It is clear that partisanship did not end on November 6th. While the negative ads have stopped, the empty one-liners keep coming from both sides of the aisle; whether in government or in the media. At IVN, we will be spending the next few months working on the foundation of our unique news platform so that we can elevate the level of discourse and promote more comprehensive and independent analysis of the problems we face as a nation.

The election season was an exciting time for IVN, its 200 independent contributors, and the 600,000 people who visited IVN during election week for independent and unfiltered coverage of campaigns and issues that matter to independent-minded voters. As we head into our second year of development, thank you for being a part of it.

In the coming months, we will continue to bring you independent news and analysis. We will also be focusing our attention on website development and operational efficiency in anticipation of long-term expansion. We encourage you to send us your comments, questions, suggestions and other feedback in this regard to help make IVN even better for readers and contributors in the future. Some things to look forward to include:

• A pilot program each week for: a podcast, tweet chats, contributor workshops, and IVN videos.
• A plugin that will allow other blogs and news sites to contribute directly to the network.
• We will, at least temporarily, no longer have a "weekly theme," giving us more time to focus on the "big picture."
• More features to help readers determine what news is important and to provide feedback that helps determine the news cycle.

While we work on expanding IVN and providing more user-friendly features, we promise to keep our weekly e-mails, well, weekly. For those of you interested in an automated daily feed of the articles published on IVN, you can sign up for daily updates here.

Be Sure to Join us @IVNetwork this Thursday

What: TweetchatWhere: #IndyVoteWhen: Thursday, December 65pm - 6pm Pacific

Thank you for being a part of IVN.

- Chad Peace & the IVN Team