Web Watch: Web editor bids farewell

In my four years at Springfield Business Journal, I've seen sbj.net in three forms.

It was still in its original state circa 2000 when I joined the staff in summer 2005 as SBJ's first online reporter. The site was representative of many companies' early Web presences: It functioned as a brochure.

The inaugural site gave SBJ's history and staff contact information, and prominently displayed a picture of our office building. The site did feature the beginning of our online article archive.

A few months later, in September 2005, the site became much improved. I oversaw the launch of the new sbj.net, the one that would later win us a first-place Best Web Site award from the Alliance of Area Business Publications.

The new site was flashy. It was highly functional and packed with features. And by allowing us to post news as it happened, the site changed the definition of SBJ. We became a daily news source.

At first, access was free to our archive of more than 20,000 articles dating back to 1998. Before long, we opted to attach a price tag to it. We struggled to train Web readers to pay for news content, and the e-commerce system in its early days was cumbersome and inefficient.

Flash forward two years, and we started to feel boxed in by the site's design, which offered little flexibility. We couldn't tailor the appearance of the site to the news of the day; every photograph displayed at the same dimensions, every headline was the same size and every article got the same amount of attention, regardless of importance.

SBJ staff had become more knowledgeable about Web development, and we began tossing around the idea of redesigning the site.

Thus began the arduous but fun process of a redesign. We found Kokomo, Ind.-based 1Up!, which provided a basic back-end management system and the ability to tailor the specifics ourselves, from colors to dimensions to page layouts.

The big launch came in October 2008; sbj.net 2.0, as we called it, made its debut at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce Business Expo. The new version of the site looked flashier and was easier to use. There were reader-interaction hotspots everywhere - comment on an article here, submit a photograph here, participate in the latest poll question there. The new site also opened up the article archive, free of charge, courtesy of a sponsorship by Arvest Bank.

It seems that the rate of technological advancement gets faster every year, and updates are needed more quickly.

Later this year, watch for changes: a new option for enjoying the printed SBJ online, a mobile version of the site for you smartphone users, and easier-to-navigate photo galleries, among other updates. And we, like every newspaper, are exploring methods for locking down articles to paid users. Our news content, after all, carries a value just like any other company's product or service.

As SBJ works toward an even better sbj.net, I am saying goodbye. I have accepted a position with CoxHealth to manage its Web site content, a job that fits right into my career aspirations. My last day at SBJ is Aug. 20.

I'm excited for the new adventure, but I'm heartbroken over leaving a staff that has truly become my second family. I first met them as a college intern at SBJ, and they helped me grow in my first job.

I'm having a hard time parting with sbj.net, too. The Web site has been my full-time responsibility for four years. I'm comforted knowing that the staff is more than capable of maintaining it and implementing planned upgrades.

I'm going to miss being behind the scenes of Springfield's premier business news source. Now, I'll just have to get my daily business news like everyone else - at sbj.net.Dee Dee Jacobs is online editor of Springfield Business Journal.