December 23, 2011

dodgerfan.net Offseason Moves

Many of you have noticed that things have been a little quiet on the dodgerfan.net front recently. We’ve been in the midst of some significant changes around here, some not related to the site and some very related to it.

Site Upgrades and Hosting Changes

We decided to make a pretty significant change to our site at the end of the year.  We run on the WordPress platform and have been chugging away on a good (but unsupported) platform for some time.  We decided the time was right to take the plunge and upgrade to a new platform (Genesis) that enables a lot more customization and enhanced functionality.  Stage 1 was enabling feature parity between the old platform and the new platform (which is now complete).  Stage 2, which will be taking place between now and the start of spring training, will involve changing some aspects of the site to improve content discoverability, enhancing partner content and a few other suggestions that various folks have passed along to us.

We’ve also made a change to our hosting provider, which takes a lot of work to complete when you are a two-man operation and have full-time jobs and families.  We’re very happy with our new provider and believe you’ll see better page load times as a result of this switch.

Job-related Changes

Chris has been hard at work planning the next stage of his career and recently accepted a new position which included a move to Seattle over the holidays.  While not ideal for covering Dodger games in person, it’s definitely a positive step forward for his non-blog related work.

Finally, we’re hard at work assessing our staffing and determining what the right level of involvement is to create a solid product going forward.  You may see some new names and faces associated with the blog in the future, but rest assured that our approach, style, and content will stay at current levels.

With all that being said, let’s get back to work.  It’s hard to believe Spring Training is just a month away!

Photo Credit: Jon SooHoo / LA Dodgers 2010