Editors' Notebook

If you're a regular DTN/Progressive Farmer online reader, but not a DTN subscriber, you're reading this blog on our public website, DTNPF.com. And if you've been on the site the past few days, you've no doubt noticed a few changes. Late last week we launched a completely redesigned and updated public website.

The official "kickoff" of that new site starts today.

There are a lot of changes and new features for the site, you'll want to dive in and dig around the various subject selections via links, pull-down windows and other navigation features. Here are some of the highlights.

To start, the new DTNPF.com design is built from the ground up to allow easier navigation and to be more mobile friendly. Navigating the site is now the same whether you're on a desktop, laptop, or using your smartphone or tablet. Let's be honest, phones these days work great in the hands with fingers like my 8-year-old granddaughter. For Papa's fat thumbs? Not so much.

So this new website design is a huge step forward for those greasy, calloused fingers, and builds on a similar design to that of the MyDTN subscription site, which was launched in 2014.

We've opened up more of the news content to general readership, so that if you see content on the site, you can access it fully. We also have a new "community" level that, once you sign up for, allows access to even more content per month. Joining that community also gives you access to our daily and weekly e-newsletters, which are extremely popular for those who want to keep up with the latest in markets, weather and news events that affect their farm businesses.

Click the "Join our Community" button in the upper right-hand corner to sign up.

You'll notice our search function is vastly improved, allowing public site readers to find the breadth of articles and analysis on a topic. Along with that, you'll find it easier to "share" content via Twitter, Facebook and other social media venues by clicking on the buttons for those venues next to the story.

The new Resources section features a direct link to the digital issues of The Progressive Farmer magazine, plus other online resources we think you'll find helpful around the farm. We'll be adding to that selection over time, so check back for more valuable pieces.

Also in the Resources section is the new machinery search tool, the result of our partnership with Tractorhouse, and an online jobs search platform thanks to Lori Culler and the folks at AgHires.

Another new feature is our "Sponsored Content" areas, which includes helpful, educational pieces from our advertisers. They include that "Sponsored" notification to help distinguish those pieces from regular editorial content.

Speaking of sponsors, I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to John Deere, Bayer CropScience, Monsanto Genuity and our own DTN MarketVision for being official launch partners this week. This redesign stuff costs money, so we appreciate the support.

The new site gives casual readers a taste of the proprietary markets, weather and news information that DTN/PF subscribers have come to value on a daily basis. You'll also find links to sign up for a trial of the full MyDTN product, which gives you access to all our content: our in-depth Six Factor commodity market analysis; more columns and proprietary farm business news; the full suite of our professional weather products, including the online console for our on-farm weather station network and the ability to plot detailed historical weather conditions for your farm; and many other business features.

Those weather features, by the way, are backed by the most accurate forecasting models in the industry. For the ninth consecutive year, ForecastWatch, an independent weather forecast monitoring and assessment company, deemed DTN's one-day and two-day U.S. temperature and precipitation forecasts to be the industry's most accurate. That's better than AccuWeather, CustomWeather, Intellicast, the National Weather Service, The Weather Channel and Weather Underground.

Let us know what you like, what you don't like, and maybe even things that seem like they may not be working quite right. You can also let me know directly at greg.horstmeier@dtn.com or email product management at DTNProducerProducts@DTN.com.

We hope you find it useful, and get a look into the world of being a DTN/The Progressive Farmer subscriber.

Enjoy.

(CZ)

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