When the new year rolled in, www.ethanolproducer.com rolled out its new website design. It will make it easier to navigate, we think. The links to the different sections of the website are found horizontally on the top. Web news is more prominent now, and finding recent web news posts will be easier. The last six stories posted appear on the home page with their summaries, and if you want to view more recent stories, just click on the “more news” link at the bottom of the six. You’ll still be able to view the most recent issue of the magazine, follow the links on the right side.

A few new features will be of interest. There now is a comment feature for all the stories posted, which we hope will spark some interesting dialogue. You will find a list of “most viewed” and “most commented” articles below the most recent web news posts. It is sometimes quite interesting to see what stories gain the most readership. Sometimes it’s obvious why, other times we are quite puzzled.

Everything’s there that was on the old website, so just look around a bit. The ethanol plant list needs a bit more tweaking before it goes live. The familiar view should be available shortly, and a more comprehensive redesign is forthcoming.

And no, we didn’t do the redesign just to make you hunt for what you’re looking for in hopes you’ll stumble on something you didn’t know we have, as the grocery stores do when they move entire sections around. (Drives me crazy when I want to dash in and pick something up quick, only to find I can’t find it where it used to be!)  The new design better reflects the change to more news available on the website, and other features that have been added and dropped since the last major redesign. (I marked my fourth year at BBI before Christmas, and this is the first major redesign since I started.)

It’s a fitting way to start a new year, and a new decade of covering the ethanol industry in depth.