Ezekiel Editorial: BacktoFrankblack changes!

Hello sweet kittens and puppies,

We've been having a biggg overhaul of BacktoFrankBlack this week (which has admitedly delayed the much awaited John Kennenth Muir podcast follow up - up this weekend!).

The main drive of these changes has been to streamline and cut out what has fallen behind in being updated, or simply is no longer being used. We want BacktoFrankBlack in 2010 to have consistent visual tone and be in a position where myself and Troy can manage it with efficiency. So if you're interested in what this means, I'll break it down.

• www.backtofrankblack.com has had a technical - and slightly visually - upheaval. I've been very concerned about how that beast has been spiralling out of control, with far too many interviews, features and links to keep updated in its current form and how its current form is so webmaster unfriendly. So for now, it's being cut back as I replace the extra content in a more user friendly and webfriendly manner. This means the features, interviews and extras are currently inaccessible (unless you've been sage to bookmark them) as I move the site from html to php. I will gradually return the extra features over time and keep you all updated to their reappearance. The main page is now a more functional news page and Barry Renshaw's fabulous opening artwork will become a free wallpaper - pending Barry's approval (another thing to check!). languages are also offline until we decide how to revamp those as well. The standard information, podcasts, links, FAQs etc remain. The aim is to make the website sleeker campaign tool and ensure all its features are easily updated and in effect, all up to date. So expect the features to return, but for now, I've just trimmed the stuff which was out of date and required offline inspection.
  
• The mailing list is gone for now. The list was far too cumbersome a software to use on a regular basis so I'm considering restarting it or looking at how we use it. It will return.
• Myspace B2FB is inactive - and potentially looking at being shut down. Why? Aside from Myspace often being very buddy and virus laden? Because myself and Troy are very keen to focus our community efforts rather than try and operate too many at once. Myspace is not a big platform these days and as such is really a lower priority than Twitter or Face book.
• Twitter and Facebook BacktoFrankBlack groups have had a face lift bringing them in tone with the main website. We have more consistency across the groups.

That's all for now. A rather dry editorial I'm afraid, but as we work together I believe you should know why and how things are changing this year. We have some more interviews lined up for February, we have a magazine article hopefully in the works and we're talking about another podcast crossover. Expect more from regulars Joesf and DiRT too! Keep sending those postcards!

A big thanks to my long term friend Zach Demeter for his help in getting my technical updated kickstarted. Couldn't have done it without him!