About our new website

We're really excited to release the cohousing.org website. Our hosting fees were about to double, so we decided it was time to move to a whole new "platform" – an open source one. Open source is software created by volunteers around the world working collaboratively. The Drupal platform we're using gives us more power and will also allow us to bring more features to the site – things you've asked for in the past. Drupal was created for sites that serve a large, far-flung community like ours. That means we'll be better able to engage, communicate with and listen to our constituencies. Better yet, it's not just two-way communication; soon community members will be better able to better communicate among themselves.

Features of new website

The website is now organized somewhat differently with three main sections: Association, Magazine and Marketplace.

• The Association area presents information to help people learn the cohousing basics, the Cohousing Directory, and information on the association – and how you can "plug in."
• The Magazine brings you the best in fresh information and ideas about cohousing.
• Marketplace is the place to go for our classified ads and, eventually, a functioning cohousing store. Display ad information is also available for those interested in reaching those most involved in cohousing and those looking for cohousing communities to join.

Once you enter into one of those sections, the submenu shown on the left reflects the unique departments within that section. A heading above it reminds you which section you are visiting.

The three main sections plus the Communities Directory are shown in the upper left corner of every page.

Another change is that we have gained the simple, but much-needed, feature of a good search tool. It's in the upper right corner of every page.

Another nifty tool is found at the bottom of every page. That "related pages" shows the tags – the keywords – that describe the content on that page. Clicking on the tag will take you to a list of other content that also says something about that key concept. So it allows you to very easily trace what else has been written on that topic.

The new, more automated classified ad system and new types of display ads enhance our much-needed revenue stream that pays for a portion of our work on the website. We are now offering both display ads that appear on every page of the site in the right side bar and section-wide display ads (in the left side bar). These offer advertisers greater exposure than our previous page-specific ads. You'll also see that we now make use of our own "house ads" to promote various Coho/US activities and portions of the website.

Many of the new features are (hopefully) invisible to end users, but allow less tech-savvy users to directly work with the content. It will soon be possible for us to allow many more contributors the ability to easily edit web pages online. We're currently planning how to manage this and will soon enable more contributors to get involved. In the meantime, some of the editorial talent we're looking for can be seen here.

What's lies ahead
While this 8.0 Beta release does include a few new features, it is primarily about moving the existing content from the previous version to the new platform. Before looking ahead, let's take a moment to look at how we got here. An abbreviated history of our online presence is shown in the sidebar at right.

Once we've fully completed moving the site, we will turn our attention to taking greater advantage of Drupal and pushing the website to a new level. Some ideas currently being planned are:

• Online Forums – organized by subject matter with active management and contribution by experts on that topic
• Premium Access: new, expanded services and content for those interested in value-added services, and
• A real Ad Server - the 8.0 display ads are really just little pictures embedded on the site and an ad server will help us do a better job for both our advertisers and site users.

Why is this version a beta release?
Before publishing the new website to the world, the development team released it for testing by a small number of active Coho/US volunteers.

As mentioned, this release is mostly a simple migration of the previous website. We decided to release it sooner, rather than later, to help people get used to the new site as we begin an ongoing effort to improve it. This beta is offered to you in the spirit of co-creation because your reactions and ideas are so valuable to the process. This is your invitation to jump in provide feedback and to help create the website you need – the website we all need.

Invitation to tell us what you think

We seek your feedback in two possible ways. Please share your reactions to our work by taking a survey. One of the advantages of a Drupal website is how easy it is for us to make changes to the website. This makes it more feasible for our staff and volunteers to take action based on your feedback. A second place for your feedback invites you to be in dialog about what we want. Let's brainstorm and dream a little about where we can go with the website. A forum for that purpose can be found here. And don't hold back sharing your wildest dreams!

Hope to hear from you.