We changed a few things on OpenSnow and hope that you like our new look. Here are the highlights:

1. We made it easier for you to find and switch between states and ski areas by updating the navigation bar. We also removed a few options from the navigation. Simpler is often better.
   
   
2. We cleaned up the most popular part of our site: The Daily Snow pages. By 'clean up' we mean that we added a sidebar with links to local ski areas and news stories, along with advertisements. Also, we removed the 9-12 "blocks" of content and advertisements that were previously placed below the Daily Snow post itself and weren't that attractive. Live and learn.
   
   
3. We are now considering people who are running software to block advertisements. We understand that ads make the site load slower and that some ads can be annoying. But we also keep the site going due to revenue from advertisers, and we try very hard to ensure that our ads are relevant to you by showcasing ski areas and ski related gear. Now when people run ad-blocking software, in place of the advertisement they will see a note about ad blocking where we ask them to support the site directly by upgrading to our All-Access Pass for only $19/year. 
   
   
4. We removed the Live Snow feature. Our users posted about 1,500 times during the 2014-15 season. It was great to see these live reports, but this number of reports wasn't enough to provide consistent insights into real-time ski conditions, so we're nixing it for now.

Thanks for using the comments to let us know what you think about these changes, and feel free to drop in suggestions for new features as well!

JOEL GRATZ