Welcome to the new Bull City Rising

Two years. Just over 1,000 posts, as of this weekend -- and well past 5,000 comments. 697,000 page views. 99,500 visitors.

It's been a real pleasure getting to write Bull City Rising for the 1,000 or so daily and 12,000 monthly readers... and, especially, to read the comments in return. Thanks for reading and thanks for responding to BCR.

I'm pleased today to roll out a new look and some new features for BCR. At the end of this post I'll talk a little bit about where this all might be headed. For now, though, let's look at some of the changes.

• Email updates. This is a long-requested feature and I'm glad to be able to add this in. You can now subscribe for a daily email update that will send you the headline and summaries from new posts from the past 24 hours. This is great for occasional readers or folks wanting reminders of new comments.
• New look and feel: A new, hopefully cleaner and easier-to-read look to the site, featuring the new BCR logos. I believe it's now a bit easier to tell who left whose comments/feedback, too. By the way, yes, the colors in the logo at the top of the page are the same as the colors of the Durham flag. Thanks to Durham's own faberdesign for the new look and feel.   
• Easier "Shooting the Bull" podcast archives: A new archives page for the "Shooting the Bull" radio show, complete with an easily-accessible view of all past shows and guests.
• Locally-accessible advertising: BCR now offers two platforms for local advertising, designed to be affordable to local small businesses and to feature Durham-based businesses and organizations -- not random national banner ads. Thanks to the folks at Carrboro's BlogAds for suggesting their easy-to-use platform for BCR -- and to PaperG's Flyerboard, for which Bull City Rising is one of the first sites for their national launch. (Flyerboard is designed to provide cool, interactive flyers to promote events, sales, and the like.) See our new advertising information page for more on supporting BCR.

So -- where's this all headed, anyway?

I've been thrilled and surprised by the growth in readership and traffic at Bull City Rising. It comes at a time when local media are contracting more than ever, from shrinking newsrooms to more wire copy to thinner papers, all part of a crisis in journalism that is very dangerous for the commonweal.

BCR is by its nature a blog -- a newsy blog, but still a blog, published by some guy with a rather crazy and demanding day job. And while I don't pretend to be a journalist, there is a newsgathering function BCR serves at times that I think could grow in interesting directions.

Eventually, I think that small, Internet-focused publications -- in a for-profit or a not-for-profit model -- are likely to become critical sources for information and news in most communities of Durham's size, particularly as today's aging print readers are replaced by a cohort of more Internet-capable news readers.

Some of this site's relaunch are taken with an eye towards a future in which -- who knows? -- BCR might be able to bring on a couple of part-time stringers to cover more stories. Or, someday (on a timeline measured in multiple years at least) actual full-time reporters.

Is that via an advertising model? A non-profit model reliant on philanthropy? Subscription? College students as inexpensive labor? Volunteers and community contributors? Crowdsourcing?

I don't think anyone knows yet. Least of all me.

For now, whatever the future holds -- hey, I'm just happy you're reading. It's been a lot of fun to write these past two years, and the fun's just starting.

I hope you enjoy the new-look Bull City Rising.

Comments

[Valerie]

Kevin (and faberdesign), it's beautiful. Bravo!

[Ray Gronberg]

It's very ... orange.

[Lenore]

It looks great, Kevin! :) Very snazzy.

[aburtch]

Great new look!

[jacob]

The folks at PaperG may have already shown you this (since they've been using the flyerboard for a long time), but let me suggest you take a look at the New Haven Independent (newhavenindependent.org), which does what you're talking about: an internet-based local news publication on a sort of public broadcasting model, with ads and philanthropy.

[Tinomuvonga]

Fantastic!

[JG]

Very nice and pleasant.

Kevin: you're a journalist. A blogger type journalist but a journalist nevertheless.

Good luck and congratulations.

[Joshua Allen]

Kevin,

This is a great source of news about Durham. You have much better reporting than the either the Herald Sun or the N&O. I don't even consider the local TV stations to report news at all. The Indy is great but BCR fills a gap that has long existed in local news. Durham is very lucky to have you write this fantastic blog! Way to go!!

[Will]

Looks great Kevin! Now how about some t-shirts? :)

[GreenLantern]

Looks good Kevin, albeit a bit bright. I'll have to keep the lights on now.

I agree about the T-shirts. I also agree that the real, and positive, news about Durham is to be found at BCR rather than our local TV and newspapers. The "Shooting the Bull" is also a great alternative to 30-second snippets on WRAL and WTVD. There's much more useful news about Durham at BCR and some of the other blogs that I find little reason to turn to TV and newspapers that have nothing good to say anyway.

[Fiona Morgan]

Looks great, Kevin! Congrats.

[Michelle]

I read your blog everyday to find out what is going on in Durham. Keep up the good work!

[MDS]

Love the new look. Keep up the good work
PS - i actually drove by the onlyburger truck one day week before last. Had to turnaround and find out what the talk is all about
The burger is the BOMB. The fries - forgetable.
I love the brick background - to me very appropriate since downtown Durham seems to be in a constant state of construction.

[Mike Woodard]

Kevin:

The new look is great. Keep up the bull.

[Charles]

I get my Durham news from Bull City Rising - it is the best source by far. I cancelled my subscription to the Herald-Sun a month ago.

Folks, this is the future of news and community information in the Bull City.

[Greg Barbera]

sweet.

keep on keepin' on...

Bull City represent!

[Bull City Rising]

Thanks for the kind words, all.

And yes -- t-shirts will soon be available, with the alternate BCR "meatball" logo on the back and one of several Durham-related themes on the front.

I'm itchin' to put out a front that says "The Triangle explained: Raleigh's obtuse, Chapel Hill's acute place, but Durham's just right," but I know that not everyone (a) enjoys the Raleigh-tweaking or (b) has fond memories of high-school geometry.

So, if anyone has ideas for what you would like to see on a BCR t-shirt, email me or post it here in the comments.

[Ginny]

Congratulations, Kevin! I'm so excited about your redesign and new features. I'd love to interview you soon on 30THREADS. Your blog is simply outstanding and a wonderful resource for our community.

[Terri]

I've been living in Durham for 8yrs now... But until I ran across BCR about a year ago, I wasn't really up to date as to Durham's happenings. Thanks so much for very informative posts. Keep up the great work!!

(I like the renewed look, but I miss the categories that used be listed on the right side. Not a big deal though.)

[Erin]

Congrats on getting the redesign up. It looks awesome. And if you make the Geometry shirt I would totally buy one.

[Durham Bull Pen]

Really nice new layout. The content here, though, is what sets you apart at BCR, imho. :)

[Jonathan]

Looks very good! I look forward to more years of great posts.

[Valerie]

LOL math joke.

[JDC]

I left Durham a few months ago, but I still check in here regularly. The new design looks great! Keep up the great reporting Kevin.

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

Nice look, but I think you missed me in the big list o' links (Durham blogs).