Mon, Feb 02, 2009 | 22:15 GMT
VG247 – Welcome to our second year and your new site!
Happy birthday to us. VG247, “Britain’s leading videogaming news site,” according to the press release we just put out, is one year old. We launched on February 1, 2008, and had a fantastic first year.
To celebrate, we’ve done some stuff.
First things first. Our biggest anniversary news is that we’ve hired a full-time American journalist. Stephany Nunneley joins us today as our Associate Editor, US. We’re very excited by Steph coming on board, and believe her joining the staff will make a big difference to both the depth and daily time-span of our content. She was previously a news editor on Ziff Davis’s Gaming Today and a contributor to 1UP.
Secondly, we’ve redesigned the whole site and rebranded it as VG247, as you’ve probably noticed. We’re known web-wide as VG247 and the new URL’s more succinct. Immediacy ‘r’ us. The videogaming247.com address now forwards to the new domain.
As part of the relaunch, we’ve added a bunch of new stuff to make the VG247 “experience” more rounded. Here’s what’s changed:
- New design – Martin’s done himself proud with the site’s new look. He also designed the original VG247, but decided to drop his famed rounded box corners for year two. We don’t question. He gets really angry.
- We’ve added a forum – See. We listened. The “board” experiment didn’t really work, so we’ve added a “proper” forum for you. It’s what Shatner would have wanted. Go and use it. Remember, as with the comments threads, there’s no moderation and no one gets banned. We will remove spam – if you want to advertise on the site, look at this – and we’ll delete posts if we receive specific legal threats. But that’s it. We want you to live the hippy internet dream.
- There’s a forum box on the homepage – This worked well for the comments threads, so we’ve added a recent activity box for the forum on the main editorial page. Keeps you nice and updated, isn’t it.
- New “hot” features – Any stories we tag as hot will now get a “hot” headline in the news feed. We know it can be difficult keeping up with the news, so hopefully this’ll make skimming a little easier.
- Digest – The Digest button on the top left gives you every headline from the last day. Again, this should make keeping up with things easier for you.
- Social bookmarking stuff – Mart’s added a new share box at the bottom of every article that should include every social bookmarking link you’ll ever need. We hope.
- We’ve dropped the “tag cloud” – No one liked it. No one used it. It’s been eliminated. We’ve added some links at the bottom of the page templates, but that should be it for “links” in boxes for now.
- Staff page – As Christina Aguilera once said, we are beautiful in every single way. Here’s the proof.
That’s it for now. We sincerely hope you like the new look, and please bear in mind this is all work in progress; expect plenty more refinement as we go along. Thanks for reading, and here’s to year two!
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139 
Posted in: VG247
Tags: relaunch, stephany nunneley, year two
139 comments
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#51
Psychotext
02/02/09, 8:19 pm
The forums will become the new home of Razz’s amateur porn on the interwebs!
#52
mart
02/02/09, 8:21 pm
That’s odd Pat, you let me tell you what to do.
#53
JesteR
02/02/09, 8:21 pm
Your comment is awaiting moderation. <—– Is that new? I think a moderation check wasnt here before ^^.
#54
Gekidami
02/02/09, 8:22 pm
Only 50 comments by page now? Was that always in place?
#55
mart
02/02/09, 8:22 pm
Where did it say that JesteR? We don’t require moderation.
@Geki – no, that’s new. Helps keep the pages tidy and speed the site up a bit.
#56
Patrick Garratt
02/02/09, 8:23 pm
mart – Only because you beg me to.
#57
Syrok
02/02/09, 8:25 pm
The site is a lot faster. Shame the rounded corners had to go though.
#58
mart
02/02/09, 8:27 pm
They just had to. It’s 2009 man. Plus I wanted to cut down on the number of superfluous graphics on the page, and make the layout less break prone, as the old design was wont to do.
#59
JesteR
02/02/09, 8:27 pm
OK here
JesteR said:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 2, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I clicked on the staff link and i doesnt work. i get this in FF in the adress bar when i click it:
http://www.vg247.comstaff/
Yeah i know i just have to add a / but some might not know that.
#60
JesteR
02/02/09, 8:28 pm
JesteR said:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 2, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I clicked on the staff link and i doesnt work. i get this in FF in the adress bar when i click it:
LINK <—— maybe the cause?
Yeah i know i just have to add a / but some might not know that.
#61
JesteR
02/02/09, 8:29 pm
Btw none of the picture under the news headline are displayed. Only the latest with the vg247 logo is displayed. All older news pictures arent displayed.
#62
Johnny Cullen
02/02/09, 8:30 pm
Ooh, looks swank Pat.
Congrats on the new addition too.
Say… you looking for more editors too like in the old days?
Because ahem… I am interested (I needz to write for a site, I haz a craving =( )
#63
Gekidami
02/02/09, 8:30 pm
Mart wanted to cut down on the number of superfluous graphics Jester.
#64
mart
02/02/09, 8:31 pm
Fixed the staff link in this post.
Also aware of the article image issue, it’s noted.
#65
Tejstar
02/02/09, 8:31 pm
Nice refresh guys. Glad you shortened the name too – vg247 is much more catchy!
#66
DrunknMunky
02/02/09, 8:33 pm
Love it, great work =)
#67
Patrick Garratt
02/02/09, 8:33 pm
Johnny – patrick [a] vg247.com
I’m off to write some news. Thanks for the feedback, everyone
#68
JesteR
02/02/09, 8:35 pm
mart it seems that if you post a link in the comments that you get an awaiting moderation notice then.
#69
Patrick Garratt
02/02/09, 8:35 pm
I’ve posted a thread on the forum for stuff that needs fixing. Stick faults in there so they’re all in one place and we’ll take a look at them in the morning.
#70
JesteR
02/02/09, 8:36 pm
@mart again. Pictures are working now. Nice work!
.
#71
Chris Evans
02/02/09, 8:41 pm
Must say it is a bit odd to have a giant ‘Site Admin’ button at the top for normal users
#72
Patrick Garratt
02/02/09, 8:42 pm
We’ll change that, Chris.
#73
Chris Evans
02/02/09, 8:43 pm
Hopefully I’ll actually get around to commenting on your stories more often, always visited before the redesign, but only commented…once maybe
#74
Johnny Cullen
02/02/09, 8:46 pm
Ta Pat.
Expect an email shortly dude
#75
Psychotext
02/02/09, 8:54 pm
Is it me… or did a bunch of posts disappear from this article?
#76
Grimrita
02/02/09, 8:54 pm
nice one – but the text is all screwed on the left hand side. It doesnt actuall form a paragraph. I’m using IE7
#77
Psychotext
02/02/09, 8:55 pm
Ohhh… I see, 23rd comment on this page. That’s another one for the bug list.
#78
mart
02/02/09, 8:56 pm
@Psychotext – it’s paged. Click on “Older comments”
@Grimrita – thanks for the heads up. I’m going to be doing some compatibility work tomorrow to fix any layout bugs that crop up in IE.
#79
mart
02/02/09, 8:56 pm
@Psycho – it’s not a bug believe it or not; that is default wordpress behaviour. Bonkers.
#80
cachucha
02/02/09, 9:19 pm
rss and site are kinda broken now @_@
#81
Superfrog
02/02/09, 9:22 pm
Congrats on the relaunch! I actually liked the old ’round corners’ design better, but the new one’s nice too.
#82
Superfrog
02/02/09, 9:26 pm
I just noticed that all those lovely header graphics are gone for all news except the most recent ones. Meh.
And by the way, an edit function for the comments is also missing.
#83
Patrick Garratt
02/02/09, 9:28 pm
We’ll fix the images tomorrow. Mart’s looking at the editing
#84
Psychotext
02/02/09, 9:31 pm
@mart: Filthy wordpress amatuers!
#85
mart
02/02/09, 9:55 pm
@cachucha – What’s wrong with the RSS? Please post in the stickied bugs thread in the forum.
#86
Spiral
02/02/09, 10:01 pm
I must admit to preferring the old Latest Comments Page, but the rest is spiffy and lovely.
#87
Michael O'Connor
02/02/09, 10:04 pm
Very, very nice job.
Only thing I can complain about is that there appears to be a (VERY small) scroll bar at the bottom of the screen on 1924 x 768 resolutions. Take 10 or so pixels in length on any box should fix that easy enough.
#88
mart
02/02/09, 10:08 pm
Really?! Would you mind sending me a shot of that? If possible, then please email to martin [at] eurogamer [dot] net. Ta!
#89
Michael O'Connor
02/02/09, 10:10 pm
Whoops, I meant 1024 x 768
Still want the screenshot? =P
#90
mart
02/02/09, 10:12 pm
Ah, no that’s ok. That makes more sense. Ok, I’ll look into that, thanks.
#91
Welkers
02/02/09, 10:16 pm
Really like it, good job!
#92
El_MUERkO
02/02/09, 10:35 pm
i feel special
#93
El_MUERkO
02/02/09, 10:36 pm
should we be going to http://www.vg247.com/wp-admin/ when we login?
#94
David Sarkisjan
02/02/09, 10:36 pm
This is indeed awesome work guys. Looking fantastic! Just the Poker ads are a lil annonying up there.
#95
El_MUERkO
02/02/09, 10:39 pm
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
boooooo
#96
Blerk
02/02/09, 10:41 pm
Well, congrats all – it looks mighty fine. Apart from those boxes around the comments. I don’t like those.
And your ugly mugs on the staff page. But there’s nothing you can do about those, really.
#97
davidkenobi
02/02/09, 11:14 pm
Congrats guys, simple, class, fantastic ! Long life to you (think it’s rather in the right way)
#98
SticKboy
02/02/09, 11:26 pm
No rounded corners, no interest. I’M LEAVING!
No srsly, the site looks fab, great job all round chaps! Here’s to another fun filled year
#99
Bleak Harvest
03/02/09, 1:47 am
Congratulations, Gentlemen!
absolutezero introduced me to the site about 10 months ago and you’ve been on the old Firefox Bookmark Toolbar ever since. Keep up the great content and I look forward to using the board. Cheers!
#100
El_MUERkO
03/02/09, 2:14 am
100th comment
woo!
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