Hidden Track Celebrates Five Years With Redesigned Site

“It’s our blog. Down here. Our blog. Chester Copperpot.”

On a overcast Monday morning in NYC five years ago today, Slade Sohmer published a post titled “And So It Begins” that introduced a feisty blog called Hidden Track to the world. Our aim was to bridge worlds that at the time we started weren’t connected–the worlds of indie, jam and classic rock–and while there are many websites that focus on those genres now, it wasn’t that way in ‘06.

[Old (Below) & New (Above)]

Over the past five years we’ve published more than 7,500 posts written by approximately 100 contributors that have been read by over six million visitors from across the globe. We took home a Weblog Award for the best music blog, were honored as best music blog by WNEW and have had our work linked to by the biggest publications on the web.

Now don’t get us wrong, the past five years haven’t come easy. Our contributors and staff ALL have day jobs and it’s our passion for music that drives us day in and day out. We’ve seen a number of music-related websites come and go (and come and go again in some cases) during our time and have always placed importance on consistency. Our readers rely on us for fresh content and we take pride that you can come to Hidden Track every two hours on a work day between 9AM and 5PM to find something new. But enough about the past, let’s talk about the future.

“The site will need a little work and it’ll take some time to reach the full rolling boil, but we’ll hit it eventually.”

In our continuing quest to add value for our readers and make your stop at our humble home a good one, today we’ve dropped the curtain on a new design for Hidden Track. We laughed, we cried, we missed deadlines, we had Aha Moments and now are happy to share what we came up with at the start of our fifth anniversary week. Ultimately we think we’ve come up with a more enhanced way for us to deliver and present content to our readers.

Our first goal of the redesign was to find a way to make sure our readers were aware of our featured posts. To that end we added a Slideshow to the top of our front page that displays a rotation of our latest and greatest original content. We also added lists of our five latest news items, reviews and features at the bottom of our page so you see what’s happening on HT this week at a quick glance. Additionally, you’ll notice as you get close to the bottom of each post a small banner flying in to alert you to two other articles we think you’ll enjoy based on the content of the article you’re reading. Nifty, aye?

“Please drop down some knowledge on us at any time”

We can’t emphasize enough how important your comments, likes and retweets are to us. We put ourselves out there and we want to know that someone is picking up what we’re laying down. Another aim of the redesign was to make it easier for you to interact with our site and to share HT posts with your friends using a variety of social networks. Enjoying one of our posts and want to tweet a link to your followers or share the link with your friends? Simply press the “tweet” or “like” button at the top of each post or at the bottom of each excerpt on the front page. We’ve also made it easier to sign in and leave a comment using Facebook (or not) at the end of each post. Taking a minute out of your day to let us know you agree with what we’re saying or think we’re full of shit validates that we’re not just pissing into the wind: PLEASE interact with us, we don’t bite (well, Wade might).

But wait…there’s more We’ve got page breaks! Read on my friends.

When we first started, there weren’t very many high-definition videos on the ‘nets. Now, there’s more hi-def material than standard-def fare, yet our site wasn’t optimized to display those clips. That changes today as we’ve increased the size of our main column to fit bigger and better videos as well as the images that our team of incredibly talented photographers shoot.

[Size of Videos on HT 2.0]

[New Standard Video Size]

[Size of Photos (this one by Jeremy Gordon) on HT 2.0]

[New Standard Photo Size]

Along with sharing original content, we also consider ourselves curators who point you in the right direction of articles and multimedia that we think you’ll find interesting. To that extent we’ve made many friends in the blogosphere and have highlighted their sites on our link page. Give us some time, but we’re aiming to make our link page a valuable resource for the community rather than the barely updated blogroll we’ve kept in our sidebar for five years.

Those are just a few of the highlights, you’ll notice plenty of other changes as you dig around the newly designed site. We’re still tweaking things and you may see some bugs over the next few days so please shoot us a note at scott at glidemagazine dot com to let us know of any issues you come across.

Yes, we have day jobs, but we’re willing to risk a Grade-A rogering from the boss in order to brighten your day just a little bit.

Each of our contributors and staffers put their heart down on the page and you can gauge their personality in each article. For example, when you read one of Ryan or Chad’s features, Jeff’s indie-focused columns, Parker’s technology pieces, Dave’s Cover Wars posts or one of my news articles you can tell pretty quickly who wrote it. As part of HT 3.0 we’ve put an “About The Author” box at the end of each post. We’re more than just a name in a byline and we hope “About The Author” will continue to develop that tight-knit relationship between our readers and our writers.

To that effect we want to put out our first open call for contributors in over three years. Do you have an idea for an article or column you want to put together for our readers? We want to expand our little family with more like-minded music fans. All we ask is that you honor the scope and style we’ve developed. Shoot me a note at scott at glidemagazine dot com if you want to pitch us something. Extra points for those who thrive on sharing breaking music news with their friends and want to reach a wider audience.

Thanks to each and every one of you who has taken the time to read one of our articles, have left a comment and/or have liked or tweeted a post we’ve published. We’ve watched our readership grow with each passing year and we’re honored to be a part of your day. We hope you enjoy HT 3.0 and we expect that the best is still ahead for all of us. Stayed tuned for more anniversary content in the coming days.