Allusionz Network Magazine Launches
Syntagma Media is pleased to announce the launch of its first network magazine : Allusionz, devoted to the Arts and Philosophies.
The portal has been designed by Swedish webmaestro and journalist, Thord Hedengren, who also writes for The Blog Herald.
We still have a number of features to put up on the page, but the essential shape and content is there.
The four-post block to left, will be chosen regularly by an editor (currently yours truly), and there’s a feed from the whole magazine to the right. Graphical links to each section of the magazine — represented by standalone websites — are shown below the posts.
Personally, I’m delighted with Thord’s work on this and the energy and speed with which he accomplished it. His remit was to produce a simple, functional page, to drive traffic to sites, in a pleasing and designer-labelled setting. He’s done that magnificently.
The template will be used for our other two network magazines : 21st-century Phi (Sciences and Future Technologies) and LifeTimes (Lifestyles and Celebrities) which will be live very soon.
So get rid of your illusions, read Allusionz.
[...] John Evans details: The four-post block to left, will be chosen regularly by an editor (currently your truly), and there’s a feed from the whole magazine to the right. Graphical links to each section of the magazine — represented by standalone websites — are shown below the posts. [...]
By Syntagma’s Network Magazine Debuts at The Blog Herald on November 17th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
I love it!
By Steve Newman on November 17th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Muchas gracias, Stephano.
By John Evans on November 17th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
OMG! A header that is clickable!
Nice job Thord! (and good choice John!)
But .. where does the header go? Will there also be blog entries beside the four editor picks? Commenting? etc?
I like that double column style .. looked good on the new instablogs and it looks good on the new allusionz site! I think we will be seeing more and more of this out there over the standard kubrick style column .. (I mean instead of one column of content and sidebars, multiple columns of content). Does it look more like a newspaper though? or magazine? Time will tell!
And - I wonder if you will soon tell us what your new URL’s will be for the other magazine!
By HART (1-800-HART) on November 17th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Thanks you, HART. No commenting on this site, though, as it’s simply a portal (traffic driver) to the other sites. Think of it as the contents page in a print mag, but with added online goodies.
I agree with you about the multicolumns, they look so much better than the uni-columnar blog style. The URLs for the other two are :
PhiMagazine.com
LifeTimesMagazine.com
By John Evans on November 17th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Looks more polished, John, so kudos on the re-design - I’m liking it.
Although I’d have the headlines clickable to the blog/articles.
I think for a first time visitor they might get confused and think Allusionz is THE magazine (ie: not knowing you have a ton of sites grouped within it). I’d have a text link of all your titles/sections above the fold say where the “More from Allusionz” is - but that’s just my 2 cents worth.
But overall a step in the right direction IMHO. Well done.
By Martin Neumann on November 18th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Thanks, Martin, very generous of you. We’re still teaking the template, and all comments will be carefully looked at.
Allusionz is the digital equivalent of the cover and contents page of a print magazine. That’s what a portal is — it sends traffic to all points at the behest of the reader. There are individual graphic links to the sites below the four-post block, although these may be redone when Thord redesigns the network template.
There’s still a lot to do.
By John Evans on November 18th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Are you still tweaking this template? I finally figured out what’s missing John .. (besides the date under each post in the right column) ..
http://skype.com/ >> see the bottom (mouseover & opaque effects)
cya
By HART (1-800-HART) on November 19th, 2006 at 8:53 am
We’re still tweaking, HART, it never stops.
The right column is absolutely fresh content, so having today’s date repeated over and over seemed a bit pointless.
As for the Skype effect, I don’t like it, it’s too cute by far. Those Web 2.0 affectations say one thing to me : there’s nothing here of interest, so enjoy the view and the twiddly bits.
By John Evans on November 19th, 2006 at 10:29 am