At the beginning of each year we like to make a list of upgrades we'll shoot for in the coming year. We always end up making upgrades we didn't plan on making as well, but here are some of the big ones we're shooting for:

Member Search by Zip: you can search the new teachers directory by zip—this year we’ll roll out upgrades allowing you to search all members by zip.

Luthier Directory: this will be similar to the new teachers directory, but will be for those who build, repair, and set up banjos.

Speed Upgrades: we continue to work on decreasing page load times on the site. A recent database upgrade helped that, and we’ll be rolling out some content delivery network upgrades soon as well.

News Feed: I'm always getting banjo-related news items sent to me, but I don't have a logical place to post them. This will change soon! This news feed feature will allow members to submit news items, and it will also automatically grab news items from feeds like Cybergrass. We'll verify each article and only post the banjo-related stuff, of course! Members will be able to discuss each news item as well.

Enhanced Browsing of Photos and Blogs: the site now holds over 25,000 blog entries and almost 90,000 photos... I suppose it's time for improved methods of browsing this stuff!

Online Banjo Contest: I want to hold at least one online banjo contest, judged by site visitors and (possibly) having the finalists judged by specific, qualified judges. We’ll see how it shakes out, but I love the idea of an online banjo contest.

More Banjo Giveaways: I’m going to be pushing for more and more giveaways of actual banjos, because I know that’s what people like the most. The more popular the site gets, the more I’m seeing banjo makers and dealers willing to step up to donate banjos for drawings, so that makes this job easier.