If these jiggly bottles look familiar, it may be that you saw them when redbankgreen debuted, one year ago today. Or perhaps you came across them while dumpster-diving our archive sometime afterward. (Hey, it’s perfectly sanitary, and a diverting way to spend a couple of hours, we’re told. Grab a cup of coffee and plunge in, if you haven’t tried it.)

The bottles illustrated our stated goal of shaking things up a bit by giving people who live in, work in and visit our corner of the Jersey Shore a different take on what matters, news and feature-wise.

The idea was more focus on people in our town and area, combined with insightful reporting, conversational writing and luscious visuals in a publication that doesn’t view the Internet as an afterthought, but as the medium that matters most for what we’re doing. Which is why, for example, there are so many links in our stories — so you always have the option to go one level deeper into a topic.

It’s also why the bottles jiggle: because they can.

Now, here we are, a year and 650 articles later, getting more than 8,000 page views per week and still growing rapidly. Buzz about our little hyperlocal website — please, don’t call it a ‘blog’ — continues to spread.

So, have we shaken things up? We like to think so, but it’s really not for us to say. Through the instant-letter-to-the-editor function known as Comments at the bottom of this and every story, you can tell us what you think, or say whatever is on your mind on any other topic. If you prefer a more private mode of communication, you can email us, too.

Speaking of emails, if you’re not getting our weekly blast email update and would like to, please drop us a line.

We welcome your thoughts and and suggestions as we continue building and refining redbankgreen. And of course we encourage you to show your support by patronizing the businesses that keep us afloat with their advertising.

Looking back at it, that first-day piece was a bit overearnest in tone, we admit. But it did and does express our core aim of making the people of this region the story. We call our site redbankgreen to connote an old-style town square or village green, where people would gather to relax, petition, entertain and enlighten one another.

So far, building The Green has been real thrill for us. Thanks for making it so.

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