Hi MetsMerizers!

This is the first in a series of posts detailing what we have in store for you this season, our fifth since we went online, and our sixth overall.  

To begin, our incredible graphics designer and senior editor Kelly Horn, just finished a major re-design of our MMO Graphics. And what an Amazin’ job she did!

As soon as we start getting in some new spring training pics from our photo services company, we’ll be loading each graphics section with dozens of new images featuring all the new players!

We should be getting in a ton of new photos in the next two days, as many players have already arrived in St. Lucie.

This year, we will also be introducing an all new Backgrounds section which you can use for your computer desktops, personal sites and social pages like Twitter, Myspace and Facebook.. Stay on the lookout as we expect to launch those backgrounds by next weekend.

In the meantime, enjoy these cool Mets Buttons!

     

In addition to our photo services company, we now have our very own staff photographer. Tom Gitto, who has his own press credentials, will now provide us with many of our own original photos as he will be covering many exclusive off the field events including the celebrity and charity dinners, golf and bowling tournaments, and awards dinners.

Here are just a couple of shots from the BBWAA Dinner he attended last month, unfortunately Carlos Beltran didn’t make it though. The first one is Joe Mauer posing with his MVP Award, followed by Zach Grienke signing an autograph, and the last one which was taken from the farthest dinner table in the room, is Tim Lincecum accepting his Cy Young. Luckily there were plenty of huge plasma screens for those in the nose bleeds. Later this week I’ll post some pics from the Thurman Munson Dinner as well as the BAT Dinner.

 

We also re-designed the Mets Merized Online Chat Room last week, and gave it more of home-field advantage. Here is a screen shot of our new digs, the home of one of the best and liveliest Mets game chats. A great big hat tip to Kelly for all her hard work

In 2009, our chat room averaged 321 comments per day, and during the period between April 1st and September 30th, the chat room averaged over 700 comments per day! The purpose of our flash chat was to reduce the load and bandwidth on our server that our original game threads were creating, and in that regard it has been a huge success. I am indebted to the good people at Shoutmix for helping us get everything running so smoothly and allowing us the ability to customize and recode their standard design.

Our Chat Room now has 402 registered members. That’s up from 49 at the end of 2007 and 218 at the end of 2008. Since we went live with our Chat Room in 2007, we have banned 22 different IP’s. (What do you think, should I give them another chance?)

That’s all for this post, I hope you enjoy the new look, and please feel free to email me with any problems, questions, and suggestions. Thanks for your support.

Our next 2010 site update will reveal some very cool stuff that was suggested by some of our writers and regular readers last season. We plan to introduce some great new features for the first time ever, and I know you’re going to love them.

Thanks again everybody, you guys are the best!