Ahem! We break into our regularly scheduled posts (Michael Connelly was supposed to be up next) to deliver big news.

In case you haven’t noticed, “Work In Progress” is making improvements to serve you better in the New Year.

First, we’ve reinstated our longtime favorite theme, Twenty Ten. It’s one of WordPress’s most handsome themes. The decision to change themes was based as much on advertising potential as on aesthetics. Work In Progress is proud to be among the blogs participating in beta testing of the new WordAds program. Since Twenty Ten is among the  55 themes optimized for WordAds, it was a logical choice.

Your blogger is now officially “retired” from paid employment, so I hope to be a full-time blogger in 2014. Hopefully this will have a noticeable impact on the amount and quality of content, and result in increased traffic. New readers are always welcome.

I’ll talk more about tweaks in coverage and content in the near future. But rest assured, there won’t be jarring changes. I want, above all, to heed the advice to be “authentic.” I’ll stay the course we’re already following. Maybe we’ll move the center of gravity away from the heavy politics and economics, and trend more in the direction of life and culture, books and movies. As always, I’m taking requests.

A notable recent advance in blogging has been the introduction of more “responsive themes.” Responsive means they’re designed to look good no matter the size of the viewing screen — smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop. Twenty Fourteen, the new default theme for 2014, is an example of a responsive theme. Twenty Fourteen also has a new feature called “accessibility ready.” I honestly don’t understand what that means. Maybe it’s the next big thing??

I’m not aware of a comprehensive list of “responsive” themes, but most of the recently developed themes are responsive. It’s now considered the “gold standard” in blogging. I’m not sure if Twenty Ten qualifies as a fully responsive theme, but it looks good on my iPad mini, so I think it will work just fine.

You can peruse all 224 themes available for use on WordPress.com at http://theme.wordpress.com/ Many of the themes are free, like Twenty Ten and Twenty Fourteen; some are Premium themes that you can buy for a one-time fee.

Finally, our most exciting innovation: WIP plans to be among the first blogs to offer an exclusive new service, instant delivery of customized newsletters using drone technology. Naturally, a fee will be necessary for drone service. We think you’ll agree, the prestige value alone will be worth the price.

Please be patient while we work out the technical details.

We now return you to our next scheduled post: How does Michael Connelly stack up against John Grisham?

Thank you for flying Work In Progress. We know you could have taken the bus instead.

Happy New Year to all, and happy blogging in 2014.

— John Hayden

Related articles

• New Theme: Twenty Ten – WordPress.com (en.blog.wordpress.com)
• Scoot on ~ the trouble of theme choosing (scooton.wordpress.com)
• The Switch to Twenty Fourteen (ppazucha.wordpress.com)