Trust us…we don’t make changes without a little trepidation.  Looking at site statistics, our biggest growth spurt began in August, 2009 immediately after our last redesign.  That layout obviously resonated with readers and helped propel the site to new heights.  So when we thought about making a few changes last year, we decided to leave well enough alone and not touch a thing.

So why change now?  Well…here are a few of the enhancements we’ve made, some of which you may have already noticed:

• Redesigned home page — This is the area we felt needed the most improvement.  Frankly, we don’t write enough blog posts every week to take up as much space as we were occupying on the previous home page design.  So now we’re using some of that space to highlight other sites and blogs and their most recently updated content.
• Larger font size and increased whitespace – Everyone who visits the site will benefit from this change.  But as we see more devices like the iPad being used, the bar is being raised to improve readability while also allowing for easier site navigation using a touch interface.
• More to come — While the design changes are the most noticeable, we’ve also made some changes ‘under the hood’ that will allow for more features to be added in the coming weeks and months.  Stay tuned.

Like any good redesign, we’ve tried to keep the best of the old and mix in some of the new.  One of our most popular features, ‘The Stream,’ is still right where you would expect it to be in the sidebar.  And many of our sections like Photos and Links are pretty much unchanged.

Overall, several of the updates fit with one of our original tenets: Leverage the power of “the collective.”  No…we don’t mean the Borg — the collective of information on the Internet about Razorback sports.  While we feel like our own original content provides value, we know there’s also some great stuff written by both media and fans that’s worth highlighting every single day.

And that great stuff also includes the comments you make here regularly.  We recently passed the 13,000 comment mark…over six times the number of blog posts that we’ve written over the last five years.  We continue to be amazed and appreciative of all the Hog fans who spend part of their day here with us…’Blogging the Hogs.’

Feel free to let us know what you think we could be doing better by leaving a comment or using our contact form.  Like you, we’re excited to get the season going and see where the journey takes us.

GO HOGS!

Our friend Brandon Marcello of WholeHogSports.com has been spearheading the planning of this event and laid out a few of the details today…including the obvious question:

What’s a “tweetup,” you ask?  It’s a chance for Arkansas fans and avid Twitter users to meet up — gasp! — in person, share stories and talk all things Hogs with fellow fans and the members of the media they follow on Twitter.

We’re calling it #RazUp and the first one has been scheduled for June 18 at 6 p.m.  The location has yet to be set, but it will be at a local establishment in Fayetteville. The details of the event, including the location, will be announced soon.

Having a chance to hang out in person and discuss all things Razorback with those of you who visit with us here regularly is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time.  And hopefully this event can grow into a regular gathering as the seasons change from football to basketball to baseball.  (Yes…there are other seasons besides football.)

All of the details will be set soon, but for now you can use Facebook or Twtvite to RSVP.  Also, you can keep up with all the event info by following (and using) the #RazUp hash tag on Twitter.

Both HogBlogger and I are planning to attend and we’re excited to be participating in this event.  We hope to see many of you there and, as Brandon said, “meet up, eat, drink and talk Hogs.”

Of course, the 2010 season really started for this team long before today’s first spring practice.  With regular weight room sessions and early morning workouts, there really is no such thing as an offseason anymore.

And, like the players and coaches, the media and HogBlogosphere have been preparing early for spring practice with some great preview articles.

We told you last week what we’d be eyeing closely when attending practice and that’s a theme that Brandon Marcello of WholeHogSports.com has been running with, as well.

In his “Three 2 Watch” series, Brandon has been previewing the potential impact players and “situations” to watch for this spring.  There’s good stuff here on running back Ronnie Wingo, tight end Chris Gragg and the Hogs’ wide receiving corps.  On defense, a profile of new assistant Steve Caldwell, an update on cornerback Isaac Madison’s return from injury and the search for impact linebackers are also thoroughly covered.

Robbie Neiswanger of the Arkansas News Bureau has been running his position-by-position previews lately, including the quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends and offensive line.  On the other side of the ball, Robbie gives us updates on the defensive line, linebackers and defensive backs to complete the preview.

As for Chris Bahn of ArkansasSports360.com, he paired up with our friends at ArkansasExpats.com for a joint Q&A session yesterday.  And Chris also wrote up a helpful “primer” on “who and what will matter this spring.”

And finally, the folks on the mothership at ArkansasRazorbacks.com have produced what is basically a spring practice media guide with nearly 50 pages full of information, including links to video content.

Collectively, that’s just about as much information as any Hog junkie could possibly process.  And the best part?  Our sidebar News Stream linked to every single one of these articles over the past week.

And, as you may have noticed, we recently added Razorback Nation video and the new CallingtheHogs.com web site to make the Stream even better!

So keep it tuned right here to RBN for regular updates as well as links to all the latest spring practice coverage.  GO HOGS!

George Orwell once wrote, “The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”  And as the Northwest Arkansas newspaper “war” comes to an end, there are definitely no winners to be found.

The hardest hit, of course, are those writers and other employees who were laid off this past week.  Sportswriters who we have read for years and linked to regularly from this site like Chris Cocoles, David Showers, Terry Wood, Vernon Tarver and Heath Allen have all (apparently) been let go.  We certainly wish them the best during this difficult time and in the future.

Having said that, everyone understands that the newspaper business is just that — a business.  The status quo was unsustainable.  The economy has slowed, technology has become prevalent, and there are few media markets left in the country that can support more than one major newspaper.

So other than reducing the number of sportswriters on the Razorback beat, how will this affect coverage of the Hogs?  From the FAQ describing the new “joint venture”:

Q. What kind of Razorback coverage can I expect?

A. The papers will continue to provide coverage of Arkansas sports in the Northwest edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and through the Arkansas News Bureau.  Staff members of Hawgs Illustrated magazine, Clay Henry and Dudley Dawson, will also supplement the coverage.

Q. Why do I need to take the paper if I can read the stories free on the Web?

A. All the stories generated by the new organization will be available on the Web for its subscribers.  Access on the Web to full stories from all four newspapers will no longer be free for nonsubscribers.  [...]  Content produced exclusively for the Web by the newspapers will remain available at no charge.

Like we said earlier…there are no winners in all of this.  And that includes those Razorback fans — many from around the country and world — who choose not to pay to be online or print subscribers of the local and state newspapers involved in this new “partnership.”

We already posted our thoughts back in July about the decision by Walter Hussman, Jr. to move his online newspaper content behind a ‘paywall.’  Like many others, we disagree with that decision as shortsighted.

But the reality is, as of today, the majority of the print coverage about the Razorbacks will now be behind a paywall.  And it will be up to Hog fans to decide whether or not it’s worth paying for that content.

As for this site, we plan to continue with our decision to only link to free content on the web.  But as you can see from last night’s Eastern Michigan game, that will mean fewer links to articles in our ‘Stream’ and game recap posts.  And that’s a disappointing loss even when the Razorbacks win.

First of all, after taking input from many of you, we have decided to continue our long-standing policy to not link to paid sites.  As we’ve said before, we want to avoid frustrating our readers by sending them to articles that they may not be able to view.

While we don’t agree with the changes being made by the management of the Democrat-Gazette to shut off free access to their content, we appreciate their business decision and wish them well in the future.  (And we will continue to link to posts on the free Slophouse blog.)

As for the changes to our site, starting today we are combining our Network Headlines and HogBlogs sidebar widgets into one area that we’re calling “The Stream.”

The line between blogs and media sites has certainly blurred over the years.  When we first started this site, sports blogs were written entirely by fans like us.  But now, at least in our opinion, there’s very little reason anymore to keep content from quality fan blogs and media outlets separate.

For those who use Twitter, the format of “The Stream” will look very familiar:  a short publisher name (based, if possible, on their Twitter handle) followed by a link to the blog post or news article.

And speaking of Twitter, we’ve also added a widget to the top of our sidebar listing our most recent Twitter updates.  Nothing earth-shattering there, we know.  But it will give us a way to send out breaking news quickly to our site readers as well as those who follow us on Twitter.

While these changes were somewhat forced by the changing landscape of Razorback news coverage on the Internet, we also think they are an improvement over what we were doing before.  As always, of course, we welcome your feedback.

Hopefully you’ll find, however, that we didn’t just mix things up for the sake of change.  We also wanted to make a few improvements, as well.

Updated, cleaner design — The biggest design change is on our home page.  We’ve added a new ‘Top Stories’ area to visually highlight the best content on our site and from around the web.  We’ve also tweaked our old design to better separate the sections of each page and (hopefully) improve readability.

Mobile web — As we all stay more and more connected on the go, we’ve updated our site to include a mobile version that will display quickly no matter what network you’re on or what phone you’re using.

If you want to view the new mobile site, browse to our address from your phone and toggle the “Mobile Theme” switch at the bottom of the page.  But don’t worry…if you have a great phone browser and want to view our entire site in its ‘normal’ look and feel, that’s the way it will continue to display by default.

Social links – In the upper right corner of every page, we’ve provided quick links to the other places we update on the web.  We’re pretty pumped right now about the possibilities of building an even stronger community through these sites.

Whether we’re posting breaking news on Twitter, connecting with ‘fans’ through our Facebook page, or syndicating content through our web feed, we want to make sure it’s easy for our readers to stay in touch and discuss all things Razorback.

We’re excited about these changes and hope to put in another new feature or two as we move into football season.  Feel free to let us know what you think we could be doing better by leaving a comment or using our contact form.

In the meantime, we just want to thank all of you again for helping make this site come alive with your participation.  Even after three years, we continue to be amazed and appreciative of all the people who take time to hang out here.

GO HOGS!

That’s because starting on August 5th, only current print subscribers or online readers willing to pay $5.95 per month (or $59.00 per year) will be able to view daily newspaper stories on their online properties, NWAnews.com and WholeHogSports.com.  (Thankfully, The Slophouse blog will continue to be free.)

While we won’t attempt to debate here the future viablity of the newspaper industry, no one should be surprised by this move.  Publisher Walter Hussman, Jr. has for several years been an advocate of closing off free online access to the articles in his daily newspapers.

The bad timing for Razorback football fans, of course, may or may not be coincidental.  Typically, some of the highest traffic volume of the year here on this site is the first week of fall practice.  So if you’re going to charge for Razorback-related online content, that’s probably as good a time as ever to start.

The press release announcing the move yesterday cited the heated newspaper competition in Northwest Arkansas as one of the reasons why this change hasn’t happened until now.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes the Stephens Media newspapers to make a similar move now that one side has ‘blinked.’

Hussman’s argument that there’s no business model (i.e. money to be made) in giving something away is certainly understandable.  While Hussman’s family is believed to be one of the richest in Arkansas, the journalists and other newspaper employees who work for him certainly have to put food on the table.  Fans as well as ‘enthusiasts’ like us who have ‘real jobs’ and produce online content as a part-time endeavour certainly understand that, too.

As for how this change affects our site, we’ve always had a standing policy to not link to paid content — mainly to avoid sending our readers to articles they couldn’t view.  But I guess we may have to reconsider that now.  We’re looking into how we would update our News section to designate articles that are paid content.

As for our little corner of the Internet, as we said when we first started, the content we produce for this site will continue to be “free…with no hidden fees or surcharges.”

No surcharges, that is, unless you decide to click on some of the newspaper article links.

After giving accolades for the accomplishments of the Razorback spring sports teams (gymnastics, golf, outdoor track, baseball), Long was asked about sites such as Twitter and Facebook:

“We can’t overlook it.  [People] are looking for that direct connect between us — administrators, coaches, student athletes.

“They don’t want it filtered through the media outlets…some people.  That’s what social media gives them the opportunity to do.

“We need to do more with it.  We’re going to do more with it.  It’s where things are headed and we need to be a part of that for our fan base.”

Long even revealed for the first time that he has his own Twitter account and plans to start using it in the future.

Perhaps coincidentally, one of the first Razorback head coaches to begin updating Twitter started on Friday evening.  Swimming coach Jeff Poppell (@jeffpoppell) made his first few ‘tweets’ about three Razorback swimmers who will soon be competing in the World Championships in Rome.

Will Petrino or Pelphrey be following soon?  Only time will tell, but Long recognized the growing importance that social media sites like Twitter are playing in the recruitment of future student athletes.  Communicating with these new tools, Long said, was “second nature to them (young people).”

You can see the entire video web chat with Long here on RazorVision.  And you can, of course, follow us ‘blogging the Hogs’ through @RazorBloggers on Twitter or by becoming a ‘fan’ of our page on Facebook.

On our fancy new page, you’ll find our latest posts and photos, as well as links to our favorite Razorback-related Facebook pages.  And we’re planning to add even more in the future.  Feel free to leave a post on our wall and give us your feedback.

And to think it only took 200 million people joining up before we finally decided to take the plunge, too. 

Last week, we celebrated the two year anniversary of this site.  And because we’ve pretty much had the same look since the first day we started, it just felt like it was time for a change.

And no…it wasn’t because that ‘other site‘ decided to change their design last week.    About a month ago we chose this new layout and, after several long nights of making customizations, the results are what you see today.

Hopefully you’ll find, however, that we didn’t just mix things up for the sake of change.  We also wanted to make a few improvements.

Screen size — First and foremost, we’ve got more real estate to work with now.  By moving to a layout that uses the wider resolutions of most modern computers, we now have more space to “blog the hogs.”

Improved navigation — One of the more limiting factors of our old design was that its navigation was only one level deep.  That caused our visitors to have to ‘wade through’ a lot to find what they were looking for on the site.  Now, for example, if you want to see photos of your favorite Razorback, you can just highlight the ‘Photos’ button and select ‘Player Photos.’

More headlines and blogs — By widening our sidebar, we’ve got more room to display news headlines and posts from the HogBlogosphere.  And by using a larger font size, we think they’ll be easier to read, too.

These are just a few of the things we’re doing with this new design.  You’ll see more new features as we move into football season.  (We’ve still got a little ‘spring cleaning’ to do, too.)  Feel free to let us know what you think we could be doing better by leaving a comment or using our contact form.

In the meantime, we just want to thank all of you again for helping make this site come alive with your participation.  We recently passed the 400,000 visitor mark and we continue to be amazed and appreciative of all the people who spend part of their day here with us…’calling the hogs.’

GO HOGS!

Kevin and Steve (a.k.a. HogBlogger) sat down for a quick interview last week and much of that discussion made it into the article.  And while we haven’t blogged about it lately, we continue to be amazed at the growth of this site since its inception a little over 20 months ago.

Here are some quick stats (some of which were mentioned in the article):

• Last 12 months: 237,000+ visits (232,000 from U.S.); 64,000+ unique visitors; 546,000+ page views.
• Visitors from over 108 countries; regular visitors in Italy, Japan, Belgium, Germany, UK, Hungary, Canada, Iraq.  (As you might notice, several of the countries listed have a U.S. military base or presence.  We know from the e-mails we receive that a big percentage of our international traffic comes from our armed forces.)
• 1,250+ posts and 650+ original photos (complete RBN photo archive is over 1,900 photos).

As you can see, while we might not do the volume of some message boards, we’ve been very pleased with the community of intelligent readership who come here to keep up with the Razorbacks, as well as provide their own unique viewpoints.

As always, we just want to thank all of you again for helping make this site come alive with your participation.  As we’ve said before, you’re the reason we enjoy doing this site.  And like you, we’re looking forward to following what promises to be an exciting time on The Hill over the next several years.

GO HOGS!

Our very own HogBlogger participated along with Ross Taylor of the Missouri blog RockMNation.com.  You can see the video here:

Blogger Bowlnanza: Cotton Bowl

I thought the segment hosted by John Walters (a.k.a. “JDub“) was done really well.  Ross was cool and wasn’t into stirring up a bunch of trash talk.  And the trivia contest was fun, although HogBlogger is kicking himself for not remembering Ricky Williams.  We want to thank Matt at NBC Universal for inviting us to participate.

But, of course, the big thing to come out of this interview…HogBlogger is no longer anonymous!

A lot has changed since we started blogging in 2005.  Back then, there were very few sites on the Internet that were ‘blogging the Hogs.’  The good news now, though, is that there are several great Razorback blogs out there.  And we wanted to make sure we brought our readers’ attention to them just like our RBN Network Headlines highlight the news stories of the day.

If you’ve already been keeping up, then you know that the guys over at Razorback Expats have been writing some great stuff lately.  (Love the ‘Shark Eyes‘ pic, guys.)  And you can always count on The Hog Blogger for a good laugh…or a good rant.  Paul over at The Hog Source has been running a nice series on recruiting this week.  And we were glad to see the reporters and staff of WholeHogSports, Razorback Central and ArkansasSports360.com join the HogBlogosphere this year.

Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, we’ve been a little lax with our own blog postings lately.  Part of it has been the busy nature of this time of year.  (Gone to the mall lately?)  With a group of four bloggers, though, it’s been pretty rare that all of us have gotten busy at the same time.  Real life, as usual, has a way of intervening.

The great thing, though, is that our commenters continue to be fantastic.  We really do appreciate everyone who contributes to the site.  You are most definitely a huge part of the success that we’ve enjoyed.

We promise we’ll get back to writing soon.  Until then, we want to wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  We hope you’ve enjoyed the time you’ve spent here this year and we look forward to continuing the conversation with you into 2008.

GO HOGS!

It’ll be a light blog posting schedule this week, with several of the RazorBloggers taking off for a little R&R.  But just to tide you over…

We said last month that we were working on some new site features.  Well, today we’re debuting the first one…the new and improved RazorBloggers Network Photos section.

Over the past year, we’ve archived over 1,000 high quality photos of Razorback sports.  But since it launched last August, the Photos section of this site has only contained pictures taken by yours truly.  And while I’m still proud of my stuff, there have been many other great photos featured here — taken by the real pros — that also deserve to be prominently displayed.  The new RBN Photos section is your resource now for those, too.

Now you can easily find a picture of your favorite player…or your not so favorite coach.  We’ve even got a photo page dedicated to “Humanity Advanced,” as Darren McFadden has come to be known in the sports blogosphere.

And since we’ve seen that there’s…uh…a particular subset of my photos that are a little more…uh…’popular’ than the others, there’s a new Razorback Spirit Squads photo page as well. 

Finally, many of the photo pages now display using a new Flash-based image viewer that’s fast and easy to use.  The viewer will display thumbnails of all photos and then allow you to quickly choose the picture you’d like to enlarge.  And as the games are played and photos are taken this season, the RBN photo pages will be automatically updated with the latest pictures.  That’s pretty cool if you ask us.

We’ve still got a couple more ‘tricks’ up our sleeve before the offseason ends.  Until then, enjoy the new photos section and let us know what you think.

GO HOGS!

Looking back on the past 10 months, it really has been an unbelievably wild ride for fans of the Arkansas Razorbacks.  It’s difficult to fathom how any other season in the future will match this year’s many highs and lows.

If you think about it, no other conference school played more major sport games this year against the other teams of the SEC than Arkansas did.  Even with the disappointments, it really has been a memorable “year of the Hog.”

And it’s certainly been a lot of fun for us here at RBN, too.  We’re fast approaching 160,000 site visits and that, even now, is a figure that exceeds anything we could have possibly imagined when we started up last July.  As always, we just want to thank all of you again for helping make this site come alive with your participation.

Our goal continues to be that every Razorback fan who visits this site finds a least one thing each time that interests them enough that they stay for a little while to explore.  Whether that’s a photo of their favorite player, or the latest recruiting news, or having a conversation with their fellow fans — whatever it is, hopefully it’s enough to make their visit worthwhile.

As for the future, we’re excited about some new site features that are coming soon.  While we’re working on things, please excuse any unforeseen “glitches” as we upgrade and do some housecleaning.

In the meantime, let’s start getting ready for next season!  It’s only 87 days until kickoff!

GO HOGS!

Thanks – TipsterHog, HogBlogger, Sunshine and HogBaller

We just wanted to send a quick shoutout to all of our readers, as well as some of the sites who helped you find us.  They include Booth over at The Slop, the guys at The Fiveforty, and Lanny and the mods at Hogville.  Benjamin over at ARSN has been great, too.  Thanks to everyone…we really appreciate it.

It’s been a wild ride…certainly a little bumpier than we expected.  (That goes for both this site and the Razorback athletic programs.)  Earlier this month we experienced a two week site slowdown that was probably as annoying to many of you as it was to us.  Sorry about that.  A product of the growth that we’ve experienced, unfortunately.  We’ve since upgraded our digs, though, and things seem to be running pretty smoothly again.

We’ve got a lot more planned for the future.  Our vision when we started was to build a Razorback fan site that had everything we always wanted.  There’s a long way to go to achieve that goal but, thanks to your continued interest and support, we’re going to keep trying to get there.

GO HOGS!

First is the News Archive By Source feature of the Network News section.  Since many of our Network Headlines appear when the morning newspapers are delivered, it’s pretty easy to miss a good article when as many as 20 headlines are posted at once.

By using the News Archive, you can view up to 100 headlines (the last 25 from each of our four primary news sources) with just four easy mouse clicks.  Pretty sweet, we think.  And you can quickly reach the archive by clicking More Headlines by Source under the Network Headlines section of our sidebar.

Speaking of the sidebar, it’s undergone a few changes as well.  In particular, we’ve extended our popular Opponent Headlines feature with regularly updated links to Opponent Sites and Blogs.

And even better, we’ve expanded our Network Links sidebar into an entire Links section!  Our goal is to make it the most comprehensive Razorback links page on the Internet.  Check it out and let us know.  (And if you don’t visit RBN Links, how else would you know that there’s actually a Razorback Facilities web site that plays the fight song annoyingly loud?) 

Finally, we’ve added a Schedules and Results section that includes Razorback football, basketball and baseball schedules from 2005-2007 with a link to each game’s results from our archives.  And you can readily find both the new Schedules and Links sections through the site header at the top of every page.

It’s certainly an exciting time right now for the Hogs and and we just want to thank all of you again for helping make this site come alive with great conversation.  We’ve been thrilled with your response and, as always, we continue to look for more suggestions on how we can improve RBN even more.  Let us know.

GO HOGS!

You can read my post (WARNING…the 1998 Tennessee game is mentioned briefly) as well as Joel’s very creative and complimentary post about the Razorbacks over on their site.

I also found the posts by the celebrity guest bloggers to be pretty good reading.  Among others, they include Charlie Weis, Tommy Bowden, Robert Meacham, Peyton Manning and Phillip Fulmer.  Now…wait just a minute…those last three are all Volunteers!  You think this site is just a front used by the Tennessee propaganda machine?  Nah…I guess not.

But it does seem a little weird to have Phil Fulmer as one of my “co-bloggers.” 

Sorry to have been away for a couple of days but we’ve been working hard on a great new site feature.

Many of you have found your way to this site via the Razorbacks photos that I’ve taken over the past year.  Well, I’m excited that there’s now one place where you can view all of those photos with the launch of our new Photos section.  It contains over 300+ football and baseball photos and uses the popular Lightbox slideshow technology that we’ve featured in our practice reports and blog posts.

And if you’re looking for even more photos and information, we’d suggest checking out The Razorback Legacy.  It has a fantastic archive of thousands of Razorbacks-related photos going all the way back to 1896!  Jacob and Phil have created a really great fan-based site with the goal of becoming the most complete historical archive of the program.

We’ll be back again tomorrow morning with the start of our game week coverage.

GO HOGS!