eircomleague.net

[JW.]

Adam
You say below: "As to posting on JW's site, as I said elsewhere I really don't think it's fair to go pushing a possible competing site on eircomleague.net, that's not the way I play. If someone else posts it, well and good, but I'm not going to diss Johnny's hard work. Personally, I'd prefer if Johnny came on board with us, but I've made the offer before and he didn't appear to be interested. And I could hardly blame him, he puts a fair wedge of work into that site."

To be honest, I do not really remember that, but anyway, how and ever. I would be interested in making this the 'message board of eircomleague.net', at least in the sense that I would be linking to it as the site's mb. Because it does not have banner ads, and it seems to run excellently, it would have many benefits.

I would have some worries all the same. Having a section on all clubs is good in theory, but it undermines other unofficial club websites, and spreading discussion out over several sections is a risky and dangerous policy. All the same, I'd be eager enough to get involved, and the intentions are good. I'd certainly consider rowing in when I have the site re-designed in the next few months.

Any thoughts?

[dahamsta]

Hiya Johnny, nice to have you on phootball.com.

To be honest, I do not really remember that, but anyway, how and ever.

It was a while back, when you asked me to do a small job on eircomleague.net for you. I mentioned that I'd be keen to tie up with you on the site somehow. It was kinda casual, offhand. Maybe a bit too offhand.

I would be interested in making this the 'message board of eircomleague.net', at least in the sense that I would be linking to it as the site's mb. Because it does not have banner ads, and it seems to run excellently, it would have many benefits.

And we'd be delighted to do it, but I want to be straight with you from the off and make some stuff clear. First of all, the site doesn't have advertising right now, but there's a fair chance of there being some kind of sponsorship[1] later. We're "donating" the webspace and bandwidth at the moment, but we're quite definitely not made of money, so if the site starts getting major hits we're going to have to find some way of paying for it.

But as I've said before, I would be keen to keep the site non-profit if at all possible, just using sponsorship as a means to pay for the webspace and bandwidth. And that's why I keep reiterating that the success or failure of the site is totally down to the community - if the community supports the site, and more importantly contributes to the site, we'll all get along just fine. If it doesn't though, I just can't see it working.

Secondly, and more importantly for you, I want to point out that if you make phootball.com the forums for eircomleague.net, you run the risk of losing your users to us. That might sound cocky, but I want to be completely transparent with you - if we continue according to the Plan[2] I have in my wee tiny brain, we'll shortly start introducing new features on the site, including elements that will compete directly with eircomleague.net.

I won't be doing that out of maliciousness, but the ultimate aim for this site is to build the best Irish soccer resource available, and that will put it directly up against eircomleague.net. I don't want to take your traffic off you on purpose, but that's what'll happen if we can pull it off. This is the reason I contacted you before about tying up, and this is exactly the reason I didn't advertise phootball.com on eircomleague.net.

Now I'm saying this in the interest of transparency, because that's the way we want to run this site from the off. By saying this in public on the forums, I'm running the risk of alienating eircomleague.net users, but I'm willing to take that chance because I want us all to get off on the right foot. I hope you'll realise that I'm not trying to be nasty, just straight with you.

I would have some worries all the same. Having a section on all clubs is good in theory, but it undermines other unofficial club websites, and spreading discussion out over several sections is a risky and dangerous policy.

This kind of lumps into what I say above. Again, the aim of this site is to be the ultimate Irish soccer resource, and I can't do that withough treading on some toes. If the forums are successful, our next job is to build the definitive database of Irish clubs, and you can bet your sweet bippy it'll be a stonker, because we have a good designer, a good coder and an excellent source of information - the community. And by the time the community has started inputting information in that database, I'll be off putting together the next feature.

If all of that goes ahead, it's going to pull hits away from the unofficial sites, but I don't see any way around that. I don't necessarily think it's fair or right, but to me it looks like a simple decision with just two choices - build a damn good community site or build a crappy one. And your own site is pretty much proof of that - I guarantee that a good portion of your users would be adding to the unofficial sites hits if eircomleague.net didn't exist.

Or, to put it another way, as Jack Nicholson said in Batman when he was playing The Joker: "You can't make an omlette without breakin' some eggs."

All the same, I'd be eager enough to get involved, and the intentions are good. I'd certainly consider rowing in when I have the site re-designed in the next few months.Any thoughts?

I have lots of thoughts Johnny, but not all of them make sense! All I can say is that, again, I hope you understand that what I say above is not maliciousness, but honesty. Personally, I'd love to have you involved in this site, preferably in an editorial capacity, because you've proved beyond doubt that you can put together a comprehensive and popular site. But I can and will very much understand if you decide against it for the reasons I stated above. Ultimately though, the decision is yours and your users.

adam


[1] I say "sponsorship" because I'm not a huge fan of banners. I think "area sponsorship" on a site is much more effective, and less intrusive for the users. If you don't know what I mean, have a click around The Register for a few minutes and you'll see - certain topics on the site are branded with a sponsors colours and logos. I dunno about you, but it works for me. Seems to work for The Reg too.

[2] Total World Domination!