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All Good Things Must Come to an End
4:50 P.M. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21, 2009
BRAD SHEFFIELD
You probably noticed by the headline, that today is going to be a very sad blog entry. It pains me to say this, but today will be my last blog until at least the summer. I know this only effects the five people that actually read this blog on a consistent basis, but it's still a very sad day.
My blog will replaced by "K"CORNER, a softball blog by Assistant Media Relations Director Kyle Cornish. I think that you will enjoy what he has to say concerning Baylor softball.
Okay, now that the tissues are away, let's get on to today's real blog topic; internet video.
As many of you have probably already noticed, BaylorBears.com has started to add game highlights, postgame press conferences, weekly interviews, season outlooks and even video blogs to the media player on the front page and sports specific pages. One of the goals when the new BaylorBears.com was launched in December was to provide quality video updates about everything related to Baylor athletics.
We've received many positive comments about the new video features, so hopefully you will continue to enjoy them as they get updated on a consistent basis.
So, this is goodbye for now. Don't worry, I'm not going to end with a BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE. I'm way too mature and original for that.
The History of BaylorBears.com
4:15 P.M. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 7, 2009
BRAD SHEFFIELD
In my last blog entry, I gave a quick run-down and timeline of how the new site got launched nearly one month ago. I figured I would now give a short lesson on the history of BaylorBears.com.
BaylorBears.com wasn't the original name for the Baylor athletic department website. There was BaylorSportsNet.com followed by the FANSonly site, GoBaylorBears.com. The "Go" was dropped in 2002.
Baylor has been affiliated with FANSonly/CSTV/CBS College Sports since Aug. of 2000. The site has obviously undergone several changes and renovations to get to where we are today. What sorts of changes? Just take a look for yourself. Some of these pages have broken links, but you get the point.
The Making of BaylorBears.com
5:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17, 2008
BRAD SHEFFIELD
So the secret is out to why I haven't been posting blogs more often over the last few months. By now, you've probably had a chance to fiddle around on the new BaylorBears.com.
You'll notice that we've added a few new features, such as the video player on the front page, that I think you'll find useful. You'll also find that your favorite Baylor blog will be easier to find and connect to with the placement of BearBlogs Unlimited on the front page.
So, what's the process of creating a new website? Two, four, even six weeks? Well for the redesign of BaylorBears.com it took, from beginning to end, over four months of hard work to make the site go live on Thursday, Dec. 11.
Below you'll find a simplified timeline of what had to happen to make BaylorBears.com launch by the Christmas break.
MONDAY, OCT. 22, 2008
- I set down with several other members of our Athletic Media Relations staff and discussed a few options as far as design. We knew that we wanted a clean, sleek look that would be easy to navigate and use. We also wanted to highlight all of our video content. Surprisingly, we went outside of college athletics for some influence. ESPN.com was one site we looked at, pre their re-design. Interesting Note: The first mock-up of the new BaylorBears.com was designed on this day by using a small marker board.
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24, 2008
- We met with a design team from CBS College Sports via teleconference to go over some ideas so they could get a feel of what we wanted the new BaylorBears.com to portray.We actually took a picture of our marker board and the design team used that to draw up our first mock-up.
FRIDAY, OCT. 3, 2008
- It took the CBS College Sports design team less than two weeks to come up with our first draft.
MONDAY, NOV. 24, 2008
- Following nearly a half of dozen different mock-up versions, we signed off on the design of BaylorBears.com.
TUESDAY, NOV. 25, 2008
- So now that the site had been designed, it was smooth sailing, right? Wrong. The hard part was just getting started. The next day after signing off on the design, we got started on transferring all content from our old site to our new site. No easy task considering BaylorBears.com has been with FANSOnly/CSTV/CBS College Sports for the last eight years.
WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY, DEC. 3-5, 2008
- Obviously such a big project wasn't a one-man show. Nearly a week out before our relaunch, we had to enlist the help of Assistant Marketing Directors, Grant Wiede and Chad Klempnauer, to help us with the design of a few graphics you see on the new BaylorBears.com. Thanks guys.
MONDAY, DEC. 8, 2008
- One of my personal favorites about the new site is the video player on both the front and sport specific pages. One of the first things we passed along to CBS College Sports was that we wanted our videos to just be click and play, a la ESPN's video player. So when it came time to get updated videos on our site, I knew there was only one person I could go to; Robert Shiekh, producer of Inside Baylor Sports. Rob took the greater part of his day putting together and picking the best videos to play on BaylorBears.com. So if you like the videos you see, make sure you thank Robert Shiekh.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10, 2008
- The day before the relaunch was probably the most hectic of the whole procedure. Heath Nielsen, Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations, and myself spent the entire day making sure every "t" was crossed and "i" dotted so that the site would launch on time.
7:30 P.M., THURSDAY, DEC. 11, 2008
- You may have had to check your screen when you visited the Baylor athletics website that Thursday evening. You might have even logged on again on Friday to make sure it wasn't a fluke, but the new BaylorBears.com site made its appearance at approxiametly 7:30 p.m. Thursday after four months of hard work by many people associated with the Baylor athletic department and CBS College Sports.
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