Welcome to the new Goodplaya.com
FIRST things first: may I apologise for the absence of Goodplaya over the past few days.
And with that out the way, welcome to the new Goodplaya.com, redesigned for the 2009-2010 season.
The astute among you will notice a new look. But this is not just a lick of paint. The new design will, all things being equal, allow me to try to introduce the biggest changes to the site since I started blogging on Arsenal five long years ago.
The regular(ish) blog postings and playa ratings will carry on as usual. But it will be for the new “Match Centre” and “Goodplaya on Friday” that the new design will really make its mark.
The Match Centre will (hopefully) allow me to provide live updates during games. These will take the form of the latest score (fed in automatically from an external site), but also audio updates, blog updates, twitter comments and a few ramshackle photos too.
I’m lucky enough to attend almost all Arsenal home games and this is when the Match Centre should really come into it’s own. The mobile phone signal at the Emirates willing, I hope to be able to bring readers across the world closer to what is going on in North London, if that doesn’t sound too pretentious.
The Match Centre will not be and nor is it intended to be an alternative to watching the game on television or listening to it on the radio. The last thing I want to do is to spend 90 minutes staring into my iphone, so updates will be as and when. The idea will be to complement what you get elsewhere, to provide a fully biased, Arsenalised view on proceedings to go alongside the coverage provided by people who are paid to report on Arsenal.
For games I’m not at (ie most away games) I’ll still do the Match Centre, but obviously without the pictures.
As for Goodplaya on Friday, it will attempt to bring the idea of an old fashioned newspaper column/diary to the blogosphere. As an idea, that may be one of the worst ever conceived anywhere, but we shall see. The idea will be to pick up on a theme of the previous week and also to find a home for other little asides. We shall see how it works.
And that, for now, is your lot until I preview the season tomorrow morning. There are still bits and pieces that need finishing off here and there (such as linking to the archives) but all that should be done in time.
Enjoy.
I really like the new look but may
I ask why you went with yellow?
wow,
very impressive new site,
when i am at work on a match day i shall keep an eye on goodplaya.com as long as my employer hasn’t blocked it!
The yellow because it’s a real Arsenal colour!
Welcome back Goodplaya… missed you ! With Arseblogger, you lead the Arse-blogosphere.
Cannot wait till friday !
Hi Goodplaya, read your site regularly and find it one of the best, i.e. most in line with my opinion of goings on =)
Anyway, site redesign looks great, but for some reason it crashed my browser at the 1st couple of viewings. I’m using FF 3.5 (with latest update) on Mac OSX.
Oh dear. That’s very odd. I’m using Firefox 3.0.13 and haven’t had any problems. Let me know if it persists and I’ll refer the matter to the site designer who understands these things infinitely better than I do.
Sure. It could be so many different things such as my system config and nothing to do with the site so doubt it’s too much to worry about.
If you (or your designer) want more detailed info, such as specs, FF plugins installed, feel free to mail me on the address I’ve given.
Read your site all the time, but I wanted to say welcome back on-line, (you’ve been missed,) and the new design looks lovely. Interesting to use our away colors…i like it.
Awesome. Both ideas sound great, and its nice to see a reasonable, well-thought arsenal blog making progress like this! And even the comments here aren’t (usually) hysterical.
Damn! Could you it BE and more obvious that I’m looking at Goodplaya.com while at work?
I’ll get used to the mustard colour, but it’s good to have you back anyway.
Good work, as always, keep it up!
Great design, love it!
Mustard blog. Stay regular.
Awesome new look GP and great new features. I can’t wait for the season to start tomorrow.
On a side note, whatever happened to that Sony Ericsson competition that was up a little while ago?