SUHornets.com Published
WINCHESTER, Va. - For the next two weeks, the Shenandoah University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics will be looking back at its top 10 highlights of the 2008-09 school year.
For the complete list and overview of the project, please click here.
Today, we look at our No. 9 highlight - the publishing of www.suhornets.com.
The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics has had a presence on the World Wide Web since www.su.edu published in the mid-1990's and until the middle of April, the athletics site existed as part of the su.edu domain.
The growing trend in intercollegiate athletics has seen intercollegiate athletics departments move to .com sites in order to open up a revenue stream through advertising sales. Additionally, by out-sourcing the design and hosting of the site to a company specializing in collegiate athletics sites, schools receive enhanced functionality and capabilities with their on-line presence.
In February, after months of consideration, the university selected PrestoSports.com to build www.suhornets.com and the new site went live on April 15.
Timed to coordinate with the spring sports teams participating in the USA South Conference Spring Sports Festival, www.suhornets.com had over 120,000 hits in its first day of existence and averaged well over 60,000 hits a day through the end of May.
Visitors to the site were treated to streamlined navigation and new features such as photo galleries and the ability to subscribe to RSS Feeds. There is also a version of the site, www.suhornets.com/m, that is formatted for Web-enabled mobile devices.
The RSS Feeds are a major part of the Shenandoah University App that debuted in late July for iPhones and iPod Touch devices.
In the months since publishing, a Twitter account, www.twitter.com/SUHornets, has been created for SU fans to follow all 20 intercollegiate teams and the player bios for each student-athlete have been upgraded to include season and career stats.
