Gousfbulls.com getting a new look?

[Brad]

From the St. Pete Time Archive - dated 08/19/2001 

South Florida is not up to I-A standards Series: SURFIN' THE NET

[sOUTH PINELLAS Edition]

St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg, Fla.

Author: GREG AUMAN

Date: Aug 19, 2001

Start Page: 14.C

Section: SPORTS

The University of South Florida football team is busy practicing twice a day in preparation for its Division I-A debut Aug. 30. But you'd never know that from the school's official site.

In the past four months, the Bulls' online home (usf.edu/ athletics) has seen its production company fold and another choice was deemed too expensive. As a result, the site looks nearly abandoned.

"We're not real happy where we're at," USF sports information director John Gerdes said last week. "It's a legitimate concern. We've dropped the ball somewhat."

When the site posted the school's men's basketball schedule Wednesday, it was the second news story added in two months. When you get to the main page, through a link on usf.edu, it offers little more than links to team schedules and local newspaper coverage, and the only "team link" listed is the sailing team, with the rest of the athletic department left in its wake.

If you can find the football team's page, the latest story is from April. A promising link to an "updated depth chart" is actually from the third week of last season, and the site's link to the official Conference USA page is dead, unchanged since C-USA shifted from c- usa.org to c-usasports.com in June 2000. (Two other C-USA schools, Army and DePaul, also have outdated links.)

USF's site has been in transition since Rivals.com, which had produced it, folded in April. USF got a trial month from fansonly.com, which is the Internet's largest network of college sites, interlinking 114 universities, including nine from C-USA. When that month was up, USF was offered two packages: a three-year contract at $15,000 a year, or a short-term deal at $500 a week.

USF stayed with fansonly.com for a month before bringing the site in-house in June.

Since then, little has been done with the site because of a "staffing issue," but Gerdes said the school will have an improved site up by Labor Day at gousfbulls.com.

Other schools have handled the transition more seamlessly. Central Florida was with fansonly.com and opted to bring its site in-house, but has shown a greater attention to keeping the site updated, with 12 stories added in the past week.

One site benefiting from USF's down time is southfloridabulls.com, a fan site that has seen its traffic surge - about double from this time last year.

"The traffic is better than ever," said Orlando's Brad Meyer, who has operated his site for two years at a cost of about $90 a month.

"I think I'm about the only option right now."

Meyer, who has posted dozens of pictures from football media day and had a media credential for games last season, admits USF doesn't have a strong online following. The message boards at his site have 127 registered members, and by comparison, when USF played Kentucky in football last fall, he found a Kentucky site with about 1,000 fans registered.

Memory Lane....

- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, e-mail staff writer Greg Auman at auman@sptimes.

[Greenzer0]

Wow!! Firefox is a mess.

[Greenzer0]

Wow!! Firefox is a mess.

Never mind....looks fine now after I refreshed a few minutes later.

[Greg Auman]

funny to find the old clip -- that's three years before i was on the beat. small world ...

[Brad]

funny to find the old clip -- that's three years before i was on the beat. small world ...

It wasn't that long ago, but I don't remember any of it... :-\

So we've "known each other" a long time...    ;D

[Velcro]

under 200 members in 2001, to just about 4000 now... incredible!

[RicanBull]

Its ok.

What they need to work on is the video sound quality. I can hardly ever hear anything in them.

[BULLfreak]

I remember the old gousfbulls.com :-\  :computer

[Jihme]

looks great.  just in time for the new student ticket zone!

[TheUpperHand]

The site needed a redesign. It's better than it was but still could use some improvement. There's way too many ads. Unless these are athletic sponsors, which I doubt Classmates.com and Klondike are, we don't need to clutter up the page with ad space. Web hosting is cheap enough (especially on an athletic budget) that ads are unnecessary unless they are by athletic sponsors.

The news feed is a nice addition, as is the improved use of CSS. Did anybody notice that when you go to a sports page, it shows an athlete from that sport on the right-hand side? Good recognition, although I noticed that they neglected to put anything for sailing, so that remains blank.

The site is effective and informative and flows reasonably well. The design is neither innovative nor inspired, but then again, athletics sites usually aren't. It could be a bit more dynamic: a flash intro would be nice, particularly if it was done like the Bucs former site and have a new one before each game. Downloadables would be good (ring tones, wallpapers, etc.) if they're not already there. The spirit page could use some work, as they simply copied and pasted the previous one. It should include the history and tradition of the Sun Dolls, Rocky, and HOT with photos.

All of these should come with time though. For now, the updated gousfbulls.com is a welcome addition to the growing athletics department and marketing campaign.