7 years.
7 years ago I had this crazy idea to finally turn my relatively well-established blog about Simple Plan into something bigger. Into a proper website. I spent half of my summer vacations working on all the different sections of the website, created the design and finally on August 13th the website was live for the world to see.
So many things have changed in the past 7 years, but two things stayed the same. Firstly, the fans. The main reason why I started this website in the first place. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your constant support. All you guys who have ever commented on an article, pressed the like button on a post, shared a link, helped with translations, sent in their pictures, credited it as a source of information, or used it to help you with your school projects. It means a lot to me that after all this time, you still care.
The second thing that we’ve never seen change is the thing we all who visit this website have in common – Simple Plan. Back when I first started listening to this band in 2005, all my friends at school kept telling me that “it’s just a phase” and that “in 5 years I won’t even know who or where they are anymore.” I’m very proud to say that even 9 years since then I still do know both who they are and where they are – most importantly: together. That they still keep on doing what they started doing oh-so-many years ago and they are still the same 5 guys doing it. So thank you too, Pierre, Chuck, Jeff, Seb and David: for everything you do for your fans. It still baffles me how much you keep supporting this website. As always, big thanks also goes to Sim and Coalition Music for all the help and support. You guys rock.
And what were the highlights for SimplePlan.cz in the past year? In November 2013, thanks to Coalition Music and Atlantic Records, SimplePlan.cz had the unique opportunity to release in the world premiere a preview of the song “Ordinary Life” which was featured on Simple Plan’s new EP “Get Your Heart On! – The Second Coming”. A month later, the Australian fans let me know about the cool mention of SimplePlan.cz by Chuck Comeau in the program for Warped Tour Australia. Finally in February 2014, I introduced (after more than 3 years) a brand new design of SimplePlan.cz – this time the color scheme became a little darker with more of an Astronaut vibe to it. And then in March, SimplePlan.cz brought you another mini-interview – this time with Janick Thibault from Amasic about his collaboration with Pierre and Chuck from SP.
Besides the SP.cz related stuff, there was more than 400 news articles published on this website in the past year, the number of Twitter followers went up to more than 6300, as well as of the Facebook fans, who now include more than 6400 of you.
But enough of looking at the past, I’m sure you’re all already anxiously awaiting what I have prepared for you in celebration of SimplePlan.cz’s anniversary!
There’s quite a few things on the list actually! Firstly, let me introduce a brand new design of the SimplePlan.cz photo gallery [*everybody screams: “FINALLY!”*]! It now features a vertical menu, the font’s bigger, so it’s easier to read on bigger screens, tablets and mobile phones and the colors finally match the design of the website itself. I hope you’ll enjoy browsing through the gallery much more now:
Second surprise actually consists of 2 revamped old sections: what you used to know as the lyrics and download centers can now finally be found inside the main website. The lyrics center is connected to the “Song meanings” section, which means that every Simple Plan song now has it’s own section which includes basic info about the song (songwriters, album, length, additional collaborations etc.), the lyrics to the song (Czech version of SimplePlan.cz also includes the Czech translation) and sometimes also music videos, interesting facts and meanings of certain songs.
The download center has been simplified, and now includes only the most sought after sub-sections such as avatars, brushes, fonts, wallpapers and ringtones.
I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy all the changes I have made to the website and that it will make browsing through it much easier.
Once again, happy 7th birthday, SimplePlan.cz ! Here’s to many many more!