Firstly, Goweb (the business) no longer exists. Goweb 9the website) is now owned by Rhema Media (http://www.rhemamedia.org). This change in owner doesn’t change the purpose or the core functionality of the Goweb you have come to know and love.

Now, I’m sure you have noticed that we are sporting an all new design of Goweb. Though it coincides with the change of  ownership, this redesign has been on the drawing board for a few months now.

This is the most drastic change in design we’ve made in a long time, and one of the fastest, considering that we did a makeover just five months ago. The last design, codenamed “Splash” was more about the source code and the look / feel of the site than it was about the layout. However, it became evident to us that there were flaws in the old layout.

The two major problems we’ve addressed in this new layout (simply referred to Goweb 9.0) are “expandability” and “discover-ability”.

Let’s start with the latter, Discover-ability. Many of our users were neglecting to use the “launchpad” which gives you links to the most popular sites, such as facebook and hotmail. People were using Goweb as a homepage and still typing addresses that are right in front of them as links. this new layout moves the launchpad to a place of greater prominence, right under the header.

you can’t miss that link to Facebook or your Email service anymore.

Now, let’s look at expandability. This layout has actually enabled us to add new components to the page like latest downloads from download.com and the latest movie reviews. That’s because it uses space more efficiently and even enables us  to easily expand the site  in the future.

Another thing we’ve always wanted to do was to make the “Featured Articles” more exciting, interactive and in-your-face. We’ve achieved that with this redesign and from a management perspective, it’s easier than ever to bring you interesting features on the fly as we find them.

Before I go, I just need to share a few matters with you. Firstly, you will notice that the new site is catered primarily to a Barbadian audience. This is because that’s where over 95% of our users come from. We’ll branch out into other islands later. Secondly, we’ve had to change our main search provider to Bing. We welcome your feedback on this and we continuously try to get you the best search offerings we can. And lastly, in case you are wondering about the absence of some of our trademark services, fear not,there are coming back. The Bajan Dictionary and other sections are being redesigned and the Minibus Guide has a very exciting future. In the mean time, we’ve kept the previous Goweb (Splash) available so you can continue to use the services we haven’t refreshed as yet. Just look for the link.

That feels like a mouthful (although I was typing) so for  now, I simply leave you to try out the new site. happy surfing, and as usual, your feedback is welcome.

Mario Herbert
Co-Director – Rhema Media

• We’ve made the search box bigger
• Features are now loaded with AJAX technology
• The News section is now loaded with AJAX technology
• The Sports section is now loaded with AJAX technology
• Fixed a number of display bugs for Internet Explorer users

AJAX is a technology which allows you to amend the current page with more  data. The method we were using before loaded another page  inside the homepage, which was more overhead and did not update fast enough. Tis change was in the pipeline from last year, but it was not a simple task. We had to make sure the code in the sections to be imported into the homepage, was compatible with the code in the homepage itself. However, after an in-house beta trial, the new homepage is finally live.

Speaking of betas, we usually run a beta homepage alongside our regular homepage, where we  test out new code.  The latest code changes were so fundamental that we couldn’t run the  beta side by side with the public homepage. We had to revive the beta sub-domain (gowebnow.net/beta) to run the trial separately. We are going to leave this sub-domain open as the new beta channel, which you can check  for more code changes this year. As always we are looking at new features  which might  be beneficial to you. We will inform you when new features appear in the beta channel.

The beta channel is not limited to the homepage. We also use it to test new features in other sections of the site. Overall, beta pages are simply a copy of the official page with extra features. If the new features work well and are given a good evaluation by testers, those features would be promoted to the official public page and the beta page would continue to evolve.

Generally, beta pages do NOT break the core functionality of the site. For example, if you’re using our beta homepage, you would continue to get up-to-date news headlines and weather. You should also see the same Featured Content that is carried on the official homepage, and you would still have access to the themes from the official page.

Finally, we need to mention that the themes on the beta pages work in conjunction with the themes on the official pages.  Therefore, if I go to the beta homepage and set the theme to “Beach”, when I come back to the official homepage, the theme will be set to “Beach” on that page as well. If we test new themes on the beta page, they will still be applied to the public page even though they don’t show up in the public list of themes.  We’ve coded it this way because users should be able to seamlessly move between different versions of the homepage, without having to maintain separate settings for each. We want the beta homepage (as well as the Lite homepage) to feel like a new layout, instead of a new page. So remember, the same theme will be used across the homepage, beta homepage and Lite homepage.

Happy testing.

Let’s start by introducing GoWEB Games. Our new games channel is now available and can be accessed from the homepage. It carries many multiplayer and singleplayer games for your pleasure.

Next, we introduce GoWEB TV (beta). This is essentially a video channel, giving you access to online TV channels as well as hot YouTube videos. This channel is a public beta, meaning it’s available for all to use, but we’re still evaluating and fine-tuning (no pun intended). GoWEB TV can be reached from the “Video Search Box” on the GoWEB homepage.

Next, we want to re-introduce you to CaribSearch, our Caribbean Search engine. We’ve done a lot to integrate CaribSearch more tightly into GoWEB and we’ve even “opened it up” for you, our valued users, to contribute to the project, by adding sites to the search engine. There will be more on this very soon. To search just CaribSearch, you can go here.

One of the most exciting things we have to offer is our new toolbar. If you installed the GoWEB Toolbar previously then you’ve already been updated automatically. We looked at the statistics and saw the features you use most, least, and not at all. We’ve kept the most popular toolbar modules and added Games and TV to the list. Toolbar users have one-click access to even more Games and TV Channels than what’s available on our site.

And last, but certainly not least, you’ll notice these new features integrated into existing GoWEB pages.

Featured content on your homepage now includes Games and Caribbean Searches

GoWEB Kidz now carries a module from the new Games Channel.

We hope you enjoy these new features. We’ll be explaining more about them and looking out for your feedback as usual.

GoWEB is always tinkering with something new. Not every idea makes it to the public but now you can get to see some of these ideas as they unfold. At the time of this posting, the only new feature on the beta homepage is a new theme called Honeymoon, but we are working on another one which should appear later in the week.

The beta page can be access here orhere.

Faster Load Times

The new site boasts faster load times, as the new code accomplishes the same functions at a fraction of the original file sizes. The original was 44MB on our server, and the new one is only 9MB, even though it has all the functionality and MORE, of the original. The smaller our files are, the faster they load.

New Real Time Themes

The new site sports a fresh array of themes built around a regional scheme. Unlike the original site, these themes load on-the-spot and change the elements of the page. Also, the new code applies your theme choice across all the pages in the portal and remembers your selection the next time you visit the site.

Jazzed Up Kidz Section

The new Kidz Portal now has it’s own unique themes, fashioned with kids in mind. Also of note is that the new code remembers the theme chosen for the Kidz page, separate and distinct from the main portal.

New Directory Layout

The new Caribbean Directory has a new layout, designed to push more content at the user, faster. The new code also allows you to choose a new theme for the Directory, which is applied across all the pages.

We’ve said enough. Go out and Test Drive The New Site Now. And of course, feel free to contact us with any feedback before we make the big switch.