The internet experience at Whitey’s Pub has reached the one year milestone, and we thought it fitting to address the “Whys” and “Wherewegoings” at this point.
First up the “Why”, and that’s a big one. The world as we know it undoubtedly has enough websites, much like talk shows and infomercials. Our thinking was, “what the hell, one more won’t ruin the soup, and besides we’ve found a way to do this 100% and completely free courtesy of the good people at Yahoo.com”. If it’s free, it’s me. The “Whys” gathered momentum.
Then there was the time thing, or more notably, the 'way too much time on our hands thing'. We could either be hanging out on street corners late at night getting into trouble, or sitting in front of the work pc and hammer out a website. We chose the latter, and since then have not been arrested or incarcerated, not even once.
Even if the ample time needed was available and the price right, what would this website consist of? Why would we think that anyone would give a damn about what we litter the Net with? How arrogant (we are Americans though)?! All good questions again, which leads us to the Whitey’s Pub philosophy.
The site began with the simple intent of keeping family members and close friends of Whitey’s Pub abreast of the basics. Photos of kids and events, a place to store notable emails going around, plans for future events, etc. We were able to reach this goal rather easily and enjoyably, and decided to expand the coverage into other areas of interest. We showed our true colors with football and baseball sections specializing in the New York Jets and Mets. We offer a pretty well organized Horse Racing page with weekly updates on key columnists, track openings, links, and “horses to watch”.
The website then took on a new philosophy in an effort to create dialog with our viewers. A few angles we took were to create different “Favorites of the Pub” lists, and the well received “Bracketology” section. In both cases, the intent was never to boast of what we think is important, but rather entice communication between the Pub and our friends or even complete strangers.
Whitey’s Pub feels that one of the very joys of life is to debate both the important and the trivial with purpose and passion. The internet has given us the ability to do just this with anyone and everyone from all walks of life, and from all corners of the world.
That’s the “Why”.
Plans for the next year of operations at the Pub are geared at getting YOU involved. We will continue to look for more columnists to add their insights, we will continue to highlight regulars of the pub with their very own Spotlights, and we will continue to keep the lines of communication open with our letters to the editor, and other viewpoints found in the Pub Archives. The best way we know to keep the interest, is to get those viewing the site to contributing to it.
We will also continue to scour the internet for interesting websites and provide a new and improved links page in the near future (see left). If we could get Pub proprietor Whitey to jot down some of the conversations overheard at the bar, we'd fire up the "Ask the Tenda" page immediately. We're still working on that one, and the Stoagie and Beer Review section of the site. Tis' not a perfect world we have created, nor do we spend an absurd amount of time with the site. We have not reached the compulsive or addictive stage of web building. We have actually gotten this thing down to a science.
We'd appreciate the nearly 2000 "hits" laid on us during our initial season by everyone, including but not solely attributed to our family, friends at Tweed Farms, Eatontowners, the South Jersey connection (spearheaded by Chipper), and other contributors.
See you all at the Pub, I'll buy the first round.
Whitey
April 2003 |
