As they like to say change is never fun. There have been countless books written on the subject and while we hope the new HOOPSWORLD will end up being a better user experience, we felt it might be good to give you something of a guided tour and help you see all of the new tools and how they work in getting you the basketball news and information you covet.

So lets start with…

The Main Story Package.

We wanted to make sure the new site looked good on a mobile device and really took advantage of larger screen resolution and faster internet connection. The Main Story package rotates the last nine stores added to HOOPSWORLD. The stories flip roughly every 60 seconds..

If you want to jump ahead, or navigate backwards or forwards, simply click one of the white thumbnails.

The What’s Hot Box

Throughout the week our Editorial team will highlight the hottest, most interesting or controversial stories we have produced. While we want you swinging by several times throughout the day, we do realize that you may miss things, so the What’s Hot Box is designed to make sure you don’t miss things that really matter.

If you click on one of the silver arrows, you can flip through the stories coded to What’s Hot.

The Quick Links Box

Need to find something quickly, the Quick Links box is here to help.

This box will be updated with fast access to the static content you may be looking for. Want to find the Mock Draft quickly?.. it’s in there… how about Draft pick debt… Free agents by year?… These links will be updated based on what’s going on so that you can always be one click away from the resource data you may be looking for.

News From The Wire

While our team strives to stay ahead of the wire news, from time to time there will be stories we miss or stories we simply don’t choose to report on. That’s where the wire news comes in. This is powered by our friends at Sports Direct.

Wire News is parsed every hour and covers both NBA and college basketball news. These stories are full functioning articles, so you can share them, comment on them or Like or Dislike them socially.

HEADLINES

Each morning our team of Headlines Editors scours the news producing world and selects those stories which matter to us. Our headlines are typically up by 8am EST every day, and are updated throughout the day with the latest emerging news and commentary.

Like our friends at HoopsHype, our goal here is to make sure you see everything that matters each day. These are fully functioning articles, so you can post comments to them, you can Like or Dislike them socially

The Salaries/Teams Drop Down

Want to find your team’s salary data quickly? How about jumping to your team’s team page?… The Salaries/Teams Drop Down gets you there within three mouse clicks.

This tool is great for quick referencing of salary data or for quickly finding team data from the team pages. Click and go. This tool is also extremely helpful if accessing salary data from a Smartphone or tablet.

The Image Sells

One thing you may notice about the new HOOPSWORLD is a lot more editorial images. Our research has shown that stories with images attached get more interest and are noticed more, so we responded.

One other element you may notice on the images is the the “thought” bubble, this lets you know how many comments have been made to a particular story, so that you can join in or read through what others have to say.

NBA Chats

Our weekly NBA Chats started out as a fun distraction but have steadily become a core part of the site. Our writers host one hour-long chat session per week, and your questions are a vital part of that.

If you are looking for the latest upcoming chat you can always find them here: http://www.hoopsworld.com/upcoming-chats/ or simply scroll down to the middle of the page and see who is next and who is on deck. Our guys spend an hour on these for each chat, so getting in early always helps the odds that your question is answered.

The Social Tools

On the top right of every page is our Social Tools… these feature direct links to the HOOPSWORLD Twitter account, our Facebook fan page, direct links to our Apple iPhone app page on iTunes, a direct link to our Android App on Android Marketplace as well as links to our RSS feeds and our contact us page. The contact us page features a staff directory complete with e-mail and Twitter account information.

Author Boxes

Looking for the latest from your favorite HOOPSWORLD writer? Along the right side of the main page you’ll find boxes for most of our writing team.

These boxes feature the last three articles or chats from that author, as well as a link to that Author’s Archive page. So for all of you Eric Pincus fans out there, finding EP’s latest is never more than a click away.

The Comment Platform

Sometime last year we opted to switch our comments to the Facebook comment tool, and while most of you seemed to like that change, some of you did not and many of you had issues posting comments from business computers that blocked Facebook at work… so when we conceived the new HOOPSWORLD addressing that problem was center stage. The result is Disqus.

If you have never used Disqus before, it allows you to post comment using a Disqus account, which is free and takes less than a minute to establish. You can also post comments using your Facebook login or your Twitter login, simply grant Disqus access and you are good to go.

There are a few things we really like about Disqus… the first is easy integration into Social platforms, you can can share the things you comment on with your friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter if you choose.

You can subscribe to e-mail alerts on topics you care about, so you are notified as the conversation continues. You can also add a particular conversation to your RSS reader and follow from your desktop.

You can like or dislike an article. You can reply directly to someone else’s comment in a nested message-board like interface. You can report abuse and there is accountably without being restrictive, which is important to us.

There is no such thing as the perfect solution, but we feel like the Disqus platform is a huge upgrade in function and appearance.

 

Like most new homes, we are still finding all the things that don’t function just right, so please bear with us as we get all of our ducks in a row. We are very proud of the new HOOPSWORLD… it’s faster, it offers more tools and features and its friendlier to Smartphones and tablets, something our old site was not.

We’ll continue to add as we go, but we hope this tutorial helps you see and understand the new HOOPSWORLD a little better and if you have issues, questions or concerns… drop them to us, we’d love to get your feedback— http://www.hoopsworld.com/contact-us/