IHRA.COM HAS A NEW LOOK
Fri, 2006-12-22 06:52
IHRA.com has a new look, but looks are not everything. While the design project,
spearheaded by IHRA Director of Internet and New Media Jeff Lee and IHRA Senior
Graphics Designer Kim Parsons, gives the website a cleaner, more exciting look
than ever before it is the added features and navigation tools that place the
new IHRA.com (http://www.ihra.com/) among the premiere
websites in all of motor sports.
“Kim and I were given a challenge to create a new IHRA.com everyone would be able to use easily,” Lee said. “At the same time we wanted to make it pleasing to the eye and exciting. With Kim’s outstanding design ability and my knowledge of what is wanted by your typical website visitors I think we came up with a new, edgy look that accomplishes both goals. I must also give mad props to Agency BCM (parent company of RacingJunk.com) and Edison Information Technologies for their role in developing this new website.”
IHRA.com has a new look, but looks are not everything. While the design project, spearheaded by IHRA Director of Internet and New Media Jeff Lee and IHRA Senior Graphics Designer Kim Parsons, gives the website a cleaner, more exciting look than ever before it is the added features and navigation tools that place the new IHRA.com (http://www.ihra.com/) among the premiere websites in all of motor sports.
“Kim and I were given a challenge to create a new IHRA.com everyone would be able to use easily,” Lee said. “At the same time we wanted to make it pleasing to the eye and exciting. With Kim’s outstanding design ability and my knowledge of what is wanted by your typical website visitors I think we came up with a new, edgy look that accomplishes both goals. I must also give mad props to Agency BCM (parent company of RacingJunk.com) and Edison Information Technologies for their role in developing this new website.”
One of the key components of the new IHRA.com is the RSS feed feature. Now you will be able to get breaking IHRA news sent right to you. Lee explains:
“RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites,” he said. “But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, the revision history of a book…even the updates on IHRA.com. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.”
For instance, if you have a “My Yahoo!” or “My Google” homepage, or other RSS reader, you can subscribe to the IHRA RSS feed and have all new content loaded onto IHRA.com sent directly to your home page. If you have your own website for your race team, race track, or company you can even syndicate IHRA content on your website with the proper software.
“This is a very exciting feature, especially for racers,” Lee said. “Rule revisions, schedule changes, track updates…whatever happens in IHRA that is reported on IHRA.com will now be sent directly to your homepage or reader software. This is cutting-edge technology we are taking advantage of to the benefit of our racers.”
The new IHRA Photo Store also is a key component to the improved IHRA.com. Starting with the 2007 season, all photos on IHRA.com photo galleries will be available for sale. A number of products will be available including 8x10 prints, poster-size prints, coffee cups, t-shirts, key chains, mouse pads and photo bundle packages. Nostalgia photos, pictures from the exciting history of IHRA Drag Racing, will also be available. Look for details on the new IHRA.com photo store in the next few weeks. In addition to the upcoming photo store, Live Nation Motor Sports has begun selling IHRA and other Motor Sports property videos on Google Video. Right now there are several videos of classic races available for purchase. Look for more titles and events to be added in the future.
This first completed phase of development focuses on content management, news, and the syndication of news. Rather than funneling all content through one webmaster, multiple contributors with the proper access credentials can now post news stories to the website. This means race team PR representatives, IHRA member tracks, and sponsors can all contribute news to the website. Print and e-mail story functionality to news stories and contingency payout reports has also been added.
The next phases of development will focus on online only IHRA membership features, usability tweaks, as well as automating and better delivering all forms of content on the website. These changes and features will continue to grow and evolve as IHRA tries to improve the user experience for fans, members, racers, tracks, sponsors, and members of the media.
“The new IHRA.com is a very exciting development,” IHRA president Aaron Polburn said. “The old website was fine, but it was stagnant. We challenged Kim and Jeff to come up with something new and exciting, and they worked tirelessly on this project. I think everyone can see how well their hard work has paid off just by navigating around the new site. What they have done with IHRA.com exceeded our expectations.”
“Kim and I were given a challenge to create a new IHRA.com everyone would be able to use easily,” Lee said. “At the same time we wanted to make it pleasing to the eye and exciting. With Kim’s outstanding design ability and my knowledge of what is wanted by your typical website visitors I think we came up with a new, edgy look that accomplishes both goals. I must also give mad props to Agency BCM (parent company of RacingJunk.com) and Edison Information Technologies for their role in developing this new website.”
IHRA.com has a new look, but looks are not everything. While the design project, spearheaded by IHRA Director of Internet and New Media Jeff Lee and IHRA Senior Graphics Designer Kim Parsons, gives the website a cleaner, more exciting look than ever before it is the added features and navigation tools that place the new IHRA.com (http://www.ihra.com/) among the premiere websites in all of motor sports.
“Kim and I were given a challenge to create a new IHRA.com everyone would be able to use easily,” Lee said. “At the same time we wanted to make it pleasing to the eye and exciting. With Kim’s outstanding design ability and my knowledge of what is wanted by your typical website visitors I think we came up with a new, edgy look that accomplishes both goals. I must also give mad props to Agency BCM (parent company of RacingJunk.com) and Edison Information Technologies for their role in developing this new website.”
One of the key components of the new IHRA.com is the RSS feed feature. Now you will be able to get breaking IHRA news sent right to you. Lee explains:
“RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites,” he said. “But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, the revision history of a book…even the updates on IHRA.com. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.”
For instance, if you have a “My Yahoo!” or “My Google” homepage, or other RSS reader, you can subscribe to the IHRA RSS feed and have all new content loaded onto IHRA.com sent directly to your home page. If you have your own website for your race team, race track, or company you can even syndicate IHRA content on your website with the proper software.
“This is a very exciting feature, especially for racers,” Lee said. “Rule revisions, schedule changes, track updates…whatever happens in IHRA that is reported on IHRA.com will now be sent directly to your homepage or reader software. This is cutting-edge technology we are taking advantage of to the benefit of our racers.”
The new IHRA Photo Store also is a key component to the improved IHRA.com. Starting with the 2007 season, all photos on IHRA.com photo galleries will be available for sale. A number of products will be available including 8x10 prints, poster-size prints, coffee cups, t-shirts, key chains, mouse pads and photo bundle packages. Nostalgia photos, pictures from the exciting history of IHRA Drag Racing, will also be available. Look for details on the new IHRA.com photo store in the next few weeks. In addition to the upcoming photo store, Live Nation Motor Sports has begun selling IHRA and other Motor Sports property videos on Google Video. Right now there are several videos of classic races available for purchase. Look for more titles and events to be added in the future.
This first completed phase of development focuses on content management, news, and the syndication of news. Rather than funneling all content through one webmaster, multiple contributors with the proper access credentials can now post news stories to the website. This means race team PR representatives, IHRA member tracks, and sponsors can all contribute news to the website. Print and e-mail story functionality to news stories and contingency payout reports has also been added.
The next phases of development will focus on online only IHRA membership features, usability tweaks, as well as automating and better delivering all forms of content on the website. These changes and features will continue to grow and evolve as IHRA tries to improve the user experience for fans, members, racers, tracks, sponsors, and members of the media.
“The new IHRA.com is a very exciting development,” IHRA president Aaron Polburn said. “The old website was fine, but it was stagnant. We challenged Kim and Jeff to come up with something new and exciting, and they worked tirelessly on this project. I think everyone can see how well their hard work has paid off just by navigating around the new site. What they have done with IHRA.com exceeded our expectations.”
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