Raising Our Game

   When the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31, and we roll into 2014, we will essentially be turning 3.5-years old (SportStars, Issue #1 released on June 10, 2010). This makes us only slightly older — and slightly less susceptible to meltdowns — than my son Connor, who turned 3 in mid-October.

   But it does mean we’re still relatively young. And that means we’re still trying to figure things out. And part of figuring things out is how we can properly blend our detail- and story-driven print editions, with a desire to be slightly more current with a stronger web presence.

   We think we just might have found the answer. We’re calling the SportStars Digital Weekly, and the first edition will be available on Jan. 9 — one week before our first print edition of the new year. The Digital Weekly edition, which will be available at SportStarsOnline.com or through a free email subscription, will be a smaller version of our print product. It will include exclusive features, up-to-date rankings, timely news and notes and a handful of the other items that you’ve grown accustomed to seeing in our pages. 

   It will also look different than any digital publication we’ve put out to date. We’re launching this project in conjunction with a leap to the online magazine platform, Ceros.  This means a lot more bells and whistles are at our disposal, including animation and a variety of dynamic layout options that we can’t attempt currently. 

   And because we’re producing this content on a weekly basis, we’re rearranging our print schedule so that we can produce larger issues. Our 2014 print schedule will begin Jan. 16 and will begin a string of 12 editions which release at the top of month. We’ll also sprinkle in four special edition double issues: Our Camps and Clinics Resource Guide (March 20), the Yearbook Special Edition (June 19), the Football Preview (Aug. 21) and Basketball Preview (Nov. 20). 

   So what can you expect in the first SportStars Digital Weekly on Jan. 9? Well, we believe in coming strong or not coming at all. So we thought we’d kick it off with the first ever SportStars All-NorCal Football Team. We’ll also throw in a recap of the West Coast Jamboree girls basketball tournament, which will be bringing multiple nationally-ranked teams to the East Bay during the last week of December.

   If you’re interested in joining us on this new adventure, and we hope you are, you can subscribe to the Digital Weekly right now for free at the following URL:  HYPERLINK “http://www.sportstarsonline.com/promotions/index.php” http://www.sportstarsonline.com/promotions/index.php

   Once you’re signed up, you’ll begin receiving the new edition each Thursday (starting with the Jan. 9 debut issue) directly to your email account.

   Until then, everybody have a safe and happy holidays!