ATHENSi.com goes mobile

We've figured out how to make a nice mobile version of ATHENSi.com. If you have an iPhone or some other web-friendly smartphone device, point its browser to athensi.com and you should see a very phone-friendly version of the site. We used the free version of widgetbox.com, so you will see ads on the mobile ATHENSi.com. Maybe some day we'll pony up the monthly fees necessary to make the mobile version ad-free.

New (and improved) ATHENSi.com

For the past several weeks, ATHENSi.com has received something of a make-over, which is only really noticeable starting today. The background: students enrolled in JOUR 415/515, which is offered only in the deep-freeze known as winter quarter, have been pouring their energy into the site. They've produced a number of helpful how-to videos, available via the FAQs in the right hand column of ATHENSi.com. They've worked with community organizations to expand the content being offered by local groups, and most recently they've made some valuable suggestions on the layout of content.

An important change advocated by the students in the class was the enlargement of the "community news" footprint. This represents the success we've had at getting more local non-profits up and running as content creators. Students have helped groups set up twitter accounts and blogs so that their content is accessible via "RSS" feed. Which is the life-blood of ATHENSi.com. Simply put, no RSS feed means no content on ATHENSi.com.

One last goal this quarter is to be able to incorporate facebook fan page content. We're working on it, but it's proving to be a bit of a technical hurdle that has us stumped at the moment. But we're confident that our nerds can solve the problem, which will then allow us to subscribe to local organizations' facebook fan pages, of which their are many. Stay tuned.

Prof. Stewart