At RaptorsHQ.com, when we first heard that Jamario Moon would be in this year's NBA All-Star Dunk Competition, we were pumped.
After all, with the exception of Chris Bosh, Toronto's participation in the All-Star weekend has been minimal since the departure of a certain Vince Carter.
We also thought that it would be really amazing if we could build a site where Raptor and Jamario Moon fans alike could log on and discuss the upcoming All-Star weekend, the dunk contest, and all things Jamario Moon.
Therefore we created a new site as part of the HQ network, Jamario Moon HQ (www.jamario-moonhq.com.) We got it up and running a few days ago but today marks the official launch.
However it's far from complete.
We really want this site to be built for Raptors' fans so we encourage everyone to give us their thoughts on what they'd like to see on the site.
Here are some of the things we have planned so far:
We'll have a running chat that readers can log onto during the rookie game and dunk contest as well as an opportunity for fans to rate the dunks after each round on this site, and on NBA.com. You can actually test out the live chat feature now using the shoutbox forum on the right of the opening post.
Below the chat area, are various Jamario Moon-themed Youtube videos that we've posted.
However, we want readers to send in their own Youtube compilations. We'll post them in the "Jamario Moon Videos" section and perhaps even get Jamario himself to give us some thoughts. You can do send us submissions by pasting links into the comment section, or email them to us at raptorshq@hooplife.ca!
Besides these things we've got lots of other plans in store. We'll be posting some of content from RaptorsHQ.com, like my interview with Jamario at the Raptors' annual media day this season, and during the dunk contest we'll be doing some live blogging with some of our favourite NBA blogs.
You may have noticed that we've also added a few new features on RaptorsHQ itself. We've joined the ballhype news group and the "hype it up" tags you see at the end of each article can be clicked to vote for each article. This submits them to ballhype for other readers to check out so feel free to click away.
You may have also noticed a "hoops news" window to the top right of the HQ site. Working in a partnership with the folks at www.speetle.com, we're developing an all-basketball news feed so readers can get the complete up-to-date basketball news story; blogs, print, video, podcasts, you name it, it will be the first all inclusive basketball newsfeed and search engine. If you click on a story right now it will take you directly to the source and eventually we'll have a stand-alone page built for this purpose.
In any event, the idea is to keep growing the HQ and bringing more value to the readers.
Enjoy the sites, and remember to let us know about any features you'd like to see! Trade discussion post will up this afternoon...
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