Q-Notes

On May 12, 2006, Q-Notes merged with the Raleigh, N.C., based The Front Page, a Raleigh, N.C. LGBT newspaper founded in 1979.[9][10]

On April 17, 2008, Q-Notes debuted its new website.[11] The new incarnation of the almost decade-old website featured daily news updates and staff blogs and allowed reader comments to be posted to any story. The site is using a modified version of the WordPress blogging platform as a content management system

The older version of the paper's website had been a simple and static HTML design,[12] requiring hours of behind-the-scenes construction for each bi-weekly issue.

In January 2010, the newspaper unveiled a newly redesigned website.

On April 30, 2008, seven days prior to the May 6, 2008, North Carolina primary, Q-Notes published online three interviews.[13][14] Two were with Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The third was with Clinton aide Mark Walsh. Obama's interview also included comments from aide Eric Stern. Chris Crain, former editor of The Washington Blade criticized Q-Notes coverage as it did not include information that the interviews had been conducted via email.[15] Q-Notes later edited their Q&As including notations that the interviews were conducted via email.[14]

For the July 26, 2008, issue the Q-Notes staff changed the traditional quarter fold of the newspaper to a flat layout, reflecting the layout more typical of an average, weekly tabloid newspaper or news-magazine. The traditional two sections of the newspaper, the front, more news-oriented section and the back, arts and entertainment section, were rolled into a single stitched section. In late 2008, the paper began using full, front page images on the front cover rather than have story text in a traditional newspaper layout.

An example of the Q-Notes front page before the 2010 rebranding and redesign.

In October 2009, Q-Notes announced it would stop distribution of its print edition to most regions in South Carolina. In a letter from publisher Jim Yarbrough, the newspaper said it would concentrate most South Carolina print copies in the state capital of Columbia.[16] The paper continues to distribute to some community organizations and businesses in Greenville and Myrtle Beach.

Despite changes in the newspaper's circulation strategies, the closure of Window Media's Southern Voice and South Florida Blade on November 16, 2009 made the Carolinas newspaper the largest LGBT print news publication in the Southeast.

In January 2009, Q-Notes began rebranding its print edition and online presence. A new layout for the print edition accompanied an online redesign and new editorial strategy. Former editor Matt Comer wrote, "With our change in aesthetics comes a change in our editorial direction. Our bi-weekly print issues will be more future-oriented and contain less reporting of events past, while GoQnotes.com takes up a more robust daily presence with online only reporting of Carolinas, national and international events and news...In an effort to maintain our new, robust website and editorial direction, qnotes will be implementing a sort of "web first" model. Stories slated to appear in our print editions will be published as they are completed, or as a set of stories in the day or two after we dispatch our content to our printer. No more waiting the painfully slow and long five days between press time and street date."[17]