08-24-2006, 02:30 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Zune Thoughts Beta Officially Launched
I wanted to announce the official launch of the newest Thoughts Media Inc. community site: Zune Thoughts!
My introductory post over at Zune Thoughts explains why I'm launching a site about Microsoft's Zune project, so I won't repeat that here. What I do hope, though, is that if you have an interest in Zune, you'll become an active participant in the community at that site. There's never a harder moment for a community than when it's just getting started, and I definitely need all of your help in getting it off the ground. We're also looking for Contributing Editors for that site, so if that appeals to you, get involved and I'll be watching for people that stand out.
A word just for Digital Media Thoughts readers: why aren't I covering Zune right here on Digital Media Thoughts? After all, it's a digital media player and certainly within the realm of topics we cover here, right? The problem is focus: sure, we could create a Zune forum here, post Zune news, and review a Zune player when it comes out, but it wouldn't make Digital Media Thoughts a hub of Zune community. Why not? Because people interested in the Zune are going to look for Zune-specific communities. Look at our Windows Media Center and Portable Media Center forums here: they're ghost towns. Why? Because when Joe Smith has a Media Center question, he goes to Google, types in "Windows Media Center" and finds The Green Button. People look for Web sites that focus on the thing they're interested in, and Digital Media Thoughts simply can't deliver that. As the year continues, Digital Media Thoughts is going to change it's focus a bit, and deliver what I believe we're best at. More on that later.
A few words about the layout of Zune Thoughts: as you can tell, it's far from finished. We have placeholders everywhere, and the front page is missing many of the "hooks" into the forums such as recent posts, top stories, etc. The biggest change is the site layout: you'll notice we shifted the columns around and now have a more content-focused layout where the new posts are right at the top left part of the main body of the page. We're seeing how this "feels", and if we (and you) like it, that layout will be replicated one by one to the other Thoughts Media sites.
You'll notice we went with a fixed-width option for the site, which some people love and some people...don't. ;-) We've yet to add two things to the layout: one, a CSS-based "switch" that will allow you to toggle between fixed width (what it is now) and relative width (meaning it will fill up the width of your screen). We're also going to add something I think is really slick: a fourth column on the right that will have more site functionality and info. The cool part is that this column will simply pop into existence when the browser width is wider than 1000 pixels. So depending on your browser width, you'll get more or less info on your screen. Stop by Zune Thoughts and join the countdown to launch!
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