Important improvements to dpnow.com start from today

Regular dpnow.com visitors will have noticed that the site has been very quiet this month (though in terms of site visits and page views, we had our best week ever this month).

With our limited resources, to date, over the last few weeks we've had to concentrate on improving the technology that underpins the site at the expense of editorilal updates. We hope this will be the last time this break in service is required.

The new publishing engine is now in place and we've let it loose on the news pages to start with. Eventually, the majority of editorial pages on dpnow.com will be generated and managed by the new system.

What are the benefits?
For us at dpnow.com, the time it takes to enter copy and publish it on the site is now dramatically reduced. Broken links should be much reduced. The publishing system is also Web-based so it is much more accessible. Contributing journalists can even enter stories onto the system directly via the Web. You will begin to see some new names on the by-lines very soon! We will also be adding customisations to the pages to enhance the content and increase interactivity.

For you, the reader, the changes mean you will see more stories, more up to date and more regularly updated.

And there is no time like the present as we will be covering the big US PMA trade show, which is being held in Las Vegas this year, direct from the show floor.

Since Digital Photography Now started in August 2001, the site has been a bit of an experiment, a personal labour of love for myself - one that regularly attracts several thousand different visitors a day.

But the site couldn't continue the way it was originally conceived and constructed. Necessary improvements have been identified and one by one we'll be implementing them over the next few months.

There will be some adjustments made to the presentation of the site as we go along, some of which will be more noticeable than others. We certainly hope to minimise any glitches with the new system.

Last of all, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our long-time sponsor, Olympus UK, for their continuing and valuable support, which has been vital to Digital Photography Now.

From today, dpnow.com moves up a gear - so watch this space, there's plenty coming this way!

Ian Burley, editor/publisher, Digital Photography Now