Yeah I can understand Hal's position on moving all to a new system. Writing for this blog is fun but the technical aspects of it could greatly be improved and we could come up with more pleasant looking articles. I am not saying we should forget about content because that is even more important but I think the re-design will work for everyone, both front-end and back-end, in the long run.

The 15% discount on software for our subscribers (VIPs) is based on an agreement with Handango. We have discussed increasing the discount rate, but it really isn't much in our control.

Nate, it was a very difficult decision not to produce a 2008 package - especially as you say giving up the income which is extremely important to the health of the magazine.

However, in the age of the Internet, it is very difficult for a print magazine to be viable without a strong Internet presence.

As I tried to explain in my post our current site although it has great content, is a hodge podge of pieces. To do simple things can be a major project. For example, if I want to change text in the Best Software Awards home page, either I have to do it in HTML or ask a programmer to do it. There is absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be able to add content and change things on any page on our site as easily as I do it here on the blogs with a simple text interface.

We want readers to more easily be able to post content -- we are thinking of having a blog consisting of posts of our readers about neat stuff they have discovered and do.

We want to support video on site. We need to allow more web advertising.

Users need to feel comfortable all throughout our site. Information needs to be more easily related. So, yours and other blogs about, say SPB Pocket Plus, relates to our awards and Encyclopedia entries and a magazine review.

Moving existing data to Drupal, relating content, and coming up with a new design that meets many objectives is not a task we can delegate to volunteers. (Having said that there will be plenty of opportunities for volunteers for example to tag content).

Hopefully, we'll have a Best of Everything program in 2009.

We can't wait either. Realistically (I hope), it will probably be May or June before we re-launch.

That's really awesome. I can't wait for the new site. I am sure many others share the same sentiments too.

Smartphone &amp; Pocket PC magazine - Comments for "Why thereâ€™s no Best of Everything Software in 2008 --- Only a few days for 2007 package"

Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine - Comments for "Why thereâ€™s no Best of Everything Software in 2008 --- Only a few days for 2007 package"