ZDNet gets a facelift: The changes at a glance

As you may have noticed, ZDNet got a facelift. Here's a look at the key changes and the rationale for them.

We're going to beat you over the head with the big conversation of the day. Our new home page is designed to let you know at a glance what the big story and main conversation piece is. There's no sense in being shy about it. The home page is also designed to give more real estate to other features and stories that we couldn't before. So you'll see us get more creative with art and get you where you need to go. Underneath the featured stories and blogs will be the news and blog river that's constantly updated.

There's no distinction between news and blogs. For the last year or so we've danced around the news vs. blogs thing with our design, but our facelift makes it clear we're a blog network that delivers news via our posts. That means you get news, but you'll also get a healthy dose of analysis and opinion mixed in. Our news and blog page is one river of content, but there's no sense in doing some forced distinction any more. In addition, the best user-contributions will be highlighted more prominently.

TalkBack design is cleaner. In the redesign TalkBacks feature two primary views: threaded and flat. We have received a bunch of feedback on which view is better, but it really comes down to personal preference. Registered users can easily toggle between the two formats.

Here's a look at the threaded view:

And the flat view:

Video is easier to navigate. Video on ZDNet now has its own page with easily accessible channels highlighting our CIO Sessions as well as other programming such as our At the Whiteboard series.

Our blog network keeps growing. In recent days we've added Nate McFeters to our Zero Day blog and will be adding Jason Perlow, an interoperability specialist, to Between the Lines. We will also soon launch a new blog called "Enterprise Alley" that will focus on startups and innovative technologies targeted at corporate customers. On the reviews side, we're also adding bloggers such as Janice Chen, Josh Taylor, John Morris and Rik Fairlie and are looking for more. Stay tuned for our plans for reviews.

Our goal is to be a good filter on information, get you the news and context you need and deliver actionable tips. In the meantime, I'm sure there will be questions, criticism and hopefully a kudo or two as we work out a few kinks here and there. Should you see anything that needs attention fire away in talkback.

Thanks for reading and contributing to ZDNet. And thanks to all the design, engineering , tech production and project management folks behind the scenes--you know who you are--that made this effort a success.