Jewish Journal

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Project: Jewish Journal

www.jewishjournal.com
Launched on May 23, 2008
News Media, Clean Programming, Name Drop

Blog:Read about this project on the blog

The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles was founded in 1985, and has grown steadily from then. It now has a circulation of 60,000 and an estimated readership of 180,000. It is widely considered the most influential Jewish paper outside of New York, and is the only Jewish paper in Los Angeles. Before they came to Hop Studios, they had a web site, but it was disjointed and out of date. It had been built from diverse pieces of software and lacked a consistent design or information structure. When the editors contacted Hop Studios they were very interested in finding a solution to the sub-divided nature of their content management system.

A brand new design, including integration of their new logo. Migration of their existing forum software (a old version of Phorum). Migration of their existing blogs (from Blogger). Migration of their existing articles (from a home-created system). Migration of their existing events calendar (from Knowledge Manager).

Installation of Expression Engine and OpenX ad server. Development of a site architecture. Development of interactive features, like share links and most popular stories and the ability to comment directly on articles.  Integration of JQuery to provide animation and other site effects to improve the user experience. Integration of Nitobi toolkit (a javascript library) for additional useability improvements. Creation of RSS feeds for various sections. Customization of the EE administrative interface, and development of administrative tools. Training. Writing documentation. Lots and lots of meetings.