January 2013 marked the month BeatRoute.ca was recognized by WordPress.com as their prime example of how their Oxygen theme can work for printed media outlets’ digital presence.

OUR WEB PRODUCER’S NOTE ON THE MAGIC OF DIGITAL PUBLISHING

Eyes are on BeatRoute.ca as a shining example of how free and/or cheap digital publishing platforms can work for a printed medium’s online presence.

Earlier this month, we were featured on WordPress.com‘s official blog as part of their Responsive Themes week, highlighting blogs that do fantastic work with certain themes the platform offers. As you can read here, we were chosen as the prime example of what can be done with Oxygen, the free theme we use.

Today, we have been made blogosphere-famous once again with another post by WordPress.com highlighting Oxygen customization in more detail.

BeatRoute.ca as it appeared in December 2006.

Our re-launch last summer, which happened just in the nick of time for Sled Island, was spearheaded by colleagues of ours at our sister publication Freq Magazine, who also switched to Oxygen for their site in the fall. Choosing WordPress has brought us new possibilities on how to tell stories of what’s going on in our local music scenes and we weren’t shy to capitalize on the nifty features we can implement, most notably embedding video and streaming tunes from bands we interview from their respective Bandcamp and Soundcloud pages.

This little slice of international attention we’re receiving reflects the beauty of how digital publishing evens out the playing field for everyone – one need not be Rolling Stone or a major daily newspaper to be read by many and be recognized by prominent organizations. We’re a humble alt-monthly using free publishing software for our web presence but – as sappy as this sounds – when you put your heart into your skills, your hard work as (sometimes starving) content creators will be recognized in the long run, whether you’re The New York Times or a lone blogger.

This sort of attention is awesome but the most important recognition will always be expressed in the form of handshakes with your public.

Yesterday was one of those flattering, albeit slightly-embarrassing reminders for me. Matthew was his name. He was the 20-something clerk at my bank who deposited my paychecks. He noticed one of them was from BeatRoute and so came some small talk about how he likes how BeatRoute helps him figure out what to do with his leisure time (a very precious thing) and about what I do. I’m sure he was just goofing a bit but he asked for my “autograph” when I needed to sign my statement.

Well Matthew, if you’re reading, I’m no celebrity – just a journalism-school grad working from his basement, but thanks for putting a human face on how people enjoy the fruits of my labour, as well as all of Team BeatRoute’s.

And thank you Western Canada for your continued support.

Okay, enough procrastinating. This week’s round of new articles won’t publish themselves online now, will they?

By Shane Flug
Screen grabs courtesy WordPress.com and The Internet Archive