If you visited EarthFirst last week, you probably noticed something was amiss.
No longer. Today, EarthFirst is introducing a brand new look: brighter, greener, easier to use than before. Our eco future looks better than ever, and we wanted a community to match. Thanks to the WordPress wizardry of fellow green publisher Chris Baskind and his web team, EarthFirst is now as fresh and dynamic as its readers.
If you’re reading this via one of our feeds — in Google Reader, on iGoogle, or some other RSS client — click over to the main site and take a peek.
Faster, simpler, better
The first thing you’ll see is a cleaner, more open look. We’ve simplified the home page to make finding what’s new much easier. There’s a big, colorful features section right up top with the latest articles. Below that, you’ll see what’s still fresh and green. There’s always a cool video and cartoon in the sidebar, and quick links at the bottom to help you find what you need.
One of the biggest changes is in site performance. The old EarthFirst had gotten pretty sluggish. It’s no fun waiting for a page to load — we’re in a hurry, too — so we’ve done some things to make browsing a lot zippier. Hope you notice the difference. We’ll keep an eye on this in the future.
New ways to comment
We’ve never required you register to add your opinions to an EarthFirst article. After all, it’s a hassle to keep up with all the passwords we already have. Why add another?
Along those lines, we’ve adopted the DISQUS (it’s pronounced “discuss”) commenting system. You’ve probably already seen DISQUS-equipped sites around the web. DISQUS allows you to log into EarthFirst, and display your avatar, using many popular online identities. We currently support:
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Facebook
Yahoo IDs
OpenID
If you don’t have one of these, you can also create a DISQUS ID by registering here. This will also allow you to effortlessly comment at thousands of other blogs and websites — and keep track of those conversations, all in one easy place.
Not interested? That’s fine, too. You’ll find the usual blanks for your name, email address, and website. Comment away, no registration necessary. We will, however, permit authenticated users (people who have logged in through one of the services above) to post their comments to the EarthFirst without waiting for someone to approve their comment. Authenticated comments containing links may still be held for moderation.
Depending on your settings, DISQUS may ask if you’d like to share your comment and our article on Twitter or Facebook. We’d really appreciate this — it helps grow EarthFirst, and gets the word out about green news and causes.
What do you think?
EarthFirst is still a work in progress, and we’ll be adding more content and features to the site through the coming weeks. What would you like to see? A forum, perhaps? Maybe a marketplace, with EarthFirst-reviewed goods worthy of greening your life? Maybe there’s a topic you’d like us to cover in more details.
We want your feedback. Try out the new comment system and sound-off below!
