When we started heavy development of the new version of Daily Kos, re-engineered from the top to bottom, my public statements suggested a Q4 launch (basically, in the fall). However, years of working with developers and technology have taught me that complex projects like this one often fall behind schedule, so sometime mid-year I started saying "February 2010" just to play it safe.
Well, I've just gotten an update from the development team, and it looks like Q4 2009 is still in the cards. Would I guarantee it? Nope, but I'm certainly hopeful, verging on "giddy with anticipation".
The redesign is complete. I think it looks gorgeous, and marks a significant departure from the current look. It's downright retro. It may take you guys a while to get used to it, but hopefully not too long. I gave some of the Rescue Rangers a brief preview of it at Netroots Nation, and they didn't seem to hate it. That was encouraging. We also have all the HTML and CSS for the front-end, and it's amazing markup. Sure, that's the sort of thing only web geeks will appreciate, but for the rest of you, it should mean solid compatibility across (modern) browsers and great rendering speeds.
So now it's all down to the back-end dvelopers, and they're cranking through the project. I gave some hints of what's up ahead in this interview a few months ago:
I’m in the midst of a grounds-up redevelopment of Daily Kos that will hopefully be even more empowering to my community. If it was just about me, the current site gives me all the pedestal I’d ever need. But, the community can always do more if it has the right tools, and so I’m embarking on this major (and dangerous) project to try and give them even more ability to shape the direction of the site.
Care to share any hints on what that’s going to be like?
People want to be empowered, and open source allows that. It’s why we’ve seen so many successes in that realm. I can either try to ignore that trend, stand in its way, or embrace it. Currently, community members are limited to just a single diary a day, everyone shows up on the front page, even if just a few minutes, and they’re unable to work together without using outside tools (like Google groups, etc).
DK4 (the new version, due out in Q4) will allow people to host their blogs on Daily Kos (like blogspot), create group blogs, and there’ll be tools for internal communications and collaboration. So, no limits on writing, but at the cost of front-page access — the recent diaries list would scroll faster than a stock ticker. So we’ll have tools to find the best material and feature it on the front page (and some of that stuff in even more prominent positioning than is currently the case). Some of those tools will be software, others will be human editors.
It’s a very community-centric upgrade, which makes me excited. I long ago learned that my success doesn’t stem from my own writing, but from my acknowledgment of the power and importance of community.
This thing truly kicks ass, even if there'll be a bit of an adjustment period. This new Daily Kos will be about creating networks -- having people follow you, launching group community blogs, etc. The rescue rangers will work real-time, "rescuing" neglected diaries not just in a single post in the evening, but in a constantly updated pervasive "recommended" box at the top of the site (above even our own editors' content). Recommended diaries will still get the front page, in a a "popular diaries" box/widget, so the star diarists will still have their platform, but there will be other ways for the less-known to be found. People will be able to find content via their own and other users' "stream" (like an RSS feed of the diarists and groups they follow), via tags (nicely beefed up in this new version), via a "spotlight diaries page", via the rescued diaries, and via a statistics page that will track the most active users and groups.
In fact, the entire reason for this re-engineering was 1) encouraging people to write fantastic material, and 2) making it possible for the community to find that fantastic material, which would then 3) encourage people to write more fantastic material. This new site will be judged on whether it accomplishes those simple goals.
We're hoping to have a closed beta in November (meaning, you'll need a login and password to view the beta site). While we haven't worked out the details, we'll likely open up this closed beta to this site's power users and ask them to break it. It'll be buggy as hell, so the more of that we can fix before the official launch, the happier everyone will be. I was hoping to have a "soft launch", in which the new site would run concurrently with this existing one, but it doesn't seem technically feasible, so we're hoping to flip the switch to the new site sometime in mid-December, when things are a little more laid back and relaxed around here, and the holiday spirit makes you all more charitable toward the inevitable speed bumps the new platform should hit.