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Redesign: The Brand New ChurchCrunch!

Posted by John Saddington on Jan 31, 2010

If you’re looking at this from your RSS Reader then the first thing you need to do is visit the site because you are seriously missing out; our new look is smokin’ hawtness.

There’s almost too much to actually share and talk about so I thought I’d make a video but then I realized that no one would watch it since they’d be exploring around the site.

At least I tried.

There is some seriously cool functionality that we’ve added in this revision that I’d like to highlight.

Registration

The first thing that you might notice (or might not) is that you can actually Register to the site! There are a couple of reasons for doing this:

  • Creating your own profile so that your commenting experience is better.
  • Easier transition for users who would like to Guest Post; all we have to do is change your perms in the backend.
  • Long term community development ideas will be better communicated with a registration system (emails, newsletters, etc).
  • And more.

I love the fact that we were able to make it look like Twitter’s login system!

Meta and Sharing

I absolutely love this new look and should make sharing much better. In addition, you’ll still get the consistent uX that you had from the last look with “Related Posts.” In addition, we’ve saved some massive real estate with putting the Author Information in a tab-like structure.

More Props to Authors

This is really cool. Seriously.

We’ve increased the value of a Guest Poster to seriously new levels. Not only will you get consistent credit via your bio below the post, you’ll also be able to add a link to your Twitter to get more followers.

But, here’s the kicker: Every single post will have your name right below the title with a direct do-follow link to your personal homepage, site, or blog.

We figured that our Guest Authors should get as much return as possible for the work they do here at ChurchCrunch and it would be more valuable for people to get back to their own sites rather than go to an author archive here.

Obviously this is some serious incentive to consider contributing here (and the other blogs as well!).

Better Product Reviews

We review a lot of web services and products here on ChurchCrunch. Sometimes, they are pretty exhaustive and long; often times you may just want the “bottom line” in terms of what we think the product is worth or how valuable it is to consider using.

So, we added a little feature (with a big box) that’ll give you our thoughts on a scale of 1 to 10. Sometimes that’s all you care about anyways, right?

And More…

There are tons of other smaller things that really make this version shine. I’d rather let you guys explore around and check it out for yourself because this post is getting a little long for me.

:)

Enjoy. Let me know your thoughts in the wickedly-awesome new comment section below.

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1010

The ChurchCrunch Redesign

If I could give it more than "10" I would!

The guys over at LIFT helped me out with this design and they obviously did a kick@$$ job.

Booya.

John Saddington

John is the Chief Editor @ The 8BIT Network and Senior Blog Junkie here at ChurchCrunch.He enjoys Triple-Tall Americanos, developing Wordpress Themes, and a few other Random Things.

Leave a Reply

134 Responses to “Redesign: The Brand New ChurchCrunch!”

  1. dewde
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:18 pm

    Hi. My name is Chris Ames and I approve of this redesign.

    Reply
  2. Joanna
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:18 pm

    Looks good!

    Reply
  3. dannyjbixby
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:20 pm

    10/10. Would read again.

    Reply
    • John Saddington
      Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:21 pm

      ;)

      Reply
      • dannyjbixby
        Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:37 pm

        Hmmm, apparently I posted that 5 hours ago.

        “5 hours ago
        10/10. Would read again.”

        Except it was about 15 minutes ago. :/

        Reply
        • John Saddington
          Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:37 pm

          weird. i’m going to have to look into that…

          Reply
  4. Kimberly
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:23 pm

    Sweetness.

    Reply
  5. Scott Magdalein
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:24 pm

    Gorgeous. I’d totally make out with my screen right now if it were socially acceptable to do so. Congrats on the redesign, 8bit launch, and worlds of opportunity ahead of you.

    John & Chris rock.

    Reply
    • John Saddington
      Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:35 pm

      i wouldn’t tell anyone.

      Reply
    • Jim Gray
      Monday, February 1, 2010 at 2:13 am

      just clean up after yourself

      Reply
  6. Darren
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:25 pm

    grooviness

    Reply
  7. Dave Clark
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:25 pm

    Very Nice look. I dig it.

    Reply
  8. Jon Smith
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:29 pm

    Amazing! So sleek. You’ve created the Chevy 789 of church and technology blogs. :)

    Reply
  9. Luke DeMoss
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:29 pm

    Lovin the new design John! Very nice! Excited to see all that is to come with 8bit!

    Reply
  10. Mike
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:51 pm

    Love the new site – very sleek and sexy

    Reply
  11. Gabe Taviano
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:55 pm

    Nice work LIFT. Best of luck John and team!

    Reply
  12. Amanda Sims
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 12:12 am

    Ooooh, shiny!

    Reply
  13. kylereed
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 12:21 am

    It looks awesome and the features are great. So far loving the comment system here. Good work and looking forward to seeing more.

    Reply
  14. DJ Chuang
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 12:46 am

    “Whoa!” (with cadence like Keanu Reeves)

    Amazing features you’ve described here; looks can be cosmetics ya know, but the features and bells, that’s impressive. Looks like you’re poised for growth of all kinds.

    Pssst, I noticed that my twitter ID was _required_ ? That’s a new one for me. Could this be a new trend, Mr. Trendsetter? :)

    Reply
    • John Saddington
      Monday, February 1, 2010 at 6:18 am

      it is “required” isn’t it… ;)

      perhaps i should take that out… i’m not actually sure i meant it to be required…! you caught me DJ. not trendsetting!

      Reply
  15. josiahoslund
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 12:57 am

    Awesome!

    Reply
  16. Brian Alexander
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 1:14 am

    I really love this new theme. I can even see as I am typing this comment..like a typewriter. How EPIC!

    I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for this ever-growing community of nerds.

    Reply
    • John Saddington
      Monday, February 1, 2010 at 6:17 am

      thanks brian for being part of this community.

      Reply
  17. Rosemary Bray McNatt
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 1:15 am

    really love the new design! I’m a long-time reader and liberal religious minister who doesn’t share your theology but is constantly learning from your posts and others. Thanks for all you are doing here!

    Reply
    • John Saddington
      Monday, February 1, 2010 at 6:17 am

      rosemary, thanks even more! i try to stay theologically-simple, but perhaps it creeps in…! thanks for being here anyway! i’m glad you’re learning something.

      Reply
  18. SamMahlstadt
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 1:33 am

    Very cool look fellas. Well done!

    Reply
  19. Rick Smith
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 1:50 am

    wow! VERY nice man!!!

    Mega impressed…!!

    Reply
  20. PhillipGibb
    Monday, February 1, 2010 at 2:07 am

    smokin’ hawtness – yessssssss
    20/10 dude.
    would have been 21/10 but with my resolution I there is a minor horizontal scroll needed. 1024 x 768 – yes yes yes my work laptop is a retarded piece of junk and I know that not every resolution can be catered for.

    Reply
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