Letter from the Editor –
As you’ve likely noticed by now there’s been a lot of change here recently at In-Depth Outdoors. From the moment we re-opened our doors on July 27 – 2014 to our little corner of the cyber world those that call In-Depth Outdoors their online “home” have been busy familiarizing themselves with a new website platform. Over the course of our 13 month project the design team successfully moved nearly 2 million posts and photos associated with over 25,000 member accounts from one dreadfully tired, some would say antiquated, system to one with modern functionality that will serve as our platform for growth for years to come. No small feat indeed!
Of course any well conceived website project should do more than re-package existing content. One of the design team’s main goals was to improve discovery of all content shared on our website, both old and new, while adding entirely new content areas such as our new photo gallery, community page where all the most current additions to the website are aggregated in one easy to browse area… and, of course, the addition of a magazine to the ever broadening range of materials offered here at In-Depth Outdoors. The reasoning behind this new initiative is fairly straightforward. Our existing forums are a fantastic mechanism by which anglers and hunters stay in touch and share their day-to-day experiences and knowledge related to a wide range of topics. Where forum style interactions seems to fall short is that the style of communication tends to be very much “in the now” and tends to fall short when it comes to planning for or getting out ahead of upcoming bites, trends or seasonal patterns.
In-depth Outdoors’ magazine will be more forward looking as it intends to get people out ahead of seasonal topics so they can take proper advantage of them and be more successful out on the water or in the woods. Our first issue for July – 2014 takes a look at mid-summer fishing tactics and will start to lay the groundwork for the look and feel of all future publications. But don’t expect our magazine to be presented in traditional fashion as it would be a mistake on our part to let the written word do the heavy lifting on it’s own. With In-Depth Outdoors’ strong background in video production the plan is to reinforce many of our articles in each publication with an associated video or two. We hope everyone enjoys the new offering. As with every new initiative we undertake here at In-depth Outdoors we get the ball rolling with a fairly modest initial offering that will grow in scope and quality as we get our feet under us and learn to flex our editorial muscle.
In an effort to tap into the vast knowledge base of our membership, if you have suggestions for an article or if you have an article you’ve written yourself that you’d like to submit for consideration for inclusion in an upcoming issue, send us an email at [email protected].