We've got a New Website and I'm already freaking out about what I call Buttons, Banners, and "Blasts"

Well, it only took two or so years of covering the neighborhood, but the pipeline's website is up and running! Our home page features a farmer from the market, snapped a few summers back. In fact, there's farmers up the street right NOW as I type this, offering fresh produce and more. Ready. Set. Go. Read more here on our site, which looks a bit like this streets blog!

You can visit us at chicago-pipeline.com where things will be more centralized soon, once we get a grasp on which content we'd like to highlight. We still plan to send out the weekly newsletter, though we may cut back on what we include in the newsletter. So far, the newsletter seemed to be working, so I am a bit reluctant to switch to a web site. So much goes on behind the scenes that we work on, that to release stories one by one, and then send out a synopsis with headlines seems a bit too disjointed for our tastes. Also irking me to no end are the "button" advertisements on website!!!

Do you click on banners?

Do you click on menu items that I link to from somewhere else, because I personally read the menu items and found them to be interesting, and wanted to share?

That is the difference between traditional media and the pipeline. We want our partners to receive attention and interest in their products and services. We hope the small business owners in our neighborhood would thrive even more, if people knew that by supporting them they are contributing to a diverse and eclectic community.

There will be no buttons and banners. Not yet. Or, more aptly, there will be advertisers, but it won't look like buttons and banners and the differentiation between the two will be clearly noted, to appease the Gods of Journalistic Integrity.

Buttons and Banners- Boo! And while we're on this note, please don't get me started on the word "blast. Marking corporate types would call the newsletter we send out an email "blast," but we prefer it to just be proof that we were having a blast when we were developing the issue.

speaking of which, WICKER PARK FARMERS MARKET begins today, on park grounds, from 8AM to 2PM.