Countdown to the new and improved SW

NEXT WEEK — on May 29 to be precise — SocialistWorker.org will launch a major renovation and upgrade of our website.

It’s a long time coming. SW began publishing daily on the web 10 years ago on May 1, just as a number of left-wing and independent websites came into their own. A lot has changed in the decade since, including the launch of many more invaluable sources of news, analysis and commentary that we’re sure SW readers check out regularly.

We’re proud that SW is still recognized around the left for our analysis of national and international developments, and for the wide scope of reporting on labor and movement struggles, which is hard to find anywhere else. But after 10 years, we’re certainly ready for a change.

The reports and socialist commentary that you find every day at SW will still be there. But thanks to our excellent web development team — shout out to Derek Wright, Zakiya Khabir and Geoff Bailey — the new site will look...well, so much better.

And easier to use. For anyone reading websites on a cell phone — which has been more than half of all users for, ahem, quite a long time now — articles and pages at SocialistWorker.org will now be formatted for your phone.

We also have new features built into every page that will give readers one-click access to related articles, more coverage from that day and the past week, staff selections of stories from our large archive — in short, lots of reasons to keep reading at the SW website.

The menu system at the top of every page has been revamped to help readers find the latest SW coverage on the most important topics of the day, and from special sections like editorials, labor and movement news, and more. And, oh yeah — a vastly, vastly improved search function.

REGULAR READERS are going to be particularly interested in the new home page design of SW.

Home pages are less important as an entryway for all news websites now that a lot of people find their way to articles and commentaries through social media. But we’re taking advantage of that to redesign the home page to be more useful for readers who come to SW as a resource, rather than just reading a single article.

In addition to the top stories of the day, the home page will feature sections that collect a half-dozen or more of our most important articles, new and old, on a particular topic: “The Revolt of the Teachers” or “Trump’s Teetering Tower of Corruption” or “The 1930s Struggles That Changed U.S. Labor,” for example.

We also have a home-page section on “What We’re Reading”: a regularly updated list of must-read articles from other websites, particularly fellow left-wing sites, plus staff selections of books and journals.

Last, but far from least, our favorite socialist podcast Better Off Red is going to be permanently featured at the SW site. You can listen to the latest episode on the SW home page and find the rest of the Better Off Red catalogue inside.

That’s enough of a teaser. We’re still a week away from being able to show you what we’ve been working on — and we’ll take this opportunity to apologize for any bumps in the road before we get there and after.

But we hope our readers will spread the word about the May 29 launch date — and that you’ll be as excited as we are about the new and improved SocialistWorker.org.