidays, but it has remained flat through January. If you have articles that are near completion, please wrap them up and submit them ASAP. We need an active staff moving forward.

2. Article Submission Form Improvements

We're in the process of upgrading the article submission form, which should improve ease of use. In addition to rewriting the submission form code, we also added auto-completion features (sweet!) and CD cover art upload functionality (nice!), and we'll soon add a tool bar to make italicizing and linking a breeze (true!). We'll also validate what you have entered for accuracy (wow!).

For instance, say you're submitting a review of a previously reviewed album. While entering the title, the form will present you with a dropdown list of options and you can select the title from a previous review. Once selected, the form will pre-fill the musician name, year released, the record label, the CD cover art, the track listing, the personnel listing, and the YouTube video link. All that's left is to paste in your review and you're done (woop!).

3. Website Changes

We are rapidly improving All About Jazz and greatly expanding how it works. If you visit AAJ regularly, you've probably noticed the changes. You can read about our January improvements here. To stay current on all recent activity, check out the related news announcement here. Our improvements have resulted in increased traffic and prolonged reader sessions.

4. "Reassessing" and "Building a Jazz Library"

If you're short on music to review, feel free to review favorites from your personal collection. We're always looking for fresh perspectives on albums released between the 1950s and the 1970s and you can submit them under our Reassessing column category.

We're also looking to relaunch our Building a Jazz Library column. If you feel comfortable writing about a particular musician's discography, about a certain period of jazz, or even a certain instrument, please consider developing a series of BAJL articles. You can read a few examples to get the gist of how it works.

5. New Column Concepts Wanted

We're always on the lookout for new column ideas and provocative opinion pieces. If you have an idea (from covering jazz in your town to a column) please contact me to discuss. We just launched the "Catching Up With" column (i.e. brief interviews) and you can read about it here.

Keep it nice and neat.

Michael Ricci Founder/Publisher Guy

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