I mentioned this last month, but it looks like we’re getting closer to a redesign of RGVsports.com. It’s pretty exciting, if you ask me. What we have now has been great — as has been proven by the amount of web traffic we’ve received — but we realize the Web site could be improved looks wise and to serve the purposes of our readers.
The lastest word is this should happen near the end of this month or in May. For sure, our company Freedom Communications, plans to have this redesign on all of its high school Web sites (about 20 or so) by the end of June. Just in time for football season.
So, what can you expect during this redesign:
>> RGVsports.com will look like the front page of themonitor.com, along with our sister papers the Valley Morning Star and The Brownsville Herald. Of course, it will be adjusted for our high school purposes. Everything else that we currently have will transfer over.
>> Updated forums. This is something we’re going to be extremely careful with, making sure it meets the needs of our readers. But the forums are currently WAY outdated, and aren’t capatable to most, if not all, of the current web products that make your surfing easy and enjoyable. But, again, this is a process we plan to be extremely careful with.
>> Perhaps coming even sooner is new software called Pluck. This is a new registration process, where we can track reader comments (and ones that shouldn’t be allowed). It will also give you, the reader, a chance to blog with the sportswriters across the Valley.
That’s pretty much it for now. If you have any ideas, shoot them my way.
Wade Baker, 30, is Sports Editor of The Monitor. He graduated from Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C. in 2000 with a degree in Mass Communications and moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 2002 for a sports reporter opening at The Monitor. Baker was promoted to his current position in August of 2007 after serving as assistant sports editor for two years. 
