Today, a business magazine’s online presence is just as important as its print identity, and has to be upgraded regularly to keep up with new technology, new content opportunities and new ways to serve readers. That’s why we’re pleased to announce the launch of our completely redesigned food-management.com site, an initiative that our Cleveland editors (and our New York-based digital team) have been working hard on for the last six months.
You won’t have any trouble seeing the difference—click here. But if you want my opinion, here are the Top 10 reasons why the new site is a big improvement over the old one.
10. A Great New Taxonomy! (In street lingo, that means our content tagging and navigation structure.) Drop down menus from our main category bar can help you find everything from onsite market trends to recipes to our annual Top 50 listings.
9. Our New Rotating Photo Carousel to call your attention to the latest features posted on the home page over the course of the month. Check it out! And right beneath it, you’ll find quick links to the latest videos posted on our various FMTV channels.
8. Staff Blogs, a feature we’ve wanted for some time, that let you see what’s on the mind of executive editor Mike Buzalka, associate editor Tara Fitzpatrick and (naturally) yours truly. That’s also where you can find repeats of my Twitter posts and again, you’ll find them right on our home page.
7. Easier-to-Find Operator Profiles. One of the signature features of Food Management over the last 15 years has been our long-running “FM Innovator” series of profiles. These have highlighted and honored operators and institutions responsible for many of the country’s most innovative dining programs. But finding them hasn’t always been easy. Now it is, and you can find a ready directory to past Innovators (as well as past Silver Plate Winners and FM Best Concept Award winners) from our dropdown menu of “Onsite Leaders.”
6. Selected Links to Frequently Requested Content. Many folks liked how we handled this before, so we expanded it. Now you can find quick links to many of the articles we’ve found people referring to in our archives, as well as links to key onsite association websites and other Penton magazines of interest to those in the foodservice industry.
5. Our Monthly Reader Poll lets you weigh in on a topic of interest. Let us know what you think and give us a measure of operators in your segment!
4. News Briefs—Updated Constantly. You could always find these on our home page, and you didn’t think we’d drop them in the redesign, did you? Stay up to date with what’s going on right when it happens.
3. Our Greatly Enhanced Search Function lets you search over 10,000 items from the FM archives to quickly find that one piece you remember reading a few years ago about how to cook paella in a hotel pan. You’ll find it easier to locate recipes along the lines you want, news about specific topics or companies and people we’ve reported on in the past.
2. The Latest News & Trends, Sorted by Market Segment. We know that sometimes readers are in a hurry and just want to get a sense of what’s going on in the segment in which they operate. Our News & Trends section is now more integrated with our content database and can give you a fast way to review not only segment related features but also all of our recent news briefs, sorted by segment and in chronological order.
1. And the No. 1 Reason to Visit the New Food Management Website? That hasn’t changed. You’ll find that food-management.com remains the best all around source for the latest ideas, news, trends, food and business information to help you do your jobs better, more efficiently and more successfully. We redesigned it for you and we hope you like what you see.
—John Lawn
Editor in Chief