Our 4th Birthday… The New TCJewfolk.com!

It's always a party with us.... Check out our birthday makeover!

It’s always a party with us…. Check out our birthday makeover!

Tomorrow is our Fourth Birthday! Happy birthday to us!  
We decided to give ourselves a makeover for our 4th Birthday. You’re looking at the brand new TCJewfolk.com! Don’t we look faaaahbulous? 🙂
But really, although some changes are stylistic, there are some seriously cool content changes that we think you’re really going to like, so sit back for a bit and I’ll walk you through them. But first, I have to give a HUGE shoutout to our amazing donors (our “redesign angels”) whose gifts made this redesign possible.
Our redesign angels were: Minneapolis Jewish Federation, Steven and Sheri Lear, Cliff and Kim Greene, Steve and Wendy Baldinger, Steve and Laura Silberfarb, Drs. Ernest and Malka Goodman, Paul and Paula Maccabee, Mike Hofkin and Ann Ginsburgh-Hofkin, Marc Grossfield, Jerome Ingber and Judith Brin Ingber, Steven and Gail Machov, and Mort and Micki Naiman.
And our redesign guru was the one, the only, Aaron Hodge Silver of Springthistle Design.
We encourage you to take a few minutes and play around on our new site, but here are some signposts for the changes you’ll want to check out, and why they were so important to us:

  • Voices” Section: Our new “Voices”  articles on the right side of the Home Page are written by bloggers with total artistic freedom who want to write about their lives through a Jewish lens, without taking the time and energy to set up their own blog. By publishing on TC Jewfolk, they get to reach an audience of 8,000-10,000 unique visitors each month, and we get the benefit of their great new content. Click here to learn more about becoming one of our Voices bloggers.
  • Top Three Articles, Top Three Twin Cities Articles, plus 30 more: Any time you look at our Home Page you’re going to see three tiers of articles front and center. At very top are the three most recent featured articles on TC Jewfolk. The three below that are the three most recent Twin Cities-focused articles — usually those will be about the hottest Jewish events going on right now that we think you won’t want to miss. Right now many of those articles will be similar, but once we expand to other cities you’ll start to see some real differences. Keep reading and you’ll see 30 of the most recent TC Jewfolk articles on subjects ranging from Jewish recipes to Jewish Humor, Politics & News to Israel.
  • Easy Access to the Sections You Care About: Whether you want to check out our most recent promotion giveaway, or scan the calendar for top Twin Cities events for local happy hours, our new menu brings these sections and many more to your fingertips. Click the category (Noshin’, Israel, Culture, etc) in our Menu bar for EVERY article ever written about that subject in the last 4 years. That’ll keep ya busy. Want to submit a Jewish event? Hover over “Calendar” to fill out the “Submit an Event” form.
  • Twin Cities “Upcoming Events” Widget on the Home Page: Happy Hours, museum openings, Jewish concerts, political events and more, all the top Jewish events in town that we think you’ll want to attend are featured on our Calendar. But you can also plan ahead by checking out the new “Upcoming Events” widget on the Home Page, with events This Week, This Month, and Further Ahead. Mark your calendars!
  • New Advertising Opportunities: Our new look provides better opportunities for advertisers to reach our audience. Contact [email protected] for more information.
  • Our Favorite Jewish Videos: Don’t miss the top Jewish videos locally and nationally – our new Home Page has a Featured Video section where we’ll post the top viral videos you can’t afford to miss! Check it out whenever you’re on the Home Page!
  • Subscribe to our Newsletter, Facebook, Twitter and More: Have you subscribed to our weekly e-newsletter yet with the top articles of the week, Jewish events, and Jewish job opportunities? Our new Home Page widget makes that super easy. You can also “Like” our Facebook page and “Follow us on Twitter, or just take a peak at our latest tweets.

And last, but definitely not least, the new TCJewfolk.com is designed with an eye towards the expansion of the City.Jewfolk.com model to other cities in the Midwest. For more information about that, email me at [email protected] or come to our Midwestern Jewfolk Happy Hour at Uptown Cafeteria on Tuesday, August 13th to eat and drink (we’re buying) and chat about the Jewish communities in potential Midwestern cities for expansion.
Find any bugs in the new site? Let us know. We may still have some kinks to work out with our new site over the next few weeks. Like the new style and content? Let us know! We’re always happy to hear from you! Thank you!
(Photo: Clover_1)