Take a look around, and you’ll quickly notice things are different at WindyBits. I’ve decided to revamp the site so that it is primarily an aggregator of events (and, secondarily, news) rather than a publisher. I’ve worked quite a bit on the changes, and I think you’ll agree that the new incarnation of the site is better than the original.

You’ll find the homepage is much different–but also, I think, much more useful. The calendar on the homepage represents an aggregation of several calendars, providing an at-a-glance view of everything happening in Chicago tech. This was my original goal in starting WindyBits, and I think the site does a better job of that now than it ever did in the past.

Important parts of the site:

• Revamped homepage — a comprehensive events calendar, quick links to the best Chicago tech resources, and a nice snapshot of Chicago tech news.
• Add an event — directly add your events to the WindyBits calendar. No waiting for approval.
• iCal and RSS — grab the calendar feed in different formats and the mashup RSS feed of Chicago tech news.

These changes also impact the WindyBits RSS feeds.

• The Main Feed will continue to be very low-volume. I’m going to use it only for announcements.
• The Chicago Tech News feed will now feature content from multiple Chicago tech news sources, drawing from a mashup Yahoo Pipe I’ve built for the purpose.
• Finally, the Events Feed will continue to feature events from WindyBits. However, you’ll find that the content will be pretty sparse, since the Events Feed will not recreate all the content found on the WindyBits homepage. (The homepage mashes up lots of sources, and I don’t want to recreate that post volume in the WindyBits Event Feed.)

Any questions? Try the FAQ, or contact me. I’d love to hear your feedback!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 1:50 am and is filed under Articles. Both comments and pings are currently closed.