The New BackStage.com

This week marks the launch of Back Stage's newly redesigned website, which features improved navigation and functionality that, I hope you'll agree, is a significant upgrade. Better organized, the new BackStage.com allows you to more easily locate stories, reviews, blogs, listings, and video. While it's been a year since we introduced video to our website, video content is now much more visible. We've also added an online calendar of events for Los Angeles and New York so you can look beyond the coming week to see what's happening. Also new are L.A. and N.Y. portals linking to filtered content related to those two key cities. Other additions include a user comment box so you can always share what you think, a "most popular" box listing the most-read stories on our website, and an improved archival search that allows you to locate content by a writer's byline, a favorite column, a keyword, or the name of a past article or spotlight.

I'm also pleased to announce that Espresso, our daily news weblog by Back Stage News Editor Andrew Salomon, is its own blog with its
own URL. Check it out at www.backstage.com/espresso or visit BackStage.com's Homepage or News & Features page to link to it.

You can also custom-design BackStage.com's homepage to suit your interests. So if you prefer, for example, to always see Reviews or Blogs at the top of the page, you can modify the page. You can even change the color of the homepage from red to blue if it tickles your fancy.

In addition, we recently expanded information and improved
functionality for our sister publication, Call Sheet, online (www.backstage
.com/callsheet) to include contact names and detailed submission policies related to listings of casting directors and agents. The search functions now include expanded categories for the type of representation, and types of
talent, as well as regional search information for agents and CDs.

Please let us know what you think of the new BackStage.com.
I welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions. You can reach us at [email protected]

Sincerely,
Jamie Painter Young
National Editor-in-Chief