So a few days ago, I was ready to dump Betterhumans. I had planned to give members and visitors two weeks notice and then, if I couldn't find someone to take it over, just shut it down. Drastic, perhaps. After all, I've run the site for nearly five years now. But as I worked myself raw on the new site, I just couldn't stand how much time, energy and money Betterhumans was consuming. And I just felt that I didn't have enough passion for the site right now to endure what was required to keep it alive and growing.

Fast forward a few days, and I'm excited to announce that a test version of the new Betterhumans.com is available. Those who are interested can take a spin by following that link. Those who have patience can wait until Sunday, June 3 when, if all goes well, we will launch the new site here.

How could I be so moody? It's a love hate relationship. Hence my subject line, which I borrowed from Shannon Larratt, who runs the successful BMEzine.com body modification e-magazine. Larratt's personal email includes (or included—it's been awhile since I've corresponded with him directly) the line: "Death to BME, Long live BME!" He explains this as "a takeoff on 'The king is dead, long live the king,' as a reference to BME's roughly yearly redesigning and improvement of itself—and the need to consciously do so."

Now, Larratt seems to be referring to the fact that he must constantly kill the old BMEzine.com to create the new. But to me, this also expresses the love-hate relationship we all have with consuming personal projects. It's a tension that becomes particularly challenging when you try to balance your desire to see something succeed with other aspects of your life. For this redesign, at least, I was able to pull through—albeit just barely. And I do believe it was worth it. So what can you expect? Here are some things to get excited about:

Enhanced news coverage

One of the best new features, in my opinion, is expanded news coverage. While we haven't yet turned on our new news feed, we will be doing so shortly. It will bring about 50 relevant news items to your attention each day. How can you parse all of that content? We've made it easy. Step one is to download the new, free Betterhumans toolbar. It will scroll relevant news through your browser. (You can also see all the latest news by subscribing to the news RSS feed or browsing the news index.) Then, simply by reading, commenting on and rating news items of interest, you will help drive the most interesting news to the home page. In this way, we will be combining technology and distributed human effort to produce both the most comprehensive and the most focused coverage of issues and developments in science, technology, self- and societal improvement.

Focus on activism

One reason why Betterhumans has become somewhat frustrating to me is seeing so much great conversation and so little action. To help address this issue, the new site features a forum dedicated to activism and a prominent "action items" banner encouraging people to participate in creating positive change. I am aiming to work with partner organizations such as the Methuselah Foundation, World Transhumanist Association, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Foresight Institute and Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in bringing activism opportunities to wider attention.

Original articles

While Betterhumans has moved away from providing original editorial (apart from blogs) over the past year or so, the new site will offer a return in the form of a new articles section. For this section, we will be commissioning and republishing more detailed and thought-provoking items, including interviews with leaders in diverse fields related to our editorial mandate.

Streamlined design and functionality

I hate clutter, and I know that many of you do as well. For the new site, we therefore removed some features and functionality that was rarely used, in order to improve usability, appearance and performance. We made other tweaks as well aimed at optimization, and I intend to make streamlining and optimization a continued priority.

Now, I know that some of you are going to absolutely hate the new site. And that's okay; everyone's entitled to their opinion. But others of you will recognize the improvement, and get excited about participating in its ongoing development. Some of you might even get so excited that you want to learn more about volunteering. Whatever the case, please add comments below, as well as note any bugs that you discover (or email them to simon-dot-smith-at-betterhumans-dot-com). The more feedback I get, the more I’ll feel that all the work is worth it.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support, and to everyone—particularly George, James, Parish, Pace, Matthew and all our featured bloggers—who contributed what they could to bring things to this stage. Long live Betterhumans! For today, anyway.