It took a couple weeks for the re-launched PJMedia to really grow on me, but I do love the new “matrix” format. The beauty of it is that the matrix is agnostic about what size device you’re using to read PJM, or weather your screen is in landscape or portrait orientation — the site rearranges itself to fit the reader’s needs. Behind the scenes, additional improvements help focus us writers and editors on driving traffic here, and traffic is what keeps the lights on.
But a couple of months actually using the matrix revealed a weakness I didn’t notice during beta testing: It’s damn-near hostile to the short-form blogging I’ve always done so much of. Longer pieces are worth clicking through, and they’re worth doing all the behind-the-scenes SEO stuff required by the modern Web. However, it just isn’t worth your time clicking through again and again to each one-line post, and it isn’t worth my time doing all the SEO stuff for them.
How then could we keep the VodkaPundit brand going, when half of the brand no longer seems to fit at VodkaPundit.com?
After a great conversation with Super Managing Editor Aaron, here’s what we decided.
My longer-form posts, columns, and Trifecta vids will stay right here at VodkaPundit, where Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ already know where to find the good stuff. When appropriate — which is often — those same items will be crossposted at News & Politics, Trending, Election, Homeland Security, Lifestyle, and Parenting. That will make it easier for non-Longtime Sharp Readers to stumble across my stuff, too. And my short-form single-line posts will go where they really belong: On Instapundit, where the scroll-and-read-and-scroll-and-read format still reigns supreme.
Got that? Longer material will be here, there, and everywhere at PJM (but always here), and quick hits you’ll find at Instapundit throughout the day. You’ll get all the same stuff, but appropriately placed and easier to find.
I haven’t been this excited to be blogging since I launched VodkaPundit 14 years ago yesterday — so it’s been a very happy blogiversary indeed.
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