Oil & Gas Journal and its web site, OGJ Online, have new formats and features.
Most visibly, the web site's home page has changed.
News stories posted daily there now appear as lists of headlines, which you click to open what you want to read (see screen shot). A yellow "New" tag appears next to items less than 24 hr old.
Stories line up in order of appearance on lists under several categories, with the newest on top and oldest at the bottom of each list.
Items expiring from the lists enter the electronic archive and remain accessible via keyword search, like all text and most artwork appearing in OGJ since January 1990 and on OGJ Online since May 2000. Only subscribers can retrieve articles this way.
Matching print layout
Categories for web-site news stories soon will match the print magazine's organization: General Interest, Exploration & Development, Drilling & Production, Processing, and Transportation.
Under General Interest are two subcategories labeled Personnel Moves & Promotions and Company News. Items in those groups are short with no headlines and appear in lists that grow throughout each week. As with the main categories, newest items appear at the top of each list.
Two legacy categories, Top Stories and Finance/Companies, lingered on the home page at this writing. They'll disappear as stories in them expire.
Still to come
In the future, abstracts of technical and long feature articles from the print magazine will join news items on the OGJ Online home page. They'll be marked with red "Prem." tags indicating premium content. To read whole premium articles, you'll need an OGJ subscription.
The new format does away with story synopses, which cluttered the old format and required a lot of scrolling for anyone looking for everything on the home page.
The site still runs several screens deep, so you still need to scroll. But the yellow tags should make new items easy to find.
The site also now includes forums in each category. To post a message, click the word "Forum" next to the appropriate section heading and follow the instructions.
You also can enter forums through the link labeled "Online Forums" under News Guide on the left navigation bar. There you'll find a list of all the forums.
While you're visiting OGJ Online, be sure to check the Online Research Center via an appropriately named link on the left navigation bar. A world of searchable information unfolds there, including statistical tables, the comprehensive OGJ Energy Database, and free access to text from past editions of International Petroleum Encyclopedia. Many new features are under development.
New print features
New features in the print magazine include two weekly items formerly tucked away in the subscribers-only area of the web site. Now appearing on OGJ's last page each week are a short editorial called The Editor's Perspective and a lively market analysis called Market Hotline. Both items appear in the magazine dated 10 days after their initial appearances online, where they remain accessible only by subscribers.
Another print feature revives a regular department that disappeared during the mid-1980s. Called Point of View, it's an interview story probing the insights of professionals at the center of industry operations and politics. The Point of View feature will appear where it fits most sensibly, so look for it throughout the magazine. This week it starts on p. 28.
The changes fulfill a prediction that has appeared here before: change in OGJ, OGJ Online, and the dynamic industry they cover.
That outlook hasn't changed.
