Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I shared our super-awesome new logo? That was just a small part of a large project called SB Nation United, which will come to this and all of your favorite SB Nation blogs very soon. The project is called "United" because it will give each one of the 300-plus sites on the network a brand new, consistent presentation... unified, if you will.
Some of the goals of SB Nation United are:
- SB Nation United is going to make our sites load faster and run better, meaning you can get to the content you want faster.
- SB Nation United is going to make sure that you're seeing the best and brightest content up front with our flexible layout, modern design and reduction of clutter.
- SB Nation United is going to make the experience on our sites run seamlessly from every platform, whether mobile, tablet or computer. No matter where you are, the experience will not change.
- SB Nation United will not take away or change any of the community elements you love like FanPosts and FanShots and GameThreads.
One of the nice things about United is it gives us a lot of flexibility with the stories we post at the top of the page. Today, it doesn't matter how important a story is, it gets pushed down the page when something new gets posted. With United, we can leave important stories up as long as we want, and we can arrange the top stories on the site in a number of different ways. Here are a few of them:
Take a look at the left side of that last screen shot. That's called a StoryStream. If you've ever visited the main SBNation.com site, you're probably familiar with a StoryStream. It's a device that lets writers collect a series of related stories and make them into one ongoing story.
Let's say Doug Woolard decided to retire tomorrow. Obviously there would be a lot of stories related to that, including the retirement itself, names churned up in the rumor mill, people interviewing for the vacant job, opinions from local media, and ultimately a new hire. The StoryStream lets us join all of those individual stories together so you can easily keep up with the entire saga.
If you've ever visited this site on your phone or tablet, you know it looks a lot different on mobile than it does on a regular computer. Not anymore. With United, you get the same site with the same features no matter what you use to read it.
Now here are some important things that won't change. You don't have to re-register for this or any SB Nation blog. The setup for comments will be the same as it is now - it will even look about the same as it does now. And you'll still be able to contribute FanPosts and FanShots to the site.
This is a page of nothing but FanShots, but you'll also be able to see them on our new homepage.
Finally, at the very end of this post is an entire homepage sample, from top to bottom. There are some other neat features, like groups and hubs, that we'll tell you all about once we figure out how we want to set them up.
This is all coming very soon. We know this is a big change to make all at once, and we're going to be getting used to designing the new site at the same time that you're getting used to reading the new site. I for one am excited to try and raise my writing game so that we don't drag down this awesome new site with a bunch of crap.
If you have any questions or comments, we're here to listen and try to answer your questions as best we can.
