Just as Techmeme filters the most newsworthy stories in technology, today we begin filtering the industry's most newsworthy events by including a new section (shown here) detailing the next four months of major industry events. That section in turn points to a dedicated page showing an extended calendar that goes well beyond the next four months.

Our aim is not to include all "technology" events, which would be both difficult and pointless for a site like Techmeme. Even tech events of national or international scope are far too numerous to include here without overwhelming Techmeme's readers. Instead, our criteria for inclusion are tailored nicely for Techmeme: we'll include events that are expected to produce the kind of news that appears on Techmeme. For example, events involving major announcements or product launches, or conferences including candid interviews with a major industry figures. As such, we will also include events like earnings announcements (of the more bellwether variety), scheduled project launches, and other kinds of virtual events that one cannot attend in body, but only in browser.

Now-classic Jobs/Gates image from D5 via Joi Ito.

By 2012, Drudge Report and Techmeme were one of the few notable holdouts. But that's ending now. Sorry, Matt.

Today, we're introducing a new design that leaves behind underlines and other elements that made Techmeme feel more cluttered and encumbered. Among the major changes: all sidebar navigation has moved to the top of the page, convenient share buttons appear when the mouse pointer passes over headlines, and most Sponsor Posts now appear "above the fold". Joining Techmeme's new main page is an About page that's a good starting point for anyone new to Techmeme.

Other new features are self-evident and shouldn't require elaboration here. But one is worth pointing out: our new Twitter share button is not the standard "tweet" button, but rather a "retweet" button for @Techmeme's tweet corresponding to the news item. In most cases readers don't want to bother editing the headline of the story they're sharing, so we opted for the more natural retweet option.

Acknowledgements: Nearly all of Techmeme's editors pitched in at various iterations to give substantial and helpful feedback, and our newest news editor Jarrod Cugley proved his versatility by handling most of our graphics. As usual Omer joined me in performing the actual dev work. We were also very fortunate to receive continuous guidance from Johnnie Manzari, who offered mock-ups, screenshots, and other direction. Many of the wise and critical decisions in this effort came from his example or recommendation, and I'll add as a corollary that any unwise or offensive aspect is something he probably advised against.

Is this design coming to Mediagazer and other Techmeme sister sites? Eventually, yes, though it's starting just at Techmeme. Mediagazer in particular isn't as afflicted with the uglies in the first place, given that its area of coverage leads to less link-heavy story clusters. But it will nonetheless benefit from a refresh. Techmeme's redesign will not, however, extend into its past. One curious yet fun practice we've upheld here is that old archives maintain their old look.

We hope you'll like Techmeme's new look more than the folks I polled yesterday appreciated the old, but if anything seems broken or especially wrong, send a note and we'll have a look. And if any of you know Matt Drudge, please tell him it's okay to remove the underlines.

To elaborate on how we present the list: since Apple's announcement of a Verizon iPhone 4 sat atop a 12-story cluster focused on that news, it appears in the 10th position of our table, behind taller story clusters, but ahead of shorter ones.

What do the "biggest" tech stories tell us about 2011? First, it was a year of resignation and loss. In particular, the loss of Steve Jobs, which played out in three dramatic stages, beginning with his medical leave in January, escalating with his resignation as CEO in August, and culminating with his passing in October, which unsurprisingly tops our list. What don't the biggest stories tell us? Very little about financing trends and IPOs, the security breaches and leaks, the policy challenges, talent wars, and other issues that factored heavily this past year. Even as the importance of the startup grew profoundly in 2011, only Apple and a few other titans of tech could reliably marshal the attention the entire industry.