Emily W. Jensen: Tour the redesigned MormonTimes.com

With trumpet in hand, I am excited to toot the horn of the newly redesigned MormonTimes.com. So come along with me on a back bench tour of new features, updated navigation and even upcoming developments.If you look around MormonTimes.com, you'll notice the built-in ease of access. To the screen left of this column, the tabs of "Home," "News & People," "Mormon Voices," "Arts & Entertainment," "Around the Church," "Studies and Doctrine" and "Mormon Living" each open more detailed tabs in an organization that allows you to peruse information and find your interests. To the screen right, you have recent news and feature stories categorically organized into the "Most Popular" "From the Web" and "New Today." On the Main page, you have the tab of "Yesterday," a handy feature that lets you quickly find something you missed, or re-find something you found fascinating. Also on the main page, at center stage, are the featured stories of the day, with cool little arrowed tabs that you can click into.Back to screen left, you will also see the MormonTimes.com columnists given what we call "better real estate" so that you can more easily find their insightful, humorous, spiritual, educational and/or meaningful musings. And down at the bottom of the site you can learn more about us, contact us, send or read letters to the editor and more.You might ask why a redesign so quickly, since MormonTimes.com launched just at the beginning of this year. "In the short months since the site launched, its popularity has grown so fast, and the features we've wanted to add have come along in such volume that we literally outgrew the initial design," explains MormonTimes.com Editor Steve Fidel. Charlie Craine, director of Interactive Media, adds, "One of the major needs was getting more stories above the scroll since we were updating throughout the day rather than once a day."And before we go any further, I will take up my trumpet again to fanfare the news that MormonTimes.com now has an RSS feed! You can click into my column and then click up at screen right on the RSS Feed to have all the Bloggernacle news fed right into your reader. Or you can RSS feed columns and news from around Mormon Times. Designer Joe Charbonneau explains, "At long last, RSS feeds are now included with pretty much every page. Look for that little orange RSS icon up in the address field of your browser to add a MormonTimes RSS feed to your favorite news reader application." And if you are unfamiliar with RSS feeds and readers, scroll to the bottom of my column, where LDS Media Talk has put together a helpful tutorial. The redesign was spearheaded by Charbonneau and Craine and put together by the Salt Lake City marketing agency of Axis 41. Fidel gives the best reason for the redesign: "The site is built to make it easier to grow in. There are a number of new features on the horizon, and we're adding them, we're doing them, just as fast as we can do them well." Craine adds, "It sounds daunting, but I believe the best sites never stop evolving. So, we will try to constantly bring new features. My biggest hope is that our users will inject some ideas because we don't own every good idea."So what can you look forward to at MormonTimes.com? As developer, Charbonneau has some exciting ideas up his sleeve: "not too serious" Mormon humor, pioneer tales, guest bloggers, a book club, a calendar of LDS events, worldwide broadcast schedule of various LDS-related media events, an archive of conference talks and more!Explore the new MormonTimes.com today and watch as it continues to grow.And now for some other innovative posts in the Bloggernacle: Power Pick: The Bloggernacle extends across the world; this is evident in "The Mormon Blogosphere in the non-English Speaking World." These LDS Russians discuss an upcoming lesson similarly to English blogs. But the post also asks some provocative questions: "Will the internet do more good or bad for members who may first come into contact with salacious and faulty resources — and who may have little support to overcome such obstacles? Or will the internet be a support system for members looking for answers to difficult questions, and to those encountering the church for the first time?" Fascinating! Quotable comment: "Nobody can fix me quite as well as he who created me." Jami, commenting on "Spiritual Prescriptions." And this comment inspired a follow-up post, "Healers in the Hands of God."Conference coverage: The Bloggernacle covers General Conference in practically real time. It's fascinating and fun and you can both learn and discuss. For those who only have an internet connection, it's another awesome way to access general conference. So stay tuned for Bloggernacle coverage of general conference at MormonTimes.com, coming Saturday and Sunday!Techie tip: So "What is RSS?" An RSS feed (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication) is a stream of information that feeds into Web sites such as your designated reader (I use a gmail account-based Google Reader). It also feeds into aggregators and other Web-based applications (those that update information are likely fed by an RSS feed). Click on the above link for more information and a simplified video explanation, as well as a link to the RSS feeds from lds.org. Now that MormonTimes.com has an RSS feed for the articles, the columnists, my Bloggernacle picks and more, you can subscribe to what interests you in your reader and be fed by a stream of Mormon-based information!