Seahawks' new site showcases technology

What: A redesigned Seahawks.com, the official team Web site. The new site is expected to go live this week.

Who: Seattle-based Cypress Consulting, founded by Nate Thompson in 2001, has been working on the project since March. His firm has 45 employees who "telecommute" from across North America. Other clients include Starbucks, Microsoft and GlaxoSmithKline and smaller companies.

Fan experience: The site is designed to give fans more content beyond game-day coverage, while reflecting the team's "brand values." There's a regular programming schedule for each day of the week. On Wednesdays, for example, the content focuses on prepping for the game ahead. Other new features include blogs by players and coaches and content in Spanish.

Bye-week antics: Lighthearted content on the existing site took center stage last week. In one short video, kicker Josh Brown interviewed people at Bellevue Square — who clearly didn't recognize him, or mistook him for quarterback Matt Hasselbeck — about how much kicker Josh Brown should be paid, among other things.

Editorial line: The Seahawks organization is taking advantage of behind-the-scenes content it has available, but decided to keep coverage of itself positive, Thompson said. That contrasts with some NFL teams, which allow internal acrimony to spill onto their own sites. "Other teams also take a more risqué approach in the presentation of their cheerleaders," he said. "The Seahawks wanted to be much more family-focused."

Micro sites: The Sea Gals and the Seahawks Kids Club get their own sites with a distinct look, feel and content, such as kids interviewing players.

Managing content: Behind the public-facing site is a Web-based system through which each group within the organization can edit and publish multimedia content. "It distributes the ability for them to manage their respective parts of the site," Thompson said

Tracking visitors: As of late September, 16 million individuals had visited Seahawks.com viewing 68 million pages in 2006.

Technology: Being a Seattle-based team owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the Seahawks wanted to ensure that the site showcased technology. There are RSS feeds to syndicate content to other sites and podcasts of interviews and press conferences.

— Benjamin J. Romano