Aug 272013
 

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Hello Giants fans. The New BBI Front Page went live nearly two months ago. Since that time, we’ve had a lot of feedback, both positive and negative. We’ve made some changes based on that feedback with more tweaks and adjustments coming in the future.

However, it’s become clear to me that some people are still not quite sure how the new front page works and how to find the stuff they want to find. To that end, I’ve prepared this little primer to go over the various elements of the new BBI and how they work.

Broadly, the site consists of two areas, the main area and the sidebars. The main area is the large section on the left side with all the pictures and text. The sidebars are the long, skinny areas on the right with the ads and such. First, we’ll discuss the various sections of the main area, starting from top to bottom.

The Slider

The first section, the one with changing pictures at the very top of the site, is called The Slider. The Slider rotates through the last six items posted to BBI, including Articles and News & Notes. You’ll see a picture and the title. If you’re interested in reading it, just click on the picture. Below the pictures are the controls. You can use these controls to pause The Slider, go back and forward or go to a specific slide.

News & Notes

BBI’s old reliable News & Notes can be found just under The Slider. This section contains links to the last four News & Notes posts. The four titles of the News & Notes are on the right while the picture associated with each title is on the left. Mouse over the title to see the picture that goes with that post. Click on the title to go to the post.

Latest Articles

In this section are the last four articles posted to BBI that aren’t News & Notes. Here you’ll find things like Game Previews and Reviews, Roster Articles, Salary Cap discussions and other writings. Scroll down to this section to get a quick overview of what’s been going on in the last few days on BBI. Click on the article title or read more button to see the whole thing.

Featured Content

Bored at work? This is the section for you. The Featured Content area has the three most recent articles in each of six content categories. Those categories will change throughout the year. A draft section will show up around draft time and go away when training camp starts. Game Previews/Reviews will show up before the first pre-season game and go away some time after the last game is played. And so on.

If you missed something on BBI in the past couple weeks or are just looking for some good Giants stuff to kill your productivity, this is the place to find it. Click on the title of the article to see that article or click on the See All Posts button to read all the posts in that category.

Sidebars

The sidebars are mostly self-explanatory, but I’ll briefly go over the content-oriented elements.

First, of course, we have the ads. Ads make BBI go. We have made a concerted effort to eliminate malware from our ad networks and curate the ads so that their impact on you is minimized. Please exclude BBI from your ad blocking software, if you have any. Look at the ads and click on them if anything interests you. This has been a paid announcement.

Under the top ad is the Corner Forum Highlights. This is a small selection of the most important, interesting or relevant Corner Forum threads as selected by the BBI admins. If you live on the Corner Forum, you’ve probably seen these. But if you’re only an occasional Corner Forum visitor, you might want to peek at this box when you visit the site and see if anything piques your interest.

Further down is the Content Sections dropdown. This is just a quick list of all the content areas on BBI with post counts for each one. Click on a content area to be taken to a page with just that content on it.

And way down at the bottom of the sidebar is the Posts By Month dropdown which lists month and year and the number of posts in that month. Select one to be taken to a page with posts from just that month. This is a great way to explore BBI and Giants history in a time machine fashion. Did you know that Dorsey Levens was once impressive vs the Eagles? True story.

Can I Have The Old BBI Back?

If none of this makes you happy and you just want your old, News & Notes and nothing else, BBI back, there is a partial solution. Bookmark this link, http://www.bigblueinteractive.com/category/news-and-notes/. This page mostly replicates the functionality of the old BBI, showing you the full News & Notes posts and nothing else.

Any questions? You can ask them in this Corner Forum Thread