As we announced a couple of weeks ago, the JOBLO MOVIE NETWORK has gone through some changes of late, with some other small updates to follow in the coming months. The main reason behind these changes is to “keep up with the times”, streamline our own operations, improve the overall speed of the site and merge/remove all content that isn’t interesting our readers anymore. Below are the main updates, along with their benefits…
NEW PORTAL PAGE:
The front landing page of the JoBlo Movie Network has been updated to better reflect the massive amounts of content that we churn out day-to-day (between our 3 main sites, we average around 40-50 articles every day). My favorite part has to be the new right hand side LATEST NEWS HEADLINES column which updates itself every minute with the latest news headlines from our main three sections: JoBlo, Arrow in the Head and MovieHotties (the Digital Dorm no longer exists — more info below). It’s to note that you can control what headlines you see in that feed by clicking on the BOOKMARK THIS TAB check-box at any time. For example, if you only want to see Arrow in the Head headlines on the front page, check that one off and you will only be shown the horror news headlines. Same for the other 2 sites and bookmark the ALL tab if you want to see them all at all times.
We’ve also made the front page a lot more visual and organized, as the left hand side will feature all of the latest section updates on the site including all of the latest exclusive feature columns written by our very own staff, as well as the latest theatrical reviews, trailers, celebrity interviews, most popular movies and hotties, this week’s DVD/Blu-Ray releases, the latest movie posters, images and much more! Oh, this front page loads much faster than the previous one to boot!
NEW GLOBAL NAVIGATION:
At the very top of every page of the JoBlo Movie Network is a thin navigation bar that allows you to easily switch from one section to the other. The global nav bar remains intact, but we’ve updated the section names to “keywords” to make it easier for everyone to appreciate what each section is about. For those who require a translation, here are the old nav entries, alongside their updated counterparts:
JoBlo.com –> JoBlo Movie News
Arrow in the Head –> Horror Movies
Movie Hotties –> Movie Hotties
JoBlo Videos –> Videos
Movie Fan Central –> Movie Fan Central
Pimpin’ Poster Palace –> Movie Posters
The Digital Dorm has been discontinued.
NEW LANDING PAGES:
One of the coolest new changes in this latest upgrade is the addition of “landing pages” to our 3 news sections, specifically JoBlo, Arrow in the Head and MovieHotties. The idea behind these new “landing pages” is to provide our readers with a much better “look” at all of the content available on each site. Each site will showcase 4-8 “feature items” at the top of each section, as well as a much cooler-looking headline list featuring thumbnail images from each article (so you don’t just read the headlines, but you also see an image associated with each story). For those who have been using our mobile site, you will note that these are the same thumbnail images as on your mobile, only bigger.
ARTICLE PAGES ARE WIDER…COOLER:
To complement the new “landing pages” for the news sections, we’ve decided to widen the article widths on each of the sites so that we can post bigger pictures and videos (woo-hoo, welcome to the 21st century!). We’ve also made the sharing tools much easier to utilize, added tags to each story in order to make further drill-downs easier, brought back the next/previous article links below each story, added 5 “related stories” links below each article, as well as a few more fun bits in the right hand column.
NEW PAGE FOOTERS:
Every single page on the JoBlo Movie Network (site map here) will also have the same footer at the bottom from here on, featuring all of the latest headlines from all 3 sites, as well as links to all of the different sections under each site.
PIMPIN’ POSTER PALACE is now MOVIE POSTERS:
As much as I personally enjoyed the PPP since it was launched in May of 2010, my “advisors” (yes, these are actually voices in my head) have told me that it would be better off if we just included our posters section alongside all of the other fanboy sections on JoBlo (including scripts, trailers, reviews, wallpapers, etc…). So the entire site and its contents are still very much alive, only switching masks. Instead of the 15,000+ high resolution movie posters being housed in the Pimpin’ Poster Palace section of the site, they will now be accessible in a much easier way via the JoBlo menu (see MOVIE POSTERS), and/or at the bottom of every JoBlo page (there will be a LATEST POSTERS section there).
NO MORE DIGITAL DORM:
We launched the DVD Clinic back in 2007, upgraded it to the Digital Dorm in 2010, but after much reflection and little interest from our audience, we’ve decided to “collapse” the popular parts of that section into JoBlo and simply drop the news headlines altogether. But before you flip out over the disappearance of the RELEASE DATES section (still one of the most popular destinations on the JMN), worry not, as it has a new home in the JoBlo section of the site, along with all DVD/Blu-Ray reviews (we’ve reviewed over 3,200 DVDs/Blu-Rays in the past 10 years). We will also be moving all feature columns from the DD to JoBlo including “Awfully Good”, “This Week on DVD/Blu-Ray”, “Ink & Pixel”, “Attack the Doc” and others. It’s always sad when we have to cancel a column or section or show that we really enjoy, but if the interest isn’t there from our readers, we really don’t have much of a choice.
OTHER CHANGES TO COME….
The biggest changes have already occurred, so if you were able to withstand these updates, you should be “good to go” from here on out. The only other updates to happen in the future include the updating of all the ‘inner-pages” of JoBlo, Arrow in the Head and MovieHotties (to make them look closer to the “new looks” of their respective news sections), as well as the merging of our MOVIE TRAILERS and JOBLO VIDEO sections (too much redundancy between them as it stands now) and an update of Movie Fan Central (along with its mobile version and/or app).
We hope that you can appreciate why we have made these changes, but even moreso, appreciate the changes themselves, as we truly believe that they make the reader experience on JoBlo.com, a much more enriching one now.
THANKS TO…
We’ve been working with the same web design/programming company since the early days of the site and they continue to deliver the goods in a speedy and efficient manner. Big thanks to Gino, the team leader over at Face3Media,, along with all the other boys and girls who worked very hard to make this update happen! If you need some work done on your own site, you can’t go wrong with these peeps…trust me. Tell ’em JoBlo sent you!