Allow us to reintroduce ourselves: The new OnlyGators.com

By Adam Silverstein
March 31, 2016
Allow us to reintroduce ourselves: The new OnlyGators.com
Football

Six-and-a-half years.

When ONLY GATORS Get Out Alive opened on Oct. 1, 2009, I would never have fathomed that I’d be writing this to you, dear reader, in 2016 as OnlyGators.com enters its third incarnation, one more than 18 months in the making.

National Signing Day 2015 marked the first time OnlyGators.com allowed individual contributions to the site. Outside of the presence of a button on the side of the page and an occasional pop-over banner, we never publicized the existence of our contribution model. Needless to say, the response was overwhelming that day and has been consistent since.

To those of you who are loyal readers of OnlyGators.com — and more specifically others who directly contributed to the growth and continued development of OnlyGators.com by becoming members – you are now witnessing the fruits of our labor and your passion.

We began accepting contributions with the promise of “major improvements” to the site, and I did not hear from a single one of you asking when those changes would come to fruition.

Your patience has paid off.

Allow me to introduce the new and improved OnlyGators.com.

OnlyGators.com has been redesigned from the ground up. It is modern, responsive and adaptable. The format of the site will allow for easier reading on all devices, simpler navigation to the specific content you want to read, swift sharing of our stories on social media, and perhaps best of all, the number of plugins we use will be greatly reduced – in other words, quicker load times and fewer issues!

Oh … one more thing: In case you have not noticed, we have a new logo and brand identity.

Let me take this moment to thank some generous individuals who went above and beyond to get us to this point. Somehow, Christopher Stoney (responsible for the web design you see before you) put up with my incredible nit-picking for months on end. When I tell you that Chris has a tremendous handle on his craft and is an absolute no-brainer if you need freelance work done, believe it. We would not be here so fresh and so clean without him. Period.

Michael Nash, who worked with me for weeks to come up with the new OnlyGators.com primary logo (and it’s alternate version) has been with us for most of our existence. He’s the master behind the gameday graphics you have seen previously and will continue helping us with his incredible talent as we move forward. Any individual graphic work you may need done, hit him up. I would also be remiss not to thank the fine folks at Acceleration.net, who host this website and have been generous in their services for years. The entire team is a pleasure to work with and stands as a beacon for what customer service and support should be in this industry. They host sites, design them, handle business IT solutions and do so much more in between — and they’re based in Gainesville.

For those of you that contributed, there will be additional benefits coming your way. With that noted, anyone who wishes to contribute going forward, you will receive these same benefits. (These will be rolled out one at a time but will come through rather quickly once we polish and finalize our new design.)

» View in a (mostly) ad-free environment. OnlyGators.com will be 75 percent ad-free for contributors, likely at some point in April.
» Receive mobile alerts and/or an email digest newsletter (opt-in).
» Participate in contributor-only mailbags (both questions and answers) where I respond your specific questions about the Florida Gators.
» Read additional exclusive stories only viewable by contributors.
» Become eligible for special giveaways and prizes.
» And more …

Let me say this plainly: It has been an absolute pleasure running this site as a free, independent and objective source of Florida Gators news and analysis for nearly seven years.

It is my hope that this redesign and rebranding conveys to you how important your readership and contributions have been as we take this major step. There are additional plans for the future, and I would be honored if you choose to again support OnlyGators.com.

15 Comments

Leave a Reply to Ryan D. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Top
WordPress Appliance - Powered by TurnKey Linux