phpBB Weekly

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Welcome back! After about six hours of downtime (and about two additional days of work beforehand), the renovated phpBB Weekly website is now online!

Those of you who have been around awhile will remember that around this time last year we launched the new version of our website (the one with the cool translucency stuff and the Mars background); well, we’re still using the same theme as we did then. However, last August, we went through a major transition as we stopped using TalkShoe and started using uStream to do our live episodes. Though we made a few changes then, our website hadn’t been completely optimized to replace all of the functionality that we lost when we stopped using TalkShoe. Today’s renovation finishes up the job–although the design remains the same, most of our website has seen some significant changes and improvements.

New Home Page
Our site now has a new home page, with the blog and episodes now under a separate Blog/Episodes tab. The new home page is actually really powerful, designed to allow users to find out everything that they may want to know about our podcast right there.

The new home page includes the Flash player and download links for our most recent episode directly on the home page, along with a dynamic countdown timer to the next live episode (by popular demand). In addition, the next four scheduled live episodes are listed, and the descriptions of those episodes can be collapsed to save space. The home page also features much better integration with Twitter and Facebook.

You may be wondering where the Live page went, which contained the uStream player and chat box. Well, those are now handled on the home page too! When phpBB Weekly is broadcasting live, the home page will automatically change to show the uStream player and chat box instead of the other content, meaning that you can now stream the show and join the chat room right on the home page of our site! Come by for phpBB Weekly #134 on Saturday and you’ll get to see it–it’s really awesome!

Other Changes to the Site Layout

• Eliminated the secondary sidebar, providing extra width for the main page content and the primary sidebar. (Trust me, it makes a really big difference to the aesthetics of the site!)
• Used a higher quality version of the background image.
• Reduced the “information overload” in the sidebar, which now only contains Subscribe links, External Links, and the five most recent posts on the phpBB Weekly forum (made possible using phpBB 3.0.6′s ATOM feeds!).
• New Blog/Episodes view with quick links to filter by category or month/year, or quickly jump to the Archives/Tags/Weekly Picks/Zeitgeist pages.
• The Participate page is back, and by popular demand, now includes instructions on how to join the uStream chat room via IRC.
• Reduced legal/copyright info in the footer and moved/expanded in a new Legal section on the About page.
• New “Back to Top” links on the Weekly Picks and Zeitgeist pages for improved navigation.

Upcoming Changes for phpBB Weekly (the actual podcast) in 2010
Let’s face it: 2009 was not the strongest year for phpBB Weekly, as far as the podcast was concerned. As such, we’re going to be making some minor structural changes and tightening the format of the show a little bit next year. Here is a brief rundown of most of the changes that we have planned and are announcing:

• Shorter shows. We love to talk, but we’re sure that it doesn’t necessarily mean that you love to listen. We’re going to be tightening the format of our show a bit with the goal of having our shows be between 40-70 minutes long. (Shows with special topics or special interviews will aim for between 60-90 minutes long.)
• A more fixed release date. Podcast episodes will be released on the Tuesday following a live episode recording sometime between 1:00-7:00 PM Eastern time. I will try to hold to this schedule as best as possible, though from time to time I may get busy and be forced to release the episode late; however I will try to hold to this goal as best as possible. Special episodes or non-live episodes may be released earlier or later as needed.
• Better episode planning/promotion. We are going to have a goal of planning the main topic of our episodes at least a week in advance. This way we will be able to promote what is coming up the following week at the end of our shows (and give you a good reason to tune in live the following week). Of course our plans remain subject to change as needed, but it’s better than not announcing at all what we’re going to discuss until a day or two ahead of time. Plus if some newsworthy announcement does happen, we’ll likely cover it briefly at the beginning of our next show before moving onto our main topic, unless the announcement truly merits an immediate full show discussion.
• Better coordination with the phpBB teams. Other shows have come and go, but at the moment, phpBB Weekly is the only still-active phpBB podcast. And even though we are independent of the phpBB teams, we have a very good working relationship with the teams, and are going to try to do a lot more this year to bring in more voice from the team members who help make the phpBB community happen. (And hopefully we can get to hear from some team members whom we haven’t heard from before.) We’re also going to be doing a new series in the first half of 2010 called “Better Know a phpBB Team” (yes, I totally stole that from Colbert) in which we are going to plan a number of episodes spotlighting each and every phpBB team, hopefully while interviewing a member (or members) from that team. Stay tuned…
• Actually making use of our phpBB Weekly forum. In 2009 we launched a phpBB Weekly Poll Question feature on our show–which didn’t actually meet our initial expectations. In 2010, we’re going to try to bring about a slightly different idea: a Discussion Question of the Week. On each episode, we’re going to pose a related open-ended discussion question which will be posted on our phpBB Weekly forum after the live episode. From there, the topic will be open to you to discuss on the forum. On the following episode, we’ll take a look back at the discussion and read some of the most interesting responses on the show. We hope that this will get you a little bit more engaged than 2009′s poll questions did.

And with that, we are done with the 2000s decade! Enjoy the new website, and keep on tuning in. Onwards to 2010!