Welcome to the newer, faster, and streamlined Metsmerized Online. Last weekend we launched the most comprehensive redesign of our site since we first launched in 2005.
Everything has been made over and given a fresh, new and team-appropriate look and feel. In addition to a new home page, we’ve redone our article pages, transitioned to new readable Google fonts, added new and faster navigation, included some wicked cool sharing tools that will be up shortly, and other new stuff. In fact, we changed just about everything except the content itself: Your favorite writers, articles, features, and interviews are all still here – they just look a thousand times better!
Clean, Streamlined, Enhanced!
Why the need for the redesign? One reason is that MMO is much bigger than it used to be. We publish three times as many stories as we did three years ago. Where we once had a handful of writers, we now have over 40 regular contributors. Our new home page and navigation tools will allow us to make it easier for you, our readers, to keep up with every great post and every important news update on the Mets.
A second reason is that we did it because it was time. Over the years a website can become encrusted with so much noise and modules and widgets and text links, that we wanted to get rid of all the unnecessary junk and clean things up so that MMO would feel fresh and new.
One of the problems with blogs in general is that, if you post content quite regularly, there is a danger that some of that great content will get lost in The Neverland. That is when it is bumped down the page by new content until it moves off the first page altogether.
We did not want you to miss out on all the great content our site has to offer each day. While the average site posts 2-3 times a day, on MMO we produce about 12-15 articles per day on average. With our new Popular Post module on the sidebar, you’ll be able to see the hottest articles and the most active debates of the last 48 hours spanning the last week.
Lightning Fast 1.4 Second Page Loads!
Also, whereas previously we were only able to show you six articles on our front page, we can now increase that number to ten and not only that, but our page loads 5.5 seconds faster. That may not sound like a lot, but webdesign and SEO experts will all tell you that any site that takes longer than 8 seconds to load is doing a disservice to their readers.
Some of you may look at the site and see a clean, responsive and enhanced MMO now. While others may be longing for our previous them. The truth is that in time you will all come to appreciate what we’ve tried to accomplish here and that is to enrich your overall experience.
Only 30 Days and Disqus Has Been Phenomenal!
By now, all of you have seen the great and positive impact the change in our commenting platform has made. The debates are now stimulating, intellectual and in truth, what we always wanted to see in our threads.
In the last 30 days, we’ve added over 8,000 more readers per day to a new high of 32,000 people checking in every day to our site. Also, for the first time, we now have increased reader participation by virtue of the over 1,000 new registered commenters in the past 5 weeks alone.
That’s insane, but you don’t need me to tell you that as the proof is in the almost 25,000 comments in the last 30 days, up from 9,500 in November and December. Thank you so much for making our transition to Disqus such an extraordinary success, so much so that Disqus has just included MMO as one of their Top 2014 Sites – amazing to be listed among other great sites such as MLB Trade Rumors.
GAME THREADS ARE COMING BACK TO MMO!
100% Responsive Mobile Platform
Over 60% of our readership – a brand new majority – access this site via a smartphone or tablet now. That is triple the number from just a year ago. The world is moving faster. It was important for us to deliver a responsive design that will take us into a new age of site advancements and web surfing. After months of testing and development, we can now say we’ve accomplished that mission.
Of course, with every new site redesign there are glitches.
Please let us know if you have any problems and I will work to resolve any and all issues until we’ve nipped them all in the bud.
Let us know what device and browser you are using so that we can better troubleshoot the problem for you. We may have some fixes we can already send you.
Email us at [email protected].
This is your site and not ours. Without you there is no community. From day one we’ve always called MMO a fan site and not a blog and that was because we wanted to give you the power to steer the direction of this site.
Our redesign is not fully completed yet. Over the next 30 days expect to see even more enhancements and modifications. We’re not stopping until it’s perfect.
As always, thank you so much for your overwhelming support. As we begin our tenth season of covering the Mets, we are still humbled that so many of you choose Metsmerized Online as a daily destination.
Best Always, and Lets Go Mets!
