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It's hip to be 77square.com

Katie Dean and Rob Thomas  —  8/29/2008 8:30 am

Greetings from us here at 77 Square. On May 1, we launched this new Thursday weekly, covering the unique people, arts and entertainment here in Madison. And now we've taken another big step this week with the debut of our Web site, 77square.com. We hope you'll take some time to look around and let us know what you think.

All the stories you find in our weekly print edition can also be found at 77square.com, but that's just the start. We also publish fresh content daily, including Web-exclusive feature stories, live show and theater reviews, and a full lineup of staff blogs. Our reporters are already using their blogs to find new ways to cover their beats, such as Lindsay Christians' "On the Aisle" arts blog and Katjusa Cisar's "Dane of My Existence" pop culture blog. In the months ahead, we'll venture even further into new media with richer visuals, audio and video clips, and other bonus online content.

The new site is designed to be your one-stop guide to finding out what's happening in Madison, with an extensive searchable database of restaurants, film, music and arts events. A healthy dose of recreational sports, consumer tech and city living stories helps capture the full picture of the Madison leisure time experience.

As you can see from our home page, we took the "square" motif and ran with it. The tableau of changing story images plays off our 77 Square name, but also visually reflects our mission to provide you with small windows into Madison life. We think

77square.com has an elegant design, but more importantly, is simple, uncluttered and easy to navigate.

The Internet was intended to be an open system for sharing information, and we intend to follow this guiding principle. We're taking advantage of social networking and syndication tools so visitors can view the site on their own terms, whether that is using an RSS reader, iGoogle, Twitter, Facebook, or any number of social media products and technologies.

Whether you've lived in Madison for five days or 50 years, we expect 77square.com to become an essential tool for you to discover our city.

-- Katie Dean and Rob Thomas,

co-editors, 77 Square

Katie Dean and Rob Thomas  —  8/29/2008 8:30 am