Back in 1882, ironworker John Penton wanted to communicate industry news among his fellow ironworkers. Their jobs were dangerous and any information might help a man do his job better—and live to work another day.
Fast forward 130 years from the magazine he created, and Penton Media is still doing what John Penton started—reaching out to industry communities to inform and educate.
However, as the spring of 2013 rushes forward and we launch a new website for SharePoint Pro, magazines have been replaced by websites, and the industries include software and technology. John Penton wouldn't recognize what we're doing today—launching a new website for SharePoint Pro—but he would applaud our purpose—to meet the needs of the SharePoint community and help admins, devs, and business users do their jobs successfully.
SharePoint was only a few years old when Penton Media acquired the MSD2D website years ago. The Microsoft editors at Penton dove into the new technology and began to work with a SharePoint expert named Dan Holme to create and post content for SharePoint administrators and developers. Since then, we've featured articles from all the well-known, as well as up-and-coming, SharePoint experts you know and follow today.
Over the last few years, SharePoint has changed drastically—and the SharePoint community has grown—and in response, the SharePoint Pro website has been through several name changes and numerous updates. Today we've moved to a Drupal-based platform and the resulting look is obviously cleaner, easier to read, and, we hope, enticing to linger at for a while. (Well, at least a few minutes, given our Web 2.0 attention spans and work pace.)
Here are some new features you might notice:
Search. You've heard the SharePoint community talk about search, and on a publication site, it's crucial. Our new platform offers beefed-up search so you can find that exact article on SharePoint 2010 content type Web Parts you were looking for.
Mobile. A growing number of SharePoint folks use a mobile device to access our website. If you're trying us from a tablet or smartphone and it doesn't automatically render for mobile, find us at m.sharepointpromag.com.
Social media. Yep, it's all there. Links and feeds to Twitter, links to Facebook. Follow SharePoint_Pro on Twitter and see your tweet immortalized on the SharePoint Pro site feed. Good times.
We hope you'll bookmark the site, register and comment, and let us know what you like and what you'd like to see more of. Like you, we make our living from a Microsoft product. But we're independent of Microsoft—and of any other software product—and we're here to help you make your living better.
We're still fine-tuning, so you might notice an incongruity here or there. Send me a message if you find something bothersome--or if you like the new site: [email protected]
We look forward to a great time helping you make the most of SharePoint!