Letter from the Publisher

Today we have a few Gothamist related announcements:

1. After a couple of months in the dark, today we are beginning the public beta of LAist, the new Los Angeles version of Gothamist. Edited by Tom Berman, it will bring our optimistic, city-centric version of blogging to the West Coast for the first time. If you'd like to help us get the site launched, take a look, and send in your feedback.

2. The Interview: Thanks to everyone who wrote in to apply for the Interview position. We've signed up a bunch of ready and willing folks for guest weeks- if you still want to take a crack at it, let us know. Hopefully one of the guest bloggers will be interested in taking over the page full time. And thanks for everyone who wrote in with questions for the new format- each of the guest bloggers will be able to create their own interview setup, but we're trying to assemble a list of good questions to give people ideas. If you have ideas for good questions, send them in.

3. Gothamist SF & London: the Gothamist project was always envisioned as expanding to five cities- after that, we plan to step back, evaluate, and decide what to do next. If you'd like to help us launch Gothamist in San Francisco or in London, either as the chief editor or as a contributor, please write in. Both of those blogs are going to be moving into beta testing in the next couple of months. A position with Gothamist offers the chance to meet lots of great people, share your ideas with thousands of visitors each day, and learn a great deal about your city of choice. While money is not a reason to join Gothamist, it's worth mentioning that Gothamist gives 50% of the profit earned by our sites to the writers- the rest goes back to the Gothamist to fund more micropublishing sites and charity projects.

That's it- hope everyone is enjoying the hot weather!