Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SRN 2.0, the most significant change in the Bebi Corp. site design of SonyRumors.net since our original launch back in early 2008. During that time, the site launched as an independent channel of news, rumors, and talk, covering all topics Sony. The goal back then was and continues today to be to provide a singular destination for fans of all things Sony and to create a community based on that. Today, we cover all topics and events related to Sony and its many divisions like Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures, PlayStation, Sony Ericsson, and the many sub categories under them like the Alphas, VAIOs, Dash, NGP and more.

Over the last several years, we’ve grown our presence beyond our website in order to interact with our fans and expand our scope in any way possible. We have ever-growing Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo, and YouTube pages that we constantly feed with video unboxings and coverage of events like CES, Coachella 2011 as well as the upcoming E3 and ComicCon. Now we are looking to once again venture into new territories with a weekly podcast and forums section to let you further discuss Sony and their products.

However, with our previous design, as dear as it continues to be to my heart, it could not accommodate our ever-growing features, nor did it provide an adequate way for you to comment on our stories, unless you had a WordPress login. Now, with the SRN 2.0 design, you can comment with your Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, or OpenID account, making commenting far easier and more convenient for you. Commenters will also note that you can now sort the comments in ways such as “Popular Now,” “Best Rating,” “Newest First,” and “Oldest First,” making it easier for you to see the comment section as you wish. Hand in hand with that is the new sharing feature which gives you access to many popular destinations such as Blogger, Buzz, Digg, and of course Twitter and Facebook.

Another change you can take note of is the much wider design, making the site perfect for those of you who own larger screens with higher resolution, and yet it’s still designed to scale for anybody who is accessing our site with any setup. With a wider and higher resolution, we can now also display higher resolution pictures and videos, without the need for you to open new browser pages, allowing you something like HD experience of our site. We also have some 3D ideas cooking up but nothing to report yet on that. Moving on, without ever leaving the site, you can also view our tweets and Facebook comments on the right hand side as you scroll our pages and posts. We have a fully mobile version as well, perfect for those of you who want to stay in touch with us on your smartphones like the iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms. We are also working on a specific and optional iPad design that, though just like our mobile platform, will be optional and users can always switch to the full desktop version.

Of course, there are behind the scene changes for us as well. Moving away from WordPress.com to WordPress.org allows us to have full access to custom widgets and a full CSS stylesheet which makes for powerful configuration and customization, like the many features I discussed above. This also allows us to design our site to be much more Google-search friendly, in hopes of reaching new audiences. I have to also point out that this new design also allows us to introduce Google Ads and Amazon deals which we hope will both help you save some money and also gain us some cash-flow. Throughout the site’s many years, hosting, server fees, event entree and hotel fees have all continued to stack up. As we continue to keep our independent views, this means that there is no corporation behind us that funds our site or our views. This of course means that the rest of the staff and I work out of passion for SRN and so I hope that these new advertising avenues will help balance out the site’s many fees.

Another thing I would like to highlight is our new tip box. You will note that both on the right hand panel and in the drop down menu, under About, there is a new link for you to click. Here, you can submit news stories, give us tips and leak us any information, if you deem it appropriate. But the concept is not the thing I want to point out. Instead, how the system is powered is the real difference from the SRN 1.0 site. Once you click the link, you will be taken to a secure and encrypted website where you can fill out the information you wish to share with us and have it securely sent to us. Powered by a company called Wufoo, this system allows tipsters to fill out as much information about themselves as they want or stay 100% anonymous, unlike our previous system which required you to have an email. This way, we hold no email for you (unless you decide to offer it) and there will be zero IP trace, making your interaction with us 100% safe and secure. Wufoo also powers our back end hiring system as well for those of you who wish to join our team. You simply need to click the links, which again are located on the right hand sidebar or top drop down menu under About, and you will be taken to a new form which is encrypted and transmitted to us. On this page, of course, we will require a tad bit more information from you for obvious reasons.

In the end, I want to express my deepest appreciation for you, our readers, because we wouldn’t be doing any of this had you not stuck around with us during the last three years. We hope that the new site design furthers your experience with us as we continue to grow and bring in new readers and services to our site. As always, your thoughts are appreciated so hit our new commenting section and let us know what you think!