Hello, everybody. I have a few updates for you, so I thought we’d set up another META thread to discuss what’s here, what’s coming, and what problems you may have if you’re still experiencing anything.
New Story Feature
Right now, on the homepage, we’ve created a new way to discover Chicago sports articles on Bleacher Nation. For each of our four core categories – Cubs, Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks – there is now an Instagram-like “story” feature.
Functionality:
- Click on any of the four team logos to begin the “story” experience
- Tap on the right side of the page to progress faster than the timer (if you don’t tap, it’ll progress automatically after 10 seconds)
- Tap on the left side of the page to go back one story
- Tap on the “Click to Read” button to open the article (currently working on making the headline, itself, clickable too … there’s a chance it already is by the time you’re reading this).
- Swipe left or right to move from one category (Cubs) to the next (Bears)
It should be a fairly familiar experience to the stories you’ve seen on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc.
I am currently working on a bug, however, where the bottom sticky ad is showing up on top of the stories (if you click into it right away). It doesn’t happen if you wait 2-3 seconds, but that’s not supposed to be there. This is supposed to be primarily a user-experience feature, not a rev-seeking feature. Yes, there is one ad in each story, but you can click through it easily enough. In any case, I’m working on that. Stay tuned.
I am really hopeful that this is a useful new way to see the most recent articles from the categories you care about most. And after we give this a few days live on the homepage, we’ll figure out other placements for this feature (i.e. top of category pages? bottom of articles? you tell me).
Where Did “Latest News” Go?
To make room for stories – and because we weren’t exactly using this feature properly anyway – I removed the two buttons for “Featured News” and “Latest News.” But that Latest News page is not gone. You can still go directly to www.bleachernation.com/latest-news/ or you can find it in the menu, under “more.”
New Stuff Coming!
Ad-Free Experience
We are officially in the process of creating an ad-free option for Bleacher Nation. For a monthly (or slightly cheaper annual) fee, you can remove ads from Bleacher Nation and get access to a private Discord channel.
There will not be any content behind a paywall. I am not – at all – being pressured to do that, but even if I was, I’d fight it. Bleacher Nation will remain a free-to-access site for anyone who wants it to be. Full stop. This ad-free option is just an alternative for folks that either (1) want to support us or (2) just really hate dealing with the ads.
We will not be degrading the site experience with more ads (or whatever) to encourage people to sign up. Frankly, that’s a terrible idea anyway, but I’ve seen the more conspiratorial among you worried about that. I assure you, that’s not going to happen. The goal of this new BN+ or whatever the hell we’ll call it is not to get you to sign up. It’s just to provide an option for those who’ve been asking for it. If you have no interest in paying, you don’t have to.
In fact, in an effort to really keep things the same, we even avoided creating our own comment software (or integrating alongside Disqus). If we had done either, you would have had to create a new account and lost all of your commenting history. I figured that might bother some of you who are more likely to sign up, so that’s all going to stay the same.
We’re still about a month away (at least) from this, but this is your official heads-up that it’s underway.
BN Cubs Podcast
There are DOZENS of really excellent Cubs podcasts out there already. I can’t even count how many Brett and I have been a guest on over the years. But there’ll be one more coming. This season, Brett and I will finally debut our own Chicago Cubs podcast. We’ll likely begin closer to the start of the regular season and it’ll be once weekly.
If you’ve got any ideas on the format – or even a name! – please feel free to drop it in the comments. We’ve been asked about this for years and years, but the stars have finally aligned. And I can’t wait to do it.
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So that’s it. Hopefully, this is a positive META update for you all, as these are all meant to be benefits/boosts to the user experience here at Bleacher Nation. We are not a perfect site, we are a work in progress, but I am really excited about the direction in which we’re headed with these new features!
P.S. We’ll also have a new Minor League Cubs contributor this season, and he’s someone you might know from the industry. That’s a little tease. In the meantime, our old friend and minor league contributor, Bryan, is going to pop back in for a one-time post on his top Cubs prospect rankings! Lots of good stuff!