To all our devoted VHND readers:
This past week has been pretty crazy around here… but that’s a good thing.
We’d been planning for some time to overhaul the Van Halen News Desk. We’d been working on the back end for nearly a year, but each time we were ready to implement something big, along came some news that made the levels on the “visitor radar” hit off the charts. Last week, loyal Van Halen fans were so busy hitting this site, we had to take immediate action. The result was implementing the DISQUS commenting system. We were actually a bit wary because, even though this new system is so much slicker and lighter on the server load, some people don’t like change. We have to say, you guys have been great about embracing such a big change so quickly. In fact, the latest posts are getting more interaction than ever. DISQUS is the best system for comments we can find, and is featured on over half a million websites. We think you’ll grow to love it.
Next up was a full upgrade to the server and backend scripting. We might as well say rebuild, because the plan was to implement things in stages. But with all the exciting news forthcoming, we couldn’t hold ourselves back. So, Monday we took our time to make sure each update worked for you all. So far, so good.
A new look (this is just the beginning…. we are far from finished), new features (total interaction for starters) and… well, we don’t want to spoil surprises.
Don’t worry – we’ve no plans to force-feed you high-tech features you can’t use and auto-playing videos. This site will remain “clean” and easy to use. But, we definitely needed to update things for the latest browsers and devices, as well as prepare the server for even more traffic in 2012.