Web History
Metro Government's first website was released around the winter of 1994. It was developed by Doug Brown of the Information Systems Department on an old, spare NT Server. The homepage layout was "default gray" since background images were not supported by Browsers at the time. The basic content of the site was, Mayor Bredeson's Bio, a list of departments and their corresponding phone numbers, and the Metro Civil Service Rules which were typed by hand! Unfortunately, no backups of the site were ever made. The content of the site was lost when the NT Server was replaced by a Unix box and a new site was launched.
1995 - 1996
With the next generation of web browsers, visual enhancements were soon made, using backgrounds and more images. Doug Brown continued to be Metro Webmaster. This version was released in late 1995 and was in use until December 1996.
1997 - 1998
Given a more professional look and feel, this version was released in January 1997 and used until November 1998. The use of Real Audio was incorporated for the first time.
1998 - 2000
Gwenda Downhour took over as webmaster and this version was released in December 1998 and used until May of 2000. The main pages had this common look and feel, but departments were allowed to create their own pages and post to the server. Old Perl script reports indicate that the site was receiving about 9,000 visitors per week. The webteam grew to 2 employees with the addition of Michael O'Rear in the spring of 1999.
2000 - 2001
Released June 2000 and used until October 2001. This home page was constructed by Michael O'Rear who took over the Webmaster position in the Spring of 2000. The photographs were supplied by Metro Photographer, Gary Layda. The webteam continued to be a team of two with the addition of Matt Adams. A newer, much faster Dell server, running MS 2000, replaced the Unix box in October of 2001. Also, for the first time, a test server was available to the webteam.
2001 - 2007
Released in November 2001. The small webteam worked with an outside vendor, Link2Gov, to develop a new Look and Feel for the entire Nashville.gov site. Soon afterwards, the webteam grew tremendously and by November 2002, the team consisted of 6 full time web developers, two analysts, and a full time programmer. The site was receiving 35,000 - 40,000 visits per week. For the first time, the Metro Website was using live video, streaming video archives, and online applications. The entire conversion of the 4,000+ pages was 99% complete by November 2002.
2007 -
Released on March 30, 2007. This version of Nashville.gov uses the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) technology almost exclusively to define the look of the web site. The site was released with a brand new Google search engine to help improve its usability. The team of 6 full-time employees spent 9 months working on the design and page conversion of this version. Because of the power of CSS technology, new versions will have a much shorter time line for roll-out.