Some of you who frequently visit the Club’s website might have noticed that it now has a fresh new look, as we launched an upgraded version of the site yesterday. The changes that you see now are in fact only the first phase of a major series of improvements and enhancements we are making to the website, all aimed at giving our Members, customers and visitors better online experiences and services.
We are proud to say that for several years now, the Club’s website has ranked as one of the most popular in Hong Kong, with more than half a million visits every day, thanks to the great support we get from our customers and other members of the public. To prepare for the web improvements, we've had a big team working hard on the project for several months now. It comprises members from many different Club departments and divisions, so that we can ensure the changes meet the diverse needs of all our different visitors and customers.
As our online services operate almost around the clock, finding the right time to make the switch was not easy. In fact, yesterday was the only suitable date for some while, so many members of the team worked throughout the night to prepare for the launch.
The enhanced site is based on a new web technology platform that is also widely being adopted by financial institutions, stock exchanges, and gaming businesses worldwide. It enables us to integrate these web channels to our back-end databases and systems. We were able to implement this new technology within just five months, which according to the vendor, is much faster than any of their other clients and possibly a record anywhere in the world.
For this first stage of the revamp, we've redesigned the home page and realigned some other section pages, so as to make them more visually appealing and more user-friendly. The new version also offers wider online compatibility, as apart from access through Internet Explorer, customers can now use other web browsers such as Safari and Firefox to surf our website effectively and use our betting services. This means we can support some users who prefer the Mac platform.
We have also revised the information architecture of the website through regrouping and reshuffling the positions of different tags and shortcuts, so as to create a clearer web page layout for our users. I hope these new features will make it more convenient for you all to navigate the site, and easier for you to seek your preferred information there.
We will continue to implement more changes and enhancements, including adding new content and design to other sections of both the main website and other Club-related sites. In addition, there will be a new authentication method that allows our customers to use any Internet-connected computer for accessing our account services, which means we can better meet our customers' web behaviour in the long run. All this adds up to quite a massive task, so we will bring in these additional functions and features in several phases continuing right through to 2011.
However, as switching over from the old platform to the new one is a significant exercise, it is likely that some fine tuning will need to be done over the next few days, while you may also need some time to try out and familiarise with new redesign and realignments. Anyway, I hope you will give us your understanding and support and I shall very much welcome your views and feedback, which will help us plan future web developments more effectively.
In the meantime, we will continue to give you the very best horse racing experiences, including an eight-race card on the all-weather track at Sha Tin tonight. I will be especially interested to see how Viva Guy performs in the Spoonbill Handicap. This three-year-old was narrowly beaten in his previous start at Happy Valley a fortnight ago. He also had some decent performances in all-weather races earlier this season. With an expected normal to slow pace in this race, I think this horse will have good chance to greet the judge as winner for the first time. However, both Chater D’Cat and Precision Magic ran admirably in their recent starts in all-weather races, so I think these two horses can give Viva Guy a strong challenge
In the Egret Handicap, True Intelligence has racked up a win and two runner-up placings in his last three starts on dirt. He will again be partnered by Jeff Lloyd and will start the race from Gate 2 tonight. I think he will be a main contender in this race. Able Speed showed good improvement in his close finish at Happy Valley last time out. He and Cat Storm, who has returned from a three-month break, will be two interesting outsiders in this six-furlong event tonight.
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