Five years ago, who would have thought that what started as an offbeat visual culture weblog would turn into a full-fledged (but still and always free) cosmopolitan online magazine? After just half of a decade, WebUrbanist now has over five hundred thousand feed and email subscribers, not to mention over a million monthly visitors.

The constant curiosity of authors (including Delana, Marc, Stephanie and Steve,, with Kurt as executive editor) and ongoing diligence of developers (Jeff and Mike) has been crucial, of course. Still, at the end of the day, it would all come to nothing without you, the readers, RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans and Pinterest friends supporting these efforts. Your ongoing help sharing our stories with friends via email, blog posts, StumbleUpon and Reddit has been essential in building WebUrbanist’s audience and is much appreciated.

Much has happened over this long-yet-short period of time, including multiple major redesigns of the publication, from the underlying code to numerous iterations its layout and logo. We hope this ongoing evolution seems fitting, though, since the core topics we cover – architecture, art, design, travel and technology – all revolve around creative exploration, iteration and (re)invention.

For anyone new to the site – or at least its latest redesign – we recently re-categorized every single article in the archives. Each individual past post can now be found under exactly one of five main sections (per the paragraph above) as well as one of twenty-five subcategories , linked in various ways on every page, including via a new drop-down menu on the sidebar. We hope this helps make the ever-larger annals more accessible to new and existing readers alike. Thanks again for your patronage – now onto the next five years!

Ah, Cyber Monday – the infamous online version of the even more dreaded Black Friday. But before we get to that, here are a few exciting new features for WebUrbanist to help you stay connected to not only the content on this site but also to other amazing articles and publications. We also have a small favor to ask should be feel in a giving mood (do not worry – we are not requesting handouts).

Google Friend Connect (to the right) allows you to sign up, swap stories and favorite websites with old friends – and to make new friends as well with similar interests. Moreover, it is a great place to give us feedback on your favorite (as well as least-liked) aspects of WebUrbanist. Signing up (on the sidebar) is super simple and takes just a few seconds. Likewise, the new Facebook Fan Page for WebUrbanist is up and running – please help spread the word support us in our drive to get 1,000 fans as fast as possible. This will make for a stronger community of course but will also help us secure our custom Facebook URL.

If you are going to go shopping on this busiest-of-the-year digital purchasing day perhaps you would consider giving us a boost as well – it won’t cost you a thing and would sure help lighten the (server) load on our end. You see, it costs hundreds of dollars a month to host WebUrbanist – but if you click on one of these links to Amazon and buy something from Amazon.com, we get a small commission. Any revenue received by WU will be applied directly to offsetting our hosting fees. You will not have to pay a penny extra … just, well, if you are going to shop there anyway for the holidays, we would love it if you could help us out in the process!

You will already find that WebEcoist, Dornob and Gajitz have Facebook Groups – and they will shortly also have Google Friend Connection functionality. We really hope that in the holiday spirit of sharing you will consider helping to support WebUrbanist on Facebook and these other sites by joining up, participating in discussions and sharing what you like with your friends. In development: more dynamic, multifunctional and informational feeds on all sites – as well as additional image galleries, more streamlined load times and a reduced number advertisements shown to regular readers. It might seem simple, but a lot goes into making these publications work on a day to day basis. Nonetheless, the most important element is and remains you: our loyal readers, followers and fans both onsite and off.

As of today, WebUrbanist has 110,378 subscribed readers from around the world – in addition to everyone else who visits regularly and follows us via our new Twitter profile and Facebook group. This is nothing short of amazing – to us at least. What started as a pet project by one person has grown into a global art, design and culture publication with multiple authors and an ever-evolving approach to creating original content. Thank you all for helping making WebUrbanist what it is today.

So, what is new in the world of Webist Media? Stephanie Rogers remains our go-to gal for everything under the sun – and switch-hitter going back and forth between WebUrbanist and its sibling site: WebEcoist. We have recently had our resident technologist, Steve Levenstein, covering radical retrofuturistic technologies as well as the evolution of all kinds of technology. Gerri Elder is the newest addition to the Webist fold and has written some awesome articles collecting everything from wine label designs to vintage movie posters. Kurt Kohlstedt, the original WebUrbanist author, still pipes in now and again with a geekalicious article on whatever he is stuck on at the moment.

Speaking of WebEcoist, the green sister site of WebUrbanist, we have new authors covering content that continues to range from entertaining to educational. Some articles contain practical tips on home gardening, air purification and brilliant bio-fuels. Others err on the side of the extraordinary, spectacular and unusual, such as the seven wonders series, natural phenomena and formations, elemental forces and disasters and exotic plants and strange animals. If you are a regular reader and enjoy WebUrbanist be sure to check out WebEcoist and sign up for the feed.

Some of you will have no doubt noticed links to the latest venture by Kurt, founder and lead editor of Webist Media: Dornob Design. For those of you not familiar, Kurt has an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a graduate degree in architecture and urban design. WebUrbanist has been his passion for nearly two years but he also has felt the need to launch a new venture more directly tied to his original interest in the designed spaces and objects. The site has already been mentioned in such publications as BoingBoing, Gizmodo and the Huffington Post.

While WebUrbanist also covers a great deal of art and design, Dornob is more specifically focused on architecture, interiors, furniture, furnishings and fixtures – but of course contains a catch-all “more designs” category for offbeat gadgets, funky fashions and artistic designs that simply refuse to fit into a single conventional category. If you have not yet done so, feel free to browse the categories on Dornob, sign up for the feed or newsletter, join the Facebook group and follow the site on Twitter.

We hope in particular you have enjoyed the ways in which WebUrbanist has grown and diversified over time, bringing in new voices and introducing new directions to keep things interesting without (we hope) losing our core focus on creating fantastic content. As always, thanks for following us on the strange paths we take and for all your support through subscriptions, comments, feedback and sharing links to our content with your friends along the way. In short: that you, once again, for reading WebUrbanist and be sure to visit WebEcoist and Dornob Design as well.

More extreme urban sports, skateboardable signage c/o Christof Damian

Regular readers know by now that there isn’t much self-conscious metablogging on WebUrbanist. The site is mostly about producing quality content related urban cultures, engaging designs and alternative arts. However, as with anything in urban life, it is worth pausing once in a while to take note of where we’ve been, reflect on where we are and consider what the future might hold. Don’t worry, though, it wouldn’t be a WebUrbanist article without some reader and artist-submitted urban arts and oddities mixed in the middle!


More nomadic culture, home is where I lay my head c/o Stacee Droege

Past Successes: WebUrbanist has grown considerably in these last months and has been increasingly linked to from high-profile sites. The site was given a Google PageRank of 5 at the last update, is in the top 3,000 blogs in the world according Technorati and is in the top 20,000 most-visited websites in the world according to Alexa. Popular original articles, such as the 7 Wonders Series, have in some cases been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

More creative urban art, freak bicycle culture c/o Stacee Droege

Present State: WebUrbanist’s current design was created by a highly skilled web designer who generously volunteered his abilities to reshape the site’s layout, look and feel. Hector Jarquin is currently working on some great social web projects, including a way to find interesting events and activities in your area. Have feedback on the new layout? Feel free to comment below or contact us with your thoughts.

More great guerilla actions, entering without breaking c/o J. Vorsthammer

Future Developments: WebUrbanist is not and has never been about one-way communication from editors to readers. In fact, the site is at its best when reader feedback (via comments or the contact form) shapes the direction of the site. For lurkers and regular commentators alike, this is an opportunity for you to be heard. What would you like to see more or less of on WebUrbanist? What do you enjoy most or least about the site?

More culture jamming, alternate IKEA instructions c/o J. Vorsthammer

What You Can Do: Beyond your feedback, there are a few ways you can help WebUrbanist as the site moves into the future. If you have a tip or wish to be a guest blogger on WebUrbanist, contact us anytime. If you haven’t already, please consider signing up for the RSS feed and making WebUrbanist a favorite on Technorati, Delicious and/or MyBlogLog. Finally, if you wish to help with the ever-growing costs of maintaining and hosting WebUrbanist, considering using the following link this holiday season to make a purchase from Amazon.com. Most importantly, though, just keep reading, commenting and submitting ideas when you have them. It is you, dear readers, that make WebUrbanist worthwhile.

Another incredibly skinny building from Strasbourg, France c/o Benjy Bass

Thank You: There are some folks who have helped build WebUrbanist in a variety of ways – too many, really, to count. Here are just a few of the people who have had a role in shaping what the site is today. Mike, Jeff, Kurt and Kris are critical to producing content and maintaining WebUrbanist. Avi, Alex and Shane have continued to inspire the site’s progress. Without technical assistance from John and moral support from people like John, Gil, Skipp, Halil, Noid and K. Stone the site would not be what it is today. Thank you all, and thank you dear readers.