Today is the fourth major update in Shoegazing’s history (not including the release of the English version). Another step towards becoming more of an online magazine, which is more vibrant than just the usual post feed, where older posts will now be highlighted in a more dynamic way.

 

Shoegazing was started in 2013, back then only in Swedish, the English edition was launched in 2015. It was just over three years since the website last received a major facelift (more about Shoegazing’s various “eras” further down), it’s in the same spirit as then that I continue now. As apparent, the theme and most of it is really the same, some new things happen at the top, but the blog post feed then comes just as usual and is updated as before with new posts a couple of times a week. Many of the news is about making things work better on mobile, as a majority of the reading of the blog now takes place on smartphones. Below I go through the various changes:

    • Top banner. Obviously the most eye-catching change, as the landing page gets a new look. The main reason is obviously aesthetics, it looks nicer and more inspiring with a good looking image. The banner will be rotated a bit between pushing for the latest blog post, and tips on older posts, it depends a bit on how good images I have access to.

 

    • Selected posts-carousel. Under the top banner is now a “carousel” that shows selected articles, both relative recent ones to ones far back in time. These will be replaced regularly and vary back and forth. The main reason for this is that I know that today I have a lot of new readers who have come in recent years, especially on the English site, and although there are ways to discover these posts, this will help significantly. There is a lot of high quality content on the blog that deserves not to end up unread just because it was made a long time ago. Hopefully, even old faithful Shoegazing readers will discover or rediscover old stuff that might be interesting. On mobiles you only see one post, but then the others scroll forward, and you can browse both with the arrows on mobile and desktop or swipe the carousel.

 

    • More ad banners in the article feed. Previously, most of the advertising banners were have been in the page sidebar, while two appeared in the middle of the feed with articles on the landing page. However, this has meant that on mobiles these have ended up a bit hidden, as the side banner falls below the flow on the mobile. I have no paid articles, affiliate posts pr similar on nor my blog or on Instagram, despite constant inquiries, which is why ad banners are my main source of income (that’s why you are more than welcome to use them, through visits and purchases that comes via Shoegazing you support the blog). Therefore, they need to be highlighted better, which means that two banners will appear earlier in the feed now and another two further down. It also gives a more even distribution of visibility, since all advertisers pay the same and I rotate the placement. Hope you think it’s okay with how the ads are located now and that they do not interfere too much with the experience, I myself know how badly I can experience many pages where the ads destroy much of the visitor experience, which I don’t want to be the case here.

 

    • Search button in the menu. Now you will find a magnifying glass in the menu, so you can more easily search for content. Not least on mobile it has been lousy before, when you had to scroll down to the bottom of the feed/article to find the search field.

 

    • Content-wise a lot has happened as well. Main new thing is that the shoe library now isn’t placed on the Swedish version of Shoegazing, it’s been moved to Shoegazing.com and has been updated, so most of the pairs that I have or have owned, over 60 pairs from various brands and makers, is gathered with loads of pictures and info on fit etc. Also the pages gathering popular posts within different topics and different article types have been updated.

 

In addition to these things, there has been some other minor fixes, such as slightly smaller header logo, updated info pages, and others thing. Do take your time to browse around Shoegazing and perhaps discover new things, sections, etc. you didn’t know about. You are all welcome to provide feedback on the changes, and other things you think about regarding both content and appearance on the site.

If you have the opportunity, you are also more than welcome to contribute to Shoegazing’s continued work to create good content, by becoming a Patreon supporter. There you can choose to donate from $3 a month, and is a nice extra source of income for me in addition to the banner ads and the small money I earn on the super trunk events. Thanks in advance!

As a small trip down memory lane, I show below the different versions that Shoegazing has had since its inception (first ones in Swedish only).

This is what the first version of Shoegazing looked like (except that the logo was obviously different). It was on the blog platform blogspot, and the URL was at that time shoegazingpunktse.blogspot.com.

This look was what the first English edition had (although Swedish one above), it was in 2013 after I moved to WordPress and used Shoegazing.se and Shoegazing.se/english (from 2015).

If you’d happened to have forgotten what the page looked up until now, it was as above. The remake to this version was made in 2017, with a new theme and new design, and with an updated page structure for older content.