Sydneyanglicans.net will be unavailable to users from midnight Friday, March 20 till 6.00 am Monday, March 23.

“This closure will allow site developers to bring online the latest version of the site - what we call Sydang 4,” says site editor Mark Hadley.

Mr Hadley says Anglican Media, the operators of the site, work on an six-monthly schedule of design, development and debugging that sees a major revision of the site delivered every 18 months.

“We’re very keen to get this latest version out to our users,” he says.

“It’s designed to make the most of new video services like SX Digital and the large number of bloggers we’ve recently brought on board, as well as create more opportunities to interact.”

Mr Hadley says there will also be a number of new services made available from the launch, and in the weeks following, including:

* A front-page prayer blog for Christians keen to keep up with the concerns of their community

* A range of new, tailored email products to help users stay informed about articles that interest them

* A to-your-inbox job notification service for Christians coping with the global financial crisis

* A more sophisticated search engine for digging out useful material from Sydneyanglicans.net’s extensive archives

* The site’s first comedy podcast

“All I can say about that last one is that it’s called Sydneyanglicans.NOT,” Mr Hadley says.

“We’ve really enjoyed working with the producers on this new venture and if the ruckus it’s caused in our newsroom is anything to go by, I think it’s going to go down well with our users.”

“Well, most of them,” he adds, laughing.