I'm very excited to tell you all that SB Nation Detroit is one of the six regional sites that launched last night. In all, 20 new regional sites will be launched by the end of the month, and SB Nation Detroit was already one of the ones deployed.
The reason I'm so excited about this is because I am the managing editor of SB Nation Detroit. Four years ago when I founded Pride of Detroit for SB Nation, I certainly didn't think I'd end up where I am now, but this company has grown in some amazing ways, presenting this awesome opportunity.
So what is SB Nation Detroit all about? It's pretty simple: This new site will strive to be your home for everything Detroit sports. We will cover the Lions, Pistons, Red Wings, Tigers, Wolverines, and Spartans as well as anything else that is happening on the Detroit sports scene.
How is this going to be different from what I do already here at Pride of Detroit and what the other team blogs do? The main thing to take away from SB Nation Detroit is that it is a complement to the team blogs, not a competitor. The majority of the content on SB Nation Detroit will be more news-heavy than what you would see on a site like Pride of Detroit. While there will be opinion here or there and commentary-heavy features, the individual team blogs are more about in-depth analysis and are geared towards a different kind of reader compared to who these regional sites are targeting. Besides, the goal here is to generate more traffic and bring in new readers to our sites. The team blogs will be promoted on SB Nation Detroit just as SB Nation Detroit is promoted by them.
I will have more on the specific things SB Nation Detroit offers in a minute, but first I want to touch on some changes you may have noticed on Pride of Detroit.
For starters, there is now a Lions Fan Confidence widget below the logo that is tracking just how much confidence we currently have in our team. Over time a cool-looking graph will get more and more data and be plugged into the front page of SB Nation Detroit to reveal the confidence of the different fan bases all at once.
Another change you may have noticed is that there are SB Nation Detroit Editor's Picks for FanPosts. Anytime a FanPost is selected to be featured on the front page of SB Nation Detroit, it will be denoted as such on the team blog, giving it the added recognition both on the post and in the FanPosts section.
The other huge difference is with the team pages. If you click a "Lions" link, you will notice that the team page has a different setup. Specifically, there is content from Pride of Detroit and SB Nation Detroit plugged into the page, meaning you can find stats, schedules, rosters, and news all in one place and all under the SB Nation Detroit banner.
So what should you expect to see content-wise over at SB Nation Detroit? Here is a quick rundown taken from the welcome post on the site:
StoryStreams - The biggest news can be found in StoryStreams, which are essentially separate blogs contained within the site that focus on an individual story. Each StoryStream has the ability to be updated as many times as a story requires, ensuring that anytime there is a development, you will be informed about it. For example, when the whole Armando Galarraga imperfect perfect game went down last Wednesday, there was a StoryStream in place to track all angles of this unbelievable story. The StoryStream started with a preview of Wednesday's game, was updated with the news that Galarraga was possibly on the verge of making history, and then really went off with updates when Jim Joyce's blown call happened. All of the different stories associated with this infamous moment were included in the StoryStream as updates, allowing you to go back and read how everything unfolded, from the preview of the game, to the postgame reaction, to the delivering of Galarraga's new Corvette the next day.
Motown Lowdown - While StoryStreams are like a blog for individual stories, the site's general blog is Motown Lowdown, which will keep track of everything else. Stories typically found in Motown Lowdown will be ones that don't require multiple updates or are just little tidbits of information worth passing along. The whole imperfect perfect game story required more than 20 updates, but passing along a tidbit about how Huge Chavez commended Galarraga's classiness was just a simple tidbit worth posting about on Motown Lowdown.
Features - Both the StoryStreams and Motown Lowdown are meant more for straight news. Obviously opinion will be injected into most posts on the site, but in-depth analysis of certain stories will be contained in features, such as this week's Top Five. Features will be opinion- and analysis-heavy pieces that take more of a general look on particular stories or subjects from the Detroit sports scene. Every week there will be numerous features posted on a variety of topics, even for teams that are in the offseason.
Detroit Starting Lineup - This section of the site is pretty straightforward. Each morning when you fire up your computer and check out the site, there will be five new links to must-check-out things involving Detroit sports. These links could include articles, pictures, videos, Tweets, etc. If something out there is really worth reading, it can be found in the Detroit Starting Lineup. (If you find something and think it should be included in the Detroit starting lineup, let us know by sending an e-mail to detroit@sbnation.com)
Team Pages - The team pages (for example, the Lions' team page) have been revamped as part of the launch of the regional sites and now include even more information than before. You can go to the team pages to check out the upcoming schedule, the roster, the latest news from the team's blog, the most recent features and StoryStreams from SB Nation Detroit and much more!
So, who is bringing all of this information to you? It's a team-wide effort between myself, Brian Packey, Ian Casselberry and Ryan Weiss. You can find out more about us by clicking on our names and going to our profiles. Briefly, though, let me introduce myself since I am the managing editor of SB Nation Detroit.
If you haven't already, please help me in getting SB Nation Detroit off the ground and running by checking out the site and spreading the word. You can also follow SB Nation Detroit on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
If you're concerned about how this will affect my time on Pride of Detroit, don't be. I will still be running Pride of Detroit just like I have in the past. While I might be spending more time on SB Nation Detroit, especially early on, I'm sure once there is more Lions stuff to talk about I will be back on here just as much as I was in April, for example. It will just take some time to get into a routine for that site, which is why I have been so busy behind the scenes the last couple weeks. Now that this is out in the open and up and running, I will hopefully have time to start getting back to those of you who are interested in writing for Pride of Detroit and helping take some of the load off me. And who knows, perhaps there will be an opportunity for some of you to help contribute to the new site as well.
Anyways, thanks in advance for taking the time to read about my new gig, and like I said, check out SB Nation Detroit if you haven't already.