After nearly 10 years on the web, My Ballard relaunches with new look

The 10th anniversary of My Ballard is coming next month (can you believe it?), and other than making us feel old, it made us realize the site was long overdue for a redesign.

Here’s the way the site looked back in January of 2008 with the ominous headline, “Community meeting about Denny’s tonight.”

At lot has changed since then, but My Ballard had been running on the same old WordPress template, and things began to break. So we’ve cleaned out the database, upgraded the design and (re)launched a few new features:

• We now have a full-featured Ballard events calendar, and you can submit your own events for free. Please keep the events local, and we approve submissions daily. Many events will be featured in our weekly roundup seen by thousands of Ballard residents, both on the site and in our weekly newsletter.
• You can now comment on stories without having to register.
• The My Ballard forum is back! You can remain anonymous, but please adhere to the rules. Unlike comments, a quick registration is required. If you had an account long ago under your same email address, but you forgot your password, you can click the “lost password” link.
• If you don’t mind using your real name — and you’re a Facebook fan — ask to join our new My Ballard Facebook Group, which has nearly hit 1,000 members.
• Our Ballard traffic cameras page has been redesigned with larger images, and our Ballard crime page lists the latest Seattle Police dispatch reports.
• Everything is mobile friendly, finally!

You may also notice that we’re publishing more stories, more often. We’re still working on a few tweaks here and there, and please feel free to let us know what you’d like to see — or what isn’t working. Thank you for your patience!