Good afternoon, junkies!
It’s June 27th and the show is set to begin in just over a week which means we’ll be seeing things like the house reveal and possibly a cast reveal over the next week. I say possibly because they are doing another move-in special (which is awesome, btw), but they typically try to introduce those players on the night of the premiere rather than in advance.
So, what have I been doing all winter? Well, I received a new full time job! Not that it’s really important, but I mention it because it’s significant for the site. Mon-Thur will be challenging to update all day like I typically do, so I spend the entire winter completely re-writing this site from the ground up just to prepare.
There have been a ton of changes, so I’ll try my best to summarize them:
Feed Updates
This is a pretty big one and something I needed to spend a lot of time planning, but without much testing the first few weeks may be a little iffy until I flush out the kinks. However, how this will work is this:
- New places to look – This has been a tricky part as I had a plan for this process until the last minute when I realized a huge problem was comments weren’t there. Part of the biggest reason this site is so great is the massive amount of discussion about the feeds on a daily basis. I am not 100% into the current layout but it’s a start and I’m open to suggestions for more ease of use
- More updaters – I created a process where users can actually submit their own feed updates which means you’ll be seeing updates even when I’m not around (working). How this will work is that any long-term junkies can reach out via contact and let me know if you’d like access to this. I’m not going to have an army of updaters so you’re spammed with duplicates so if you’re interested please let me know! Again, very simple just a quick update ‘Soandso did this, here is how the conversation went’. Mel and I will still be doing daily recap posts as per normal but actual live updates will be a little different.
Ad-Free Experience
Another fairly big one as I have created a tier that will allow people to be ‘supporters’ who will have the ad-free experience on the site. I may also do things like give badges and things of that nature, but one thing I can assure people is that supporters will not get access to any additional content. This site is free to use and all aspects of the site will be free. The supporter thing is merely a cosmetic thing and no ads. I’ll have more information on how to join soon.
Speed / Mobile Experience Improvements
As mentioned at the beginning, I completely coded this site from the ground up. My full-time job is a web developer and I’ve always been a bit embarrassed to just use other ‘themes’ that are bloated and slow. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to re-do the comment system so I’m still using the system we had from last year which is still bloated, but that’s a goal for next season (it’s a serious overhaul and I’m not going to promise something I won’t be able to deliver this season). Don’t worry, I’ll keep all the comment history and likes/dislikes in place when I eventually re-do comments.
Player Database
This is something that I am really looking forward to expanding on. If you go to this link, you will see the basic player database. I added some players from the BB23 season but that data is far from complete, but it does give you an idea of what I’m going for. I will be greatly expanding this to add all former players which will allow me to easily pull up any stats/data as I have. I have a ton of plans for this and I’m super excited about it even though it likely won’t impact the day to day on the site.
Misc
I also added little things like the spoiler bar at the top of the page. You can toggle the bar and it will remember your settings so if you turn it on and return to the page, it’ll remain hidden until it’s back on. I also added little things like ‘house status’ around the site and also have an edit profile page where you can change your avatar so much easier than previously. Visit this link to mess with your profile
Wrapping Up
Needless to say, there have been a ton of changes to the site this off-season and there will be bugs and issues. Please report any and all weirdness or even reach out to me for suggestions on how to make things easier to use. Again, if you are browsing the site and see something that is annoying to use and have an idea how to make it easier, please reach out to me! The layout is in no way set in stone and my goal is to make this the premium Big Brother experience on the web. I want people to be able to check feed updates, chat with others, browse the database, and eventually play games, etc. More and more will be coming now that I added a new foundation to the site.
Thanks for the long read! Looking forward to a great Big Brother 24 season!
wpDiscuz
