Coming Soon: The New SparkNotes Blog!
Sparklers, we’ve got some exciting news: At the end of January, we’ll be launching an awesome redesign of the blog! The update means that our posts, slideshows, and quizzes will look better than ever, and the sleek new layout will let you focus on the heart of the site: our hilarious, helpful content.
With the redesign, we’ll also be making some changes to the blog, the most significant of which is a shift in our editorial direction. Going forward, we’re going to focus exclusively on content that’s not only funny, entertaining, and totally unique, but is also—and most importantly—relevant to the the work and reading you’re doing in your English class.
This means we’ll be saying a fond farewell to anything that isn’t book-related; we’ll no longer be publishing Auntie SparkNotes columns, and we’re also moving away from content about things like flirting, dating, and relationships. Instead, we’ll be emphasizing the content that the blog was created to showcase: posts and slideshows about Harry Potter, Shakespeare, fictional characters, the classics, and more—basically, all the things you love about literature.
Another big change is that the blog will no longer have comments, user accounts, Sparkler Posts, Open Threads, or messaging functionality. Over the last several years, we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in comments and user accounts (they’re down by nearly 90%) as the vast majority of users have moved on to other sites more suited to socializing (like Facebook, SnapChat, etc). Because of this, it no longer makes sense for the blog to include these features. We know that some of you have been commenting on the blog for many years, and we can’t tell you how much we appreciate all of the humor and kindness you’ve contributed, and the sense of community that you’ve built. We want you to have time to exchange contact information, and to save your favorite Auntie SparkNotes columns and Sparkler posts onto your computer, so please make sure to do so before January 31st (after that, we’ll begin to pull those posts off the site).
We know that some of these changes will take time to get used to, but we’re confident that we’re taking the blog in the right direction, and we’re going to strive every day to give you the funniest, most compelling content you’ve ever seen. We’re so excited for you to see the new SparkNotes blog in just a few days; we love it, and we hope you will too!
