What’s New on Culture Bully

Hi everybody—thanks for taking a few moments to check the site out today! As of last night there’s a new look to Culture Bully & with the fresh digs there are a few areas of interest that I’d like to quickly draw your attention to:

• The site has gone back to a “blog” format rather than using a magazine-style design. How does this affect browsing? Make your way to the homepage and see for yourself. You can now browse a slew of posts at a time, listening to the entire page of music via the site’s music player (either click the play button next to individual songs or click the slide-out player which is located at the lower left-hand corner of the screen). If you’re reading this via RSS, give the website a try again—the new layout will let you see far more with far fewer clicks.

• The site is now using Shuffler. For those unfamiliar with the service, Mashable’s Brenna Ehrlich recently explained its functionality, noting that “Clicking on this option will allow you to listen to music featured on the site, while also reading content—you’re no longer forced to sit on a page in which a stream is embedded. You can also skip through songs you don’t particularly want to hear, and share jams via Facebook and Twitter.” Want to give it a try? You can either click here or click on that multicolored button up in the navigation bar and let the music begin. [I have noticed that for some reason a couple of YouTube pages pop up along the way. Best I understand it, this isn't supposed to happen—simply click the 'next' button to continue listening to the site.]

• Also on the navigation bar you’ll see a couple of city-specific landing pages. For those new to the site, Culture Bully was based in Minneapolis for a number of years during that time the blog featured a tremendous amount content focusing on the Twin Cities. After a year of shakiness, moving around quite a bit and whatnot, it’s my hope to better draw attention to some of the area’s music once again. Now based in Nashville, the site has also been aiming a lot of attention at Music City’s scene in the past months: For those who aren’t from either area and could really care less, I’m sorry. The hope is that you still give some of the music a try—maybe you’ll find something you dig that you wouldn’t normally hear. [I'll be slowly updating the archives to reflect the massive slew of content on the site focusing on the Twin Cities.]

• One final note. For anyone in need of some design work please check out Phat Magnet Media. I’m stoked about the work PMM did on the site and would recommend ‘em to anyone. The hope is that the new layout makes things easier: taking unnecessary steps out of enjoying music. Far more white space + a simpler way of looking at things (hopefully) = a better browsing experience. That said, if something looks bunk or doesn’t sit well with you please let me know in the comments. Thanks for your time!