Nine years ago, when The Nation first went online, we thought putting up selections from the magazine once a week constituted a major step into the world of the web. In the years since, we’ve started adding fresh content daily, including features like “What Are They Reading?” and online commentary by our editor and two of our political writers–all of which has helped raise the number of visitors to the site to an average of 600,000 a month. The web has also proved to be an effective way to introduce The Nation to a new audience; last year 28,000 people subscribed to the print edition through the website.

Now, in an effort to improve the site’s ability to extend the message and politics of The Nation, and to help visitors be better able to understand quickly what makes us unique, we’ve made major changes to the homepage and other key elements of the site. These changes, developed with the help of the award-winning design team Brown & Ryan, will debut on May 5. We’ll still offer selections from the magazine and all our regular web features. But we’re adding a news wire that will spotlight overlooked but important stories on other, mainly progressive sites and some new features, like Wal-Mart Nation. We’re also offering, for the first time, the ability to interact with the writers of our online blogs and commentaries.