History of dalebamber.co.uk
dalebamber.co.uk has been on the internet since 2006. It’s come along way since 2006 and heres a little trip down memory lane
The 2006 era
The website was lauched in December 2006 by MW web designs (Now known as Equal Design) dalebamber.co.uk was the very first website the company had created. The look of the website was basic. The colour scheme was green and white (ok not the best colours ever) and the content was worse than the colour scheme. Content from the 2006 era. About me, Top of the pops, Girls Aloud and a video gallery. The site was more of a factual site than an entertainment website, with only the video gallery being updated.
No pictures survive of the first look of dalebamber.co.uk (being honest…we didn’t expect it to last this long either!) therefore current graphics designer for the website Cheryl Gerhard re-created what the banner used to look like.
As well as a website…dalebamber had a blog as well…however unlike a normal blog this advertised upcoming TV shows like TOTP2.
2007 - The Dale Bamber Show era
April 2007 and Dale Bamber got his very own radio show. Therefore the website had to have new features and not just be a factual website…About me, Top of the pops and Girls Aloud stayed there but a new section was added (cleverly titled The Dale Bamber Show) After the first broadcast of The Dale Bamber Show the website went down due to the amount of hits the site got. After this dalebamber.co.uk became the syndicate website for the show.
After the Dale Bamber Show
October 2007 and The Dale Bamber show came to the end of its 2nd series due to Ribble Valley Radio closing down…so what happens to the website? Well after talks dalebamber.co.uk decided to stay…despite the end of The Dale Bamber Show. So next came the decision of content. The Dale Bamber show section still stayed as a tribute to RVR’s most successful show. but the site turned more into a Girls Aloud fansite.
The look of dalebamber.co.uk as from 3rd November 2007…as you can tell the colour scheme changed from green to red
The blog also had a new look as well…based on Nadine Coyle…and the colour of her dress in the picture.
Fact: The original design of this blog was based on The Simpsons however due to Dales…erm…dying love for Nadine Coyle the blog was re-designed for Dale.
The blog was heavily used in January 2008 to bring you the latest news on Ashley Cole cheating on Cheryl Cole…with the blog being updated every hour plus bringing you the headlines from the national papers.
April 2008 - The New Look site
For most of March 2008 the website was down due to updating the programme the website used to edit the content. Was it worth it though? of course it was! Dalebamber.co.uk came back on the net with a brand spankin new look.
However due to the cost of updates…this lead to dalebamber.co.uk/blog to be axed as the main website was the interest. The blog didnt have the magic it one had therefore after long talks the blog was no more!
The new look website had a totally new layer. It had 3 collums with each section being sectioned off in its own little box. This also included the Featured video on the right hand side…which stays stationary on every page of the website. The black tool bar also had a dropdown feature offering more pages to view. Instead of the blog a new section called Dale’s World was created bringing you the latest news in the entertainment world.
November 2008 - Meet the Team
November 2008 and dalebamber.co.uk was that popular…it needed a team to run it. The original 2 members of dalebamber.co.uk stayed… Mark Wilkinson and of course Dale Bamber stayed…and the site hired 2 new people. Leanne Graham and Cheryl Gerhard. Leanne Graham was branded as the site’s journalist and took over from Dale’s World. Leanne and Dale met through The Dale Bamber Show…Leanne being a listener. After the show disbanded, Leanne and Dale kept in touch with each other. After 1 month of writing for the website Leanne got taken on as a journalist for Teen Scene magazine in America. Despite this…she still wrote for dalebamber.co.uk. Cheryl Gerhard is the sites graphic designer…mainly designing the banners for dalebamber.co.uk. Once again like Leanne, Cheryl and Dale met through The Dale Bamber Show and kept in touch after the show ended. Her first banner being the one below:
2009 - The Flashing Banner Era
2009 and the website has a slight update. The dropdown navigation changed and you had to click the toolbar to get more page options and the banner had changed…to the most controversial banner to date:
At this point the website was branded “pornographic” as Sarah Harding and Cheryl Cole was wearing only their bra’s in the picture. The website recieved over 1000 complaints over the banner and therefore we changed it immediatly…and replaced the 5 pictures of Girls Aloud….with Taylor Swift!
Yet the banner still recieved complaints about the moving graphics…and once again…dalebamber.co.uk changed the banner. The site went back to the original banner from April 2008.
Also in this era dalebamber.co.uk brought back the Girls Aloud picture gallery due to popular demand. This also meant bringing alot of the old graphic works from as far back as 2007 out of retirement for each gallery.
June 2009 - The Taylor Swift Era
June 2009 and the website got yet another new banner. Teen sensation Taylor Swift has started to take the world by storm with her guitar. In June 2009 she won 2 CMT awards and to express Dale’s love for her Cheryl the graphics designer made this…in Dale’s words “gorgeous” banner.
Sept 09 - All change
The Dale Bamber Show returned in August 2009 which meant the site was the syndicate site again for the pop radio show. Which meant changes had to be made to the site as far as content. The Girls Aloud picture gallery was once AGAIN axed and was replaced with podcasts of The Dale Bamber Show. Within a mater of a month, a shock to everyone the whole Girls Aloud section was taken down after 3 years…and being an original page from the website since day 1 of dalebamber.co.uk. Along with losing Girls Aloud, journalist Leanne Graham sadly left dalebamber.co.uk to persue her career. However new features took over from Leannes column and the Girls Aloud section. Dalebamber.co.uk started to publish the new releases of singles each week as well as a brief look at the history of berlesque pop act The Pussycat Dolls. The Dale Bamber Show had various topics that attracted people to the website including “Taylor Swift vs Nicole Scherzinger”, where Dale had to choose who he would rather date…and Dale’s protest against X Factor Xmas number 1’s by a campain to “Get Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You To Number 1″. As the website entered this new era it was also near the end of the decade…therefore the featured videos on the website highlighted the best muscial highlights of the noughties.
2010 - New banner/new content
2010 and dalebamber.co.uk got a slight makeover with a new banner (Thank you Nicole Cooper from Australia for making the banner) as well as the content constantly changing. Dale started a spin off of his show called “The Dale Bamber Show…Exposed! and Dale also changed the theme of the content for the features videos basing them on events that have happened in the news. Dale’s world also got the axe in January 2010 as Dale’s media archive returned with new material added since 2008…and then came back a month later but this time Dale’s world was a journal by Dale about what had been going on in his life.
April 2010 - New member of the team and the website gets a bit personal to Dale…
Mid 2010 and dalebamber.co.uk got a new banner…but no singers this time! Dale decided to make the web banner about himself this time. The banner was created by Nicole Cooper in Australia.
Dale also had a new recruit to The Dale Bamber Show Productions and dalebamber.co.uk. 21 year old Heather Horrocks joined the team. Dale and Heather met at a radio station called Radio Hospital Blackburn. After just half an hour of them talking and presenting a show called ‘Requestline’ Dale asked Heather to join The Dale Bamber Show which she immediatly took the opportunity. With Heather being a journalist Dale asked her to join the production company and with joining she would have her very own column on dalebamber.co.uk and would be branded as the journalist of dalebamber.co.uk. once again Heather immediatly took the opportunity.
The Future?
So whats the future for dalebamber.co.uk? Well the future plans is to still bring you an entertainment website with the help of the dalebamber.co.uk team. In general who knows what the future will bring. Thanks for visiting dalebamber.co.uk.
