Now The Fun Begins

After months of research and old-fashioned hard work, the CMP Channel Group is launching the new ChannelWeb.com on March 5.

LARRY HOOPER Can be reached via e-mail at lrhooper@cmp.com.

Visitors to both CRN.com and VARBusiness.com, as well as ChannelWeb.com, will find themselves redirected to our new single destination for solution providers on the hunt for channel intelligence.

The new site has been redesigned from the ground up to serve as a tool for solution providers. Of course, the news that put the "N" in CRN will still be an important part of the site. Now, though, that news is in the same place as the award-winning research and analysis of CRN's sister magazine, VARBusiness. Also in the mix is content from GovernmentVAR, CRNtech and Custom Systems magazines.

It all adds up to the most compelling content destination for the channel.

As a "seasoned" tech reporter and editor who has heard his share of vaporware pitches, I tend to avoid hype and go straight to the facts. So I will give you the insider information on how and why the new ChannelWeb.com came to be.

The new ChannelWeb.com is a result of one of the CMP Channel Group's most extensive reader research projects ever. In that research, readers told us that they expect different things of a magazine and a Web site. Some of the findings resulted in the new look, feel and size of CRN. It also led to our new online strategy and the new ChannelWeb.com.

Readers told us that they go to the Web looking for news and reviews, but they also go looking for specific information. That's why the new ChannelWeb.com is organized in a way that makes it easy to drill down to a specific subject.

Readers also told us they want a way to communicate with each other, and the new ChannelWeb.com is all about the community, with forums and groups throughout the site.

While we used the results of our research to design the new ChannelWeb.com, we didn't stop there. Through the whole process, we have been testing the site with a group of solution provider beta testers, who spent hours on the phone with us going over every click. (Thank you!)

That's why I can say with confidence that you will like the new ChannelWeb.com. Because we didn't design it. Solution providers did.

What do you think of the new channelweb.com?
Take a look and send your feedback to to me at lrhooper@cmp.com