As much as I like the independence of the site, it's not enough to justify "losing" £50k. That's at least two members of staff I would think.
The fact that nearly every other club uses it suggests that the argument for independence has been had, and lost, many times around the country.
I also don't agree with the idea that shops don't have similar shop fronts. If you walk down the hight street you see that everyone goes with generic mannequin's, they then hang their own clothes on them. Mannequins aren't the only way of displaying clothes but everyone uses them - because they are cost-effective and get the job done. What makes the shop different is the clothes the mannequin is wearing. This is what will ultimately make the CAFC site different - it will be talking about CAFC.
There have been many posts on hear moaning about the commitment staff are showing to engaging us as fans, not just consumers. So lets for once treat them above shop staff who we pay no attention to. Lets treat them with respect and put their livelihoods above our own desire for club information and branding. They may well pay us back by making the service they provide to us, just a little more personal.
Would like the OS to stay independent but if it means people keeping jobs then there is no contest. As someone said getting rid of 'your views' would be a silver lining.
It could do without helmets like Kelvin McKenzie taking public digs at it and the club, as he has done again today in The Sun.
I also think there is a bit of misunderstanding about the FLi input, maybe Airman could clarify but I believe:
Going to an all FLi site would generate and extra £50k a year for the club, not cost us anything. The FLi wont renew the current contract so we will no longer be able to have match footage unless we moved to an FLi only site. The commentary is provide by the BBC and is a separate contract (what does this cost / when does it expire / could we keep it regardless of the FLi input?). Keeping the current site costs us money (how much) and an FLi which will make us money. Basic content would be available free of charge on an FLi site.
[cite]Posted By: Harveys Trainer[/cite]As much as I like the independence of the site, it's not enough to justify "losing" £50k. That's at least two members of staff I would think.
The fact that nearly every other club uses it suggests that the argument for independence has been had, and lost, many times around the country.
I think what it actually demonstrates is that most clubs don't see it as important and can't be bothered to make an effort even if they do.
We are not going to "lose" £50k and sacrifice jobs - we are trying to put together an alternative model that preserves our identity. If that's not possible then at least we tried.
[cite]Posted By: Harveys Trainer[/cite]I also think there is a bit of misunderstanding about the FLi input, maybe Airman could clarify but I believe:
Going to an all FLi site would generate and extra £50k a year for the club, not cost us anything.
The FLi wont renew the current contract so we will no longer be able to have match footage unless we moved to an FLi only site.
The commentary is provide by the BBC and is a separate contract (what does this cost / when does it expire / could we keep it regardless of the FLi input?).
Keeping the current site costs us money (how much) and an FLi which will make us money.
Basic content would be available free of charge on an FLi site.
We can continue with Player as it is, but it makes very little money - a bit less than the OS costs us in hosting fees. That's not of itself an issue to us. We provide it as a service to fans because we were asked to make commentaries available and we have to do that through a subscription model.
The BBC have been paying us for the (broadcast) rights, but this contract is up. It has nothing to do with FLi. One way or another we have to source commentary if we are to provide it.
Basic content would be free on the FLi site, but we do not have complete control over how it is presented and the design has to come from a set of templates currently used elsewhere. At its simplest, our site is built around news, theirs are built around adverts. We are focused on communication with our fanbase, they are focused on raising money from the site.
The driver of this decision is that we could get an extra £50k or more from going FLi and we need the money - so we need to achieve that revenue stream in another way if we are going to avoid it.
[quote][cite]Posted By: Airman Brown[/cite][quote][cite]Posted By: Harveys Trainer[/cite]As much as I like the independence of the site, it's not enough to justify "losing" £50k. That's at least two members of staff I would think.
The fact that nearly every other club uses it suggests that the argument for independence has been had, and lost, many times around the country.[/quote]
I think what it actually demonstrates is that most clubs don't see it as important and can't be bothered to make an effort even if they do.
We are not going to "lose" £50k and sacrifice jobs - we are trying to put together an alternative model that preserves our identity. If that's not possible then at least we tried.[/quote]
I was obviously only supposing to the reason other clubs have moved over to FLi, I assume you are giving more fact based info. If the club has spoken to any of them about why they did have we also asked how they / their fans have found it?
Are you saying that you are trying to work up a model that will keep the sites independence and also raises revenue to match potential FLi revenue? If so it begs the question why this hasn't been done before.
Living abroad i rely on the Player service for commentary and highlights as its the only way i get to see Charlton now we are out of the Premier league. For that reason i am wiling to pay a premium for the service. As for the OS, i would prefer it to stay independent but understand the financial implications of doing so, and unless theres a guarantee of covering the £50k through subscribers then it doesnt really leave much option.
[cite]Posted By: Harveys Trainer[/cite]
I was obviously only supposing to the reason other clubs have moved over to FLi, I assume you are giving more fact based info. If the club has spoken to any of them about why they did have we also asked how they / their fans have found it?
Are you saying that you are trying to work up a model that will keep the sites independence and also raises revenue to match potential FLi revenue? If so it begs the question why this hasn't been done before.
How much does the current site costs / make?
We've spoken to other clubs, at least some of whom would like to get out of the FLi arrangement if they could because they believe they could raise more money independently. They look at money, not the fan experience. To understand why an alternative model hasn't been done before (if it's possible) you'd have to look at the trajectory of the club's business, the areas it has chosen to prioritise and the advances in video on the web over recent years. The simplest answer, however, is that it's been nobody's job to do it and this is partly because it may not be possible.
I'm not giving any figures, but the hosting cost is not prohibitive.
If the 50k keeps a 2 or 3 members of staff in a job then do it. I only go on the OS for ticket info and when we sign a player. Money is the be all and end all at the moment. I wouldn't pay £5 per month, as said before will be at all the home games next season and 90% of away games are either on the radio or on bbc london website.
I really like our website as it is, so much better than the FLi ones. However, it's only a website at the end of the day, so long as I have the info I need from it then it won't be the end of the world. I do subscribe the CAFC Player, but only so I can get commentary while I'm at Uni. Back in London and hopefully earning next year so almost definitely won't be subscribing again.
Forgive me if I've missed it, but I haven't seen the costings for keeping the site as it is.
At the moment we're talking solely around the £50k potential income from FLi, but not including the cost savings (hosting/bandwidth etc.). This would make the net worth of an FLi website greater than the £50k being quoted.
eg. If keeping the site as it is were to cost (for example) £25k per season, the net benefit to the club of outsourcing is £75k (£25k in reduced costs + £50k income).
It sounds like FLi drive a very hard bargain, but if the financials add-up (and hopefully save some jobs!) I'll be reasonably happy to go with an outsourced website.
Living abroad the Player service is a godsend, even if we have to put up with Emma! I watch the highlights because I can't get them free from the BBC but I mostly ignore the other video clips posted because I think they are generally poorly produced. I am more than happy to pay for the service.
Would I pay more for the Player service? Yes, if they improved the offerings perhaps including a weekly chat show with a quality downloadable podcast then I would. To help simply raise more funds for the club. Then of course I would.
Personally I would prefer an independent cafc.co.uk but Airman's post has made me realise that often days will go by without me looking at it mostly only referring to it for for ticket news and official confirmation of player/club news.
As others have said, if moving to the FLi platform gives the club more money to save jobs then I am all for it. If it goes on players salaries, then I think that is a different issue.
Quite happy to pay for commentary and I think video clips are vital for the overseas members, happy to pay up to £10 a month personally, I'm sure the overseas brigade would too. You should post this on ADU and get intouch with the general Canadian contingentbeing the next biggest overseas fan base. I've probably still got the email adresses if you want them.
Just to wind this back a bit, we did of course offer a premium service with video highlights in the PL and I believe it was quite poorly supported, although in the PL we were able to offer the commentary free and in the FL we can't because of the FLi arrangements. Of course, in the PL there was so much coverage of matches and generally on Sky that the need for the video streaming was negligible. It's really the potential for ad revenue that has never been realised, but that's been an issue for as long as I've been involved.
I think whichever way this pans out you will see a bigger and bigger video offer over the years because it will make money. Some quite small clubs have teams of people working on it, because it is driving revenue.
Forgive me if I've missed it, but I haven't seen the costings for keeping the site as it is.
At the moment we're talking solely around the £50k potential income from FLi, but not including the cost savings (hosting/bandwidth etc.). This would make the net worth of an FLi website greater than the £50k being quoted.
I don't think it's appropriate to disclose those figures, but the £50k plus includes the cost savings. It's all informed guesswork anyway as far as the revenue is concerned because it's based on projected take-up and information from other clubs of comparable stature.
Can I also say that the new Bulletin service is rubbish. I understand the need to drive revenue but the look and information contained in it is very poor.
This has actually made me revert to checking the OS more than I used to when we had the daily text bulletin.
I truly dislike the format of most football league club websites. FLi, did it use to be called premium tv?.. anyways there webpage layout has always been a pain to use, right from the days when you had to register with them before access. Whilst it would gall me that Fli control the website, on account of any money that could come into the club I'd have to say do the deal.
I would pay for a subscription service £5 sounds ok. Like player and do listen to away games, also like the Bulletin find it very good. But at the end of the day I do look at CL first for any gossip, news and views
I would like to keep things as independent as we possibly can. I subscribe
to CAFC TV for the away commentaries, the desire and habit for that
stretches way back to the days of the Thamesmead service, and even as an
avid listener to the old updates we used to get on LBC. I pay, what, 30
something quid a year for that, and regard it as good value....I would be
prepared to pay more for that service, possibly double that (mind you it
would be good if it were utterly reliable and Emma free...or at least have
commentary that actually describes the action!).
I would also be happy to pay a levy on my season ticket instead, possibly a
levy with an opt out offer if you don't want to subscribe. Season ticket
holders are the more loyal fans, and if the right approach was made, i.e.
access to decent commentary online, maintaining independence, and a premium
online service in one or two other areas...maybe priority on some tickets in
the future, then I would find more money for that.
Then again maybe 24/7 would donate to the service from severance.
[cite]Posted By: ChicagoAddick[/cite]Can I also say that the new Bulletin service is rubbish. I understand the need to drive revenue but the look and information contained in it is very poor.
This has actually made me revert to checking the OS more than I used to when we had the daily text bulletin.
CAFC news bulletin delivered to your inbox every weekday during the season and once or twice a week during the off-season. Have you really not heard of it before MOG? It's been running for a few years in text format and a few months ago changed over into a more modern look. I like it, it's been a useful little read over the years.
I used to like the text message service the club ran through T-Mobile, that was even faster than the regular news channels and even the OS at delivering quick info. I remember getting a text informing me we had sold Danny Murphy before it was reported anywhere else.
CAFC news bulletin delivered to your inbox every weekday during the season and once or twice a week during the off-season. Have you really not heard of it before MOG? It's been running for a few years in text format and a few months ago changed over into a more modern look. I like it, it's been a useful little read over the years.
Well Airman thanks for including us in the process.
let me start with the BBC, I do not like the coverage, or the commentator I should say, and although a recent BBC employee I would not want to keep that particular ladies talent!, Have a word with David Robey BBC's London editor mate, it really is painful at times! The OS: Used to be a regular/very regular subscriber, but got sick of the Your views 'warriors'. I rarely use the site except for matchday tickets, or if games are called off!.
As a designer I find the design dated, but that is me as a 'creative type' so for now I would keep it, as light 'tart up' could work. Charlton TV: Do not subscribe, will not subscribe, on a mac and spoke to the Charlton office about this at the inception, I know there is software, but why try to deliver what you can see on the football show later! Overseas Fan's: Sympathise with them, but the club is probably concerned with costs that will not enable it to subsidise this worthwhile, but for the present expensive service, probably not sustainable outside the Premier. Bulletin, receive it...... Save your money! Twitter: Let a third party do it, what about Kevin Nolan, if he knows how to use a computer!.......
I appreciate that the club needs to keep in touch with it's fans, communicate effectively, and deliver a quick, news effective website, but it cannot do it all!...... or try to!
Posting two or three news stories a day on the site is probably all it can hope to deliver,.....Is there really that much daily news to cover If you want to embed video/podcasts Choice TV?
By the way you could put the programme ( printed) up as a pdf after the game like they do at the bbc on it's internal website. No cost takes half an hour to make, and think of the increased coverage! for advertisers. You also have an archive online for research and looking things up!
Just some ideas Airman, in short do less, but try and deliver quality, easy to chant, not always easy to achieve!
Hope I have been constructive, good luck with it.......
I laugh at OS when I go there, which is seldom, it is so amateurish it's laughable, I could have built better than that in Word...
It's a joke with its html links stuck all over the place, I've been on non-league sites that put it to shame...
Does it even have Java or Flash scripts...?
I would say that 99% of the content on it could be found on many hundreds of other websites for free and a lot of stories break long before they appear on the OS anyway...
Don't know how much they pay Digital Link for its services, I've noticed AFKA is being quite cagey about it, but it cannot be much, put it up for tender, I bet we could do a darn sight better job on here and a lot cheaper and better produced too...
I certainly wouldn't pay for it if they started to charge , if FLi are offering £50 grand to move in take my advice, snatch their hand off, now...!!!
I have no idea what other clubs' websites look like, but I like the OS, content is good, don't care for flashy add ons and ads. But I look here before the OS and that's not likely to change, also I am not a subscriber and unlikely to be, happy with the BBC goals coverage.
If other clubs don't like FLi is there an option of starting an alternative clubs controlled conglomerator?
Comments
The fact that nearly every other club uses it suggests that the argument for independence has been had, and lost, many times around the country.
I also don't agree with the idea that shops don't have similar shop fronts. If you walk down the hight street you see that everyone goes with generic mannequin's, they then hang their own clothes on them. Mannequins aren't the only way of displaying clothes but everyone uses them - because they are cost-effective and get the job done. What makes the shop different is the clothes the mannequin is wearing. This is what will ultimately make the CAFC site different - it will be talking about CAFC.
There have been many posts on hear moaning about the commitment staff are showing to engaging us as fans, not just consumers. So lets for once treat them above shop staff who we pay no attention to. Lets treat them with respect and put their livelihoods above our own desire for club information and branding. They may well pay us back by making the service they provide to us, just a little more personal.
It could do without helmets like Kelvin McKenzie taking public digs at it and the club, as he has done again today in The Sun.
Going to an all FLi site would generate and extra £50k a year for the club, not cost us anything.
The FLi wont renew the current contract so we will no longer be able to have match footage unless we moved to an FLi only site.
The commentary is provide by the BBC and is a separate contract (what does this cost / when does it expire / could we keep it regardless of the FLi input?).
Keeping the current site costs us money (how much) and an FLi which will make us money.
Basic content would be available free of charge on an FLi site.
I think what it actually demonstrates is that most clubs don't see it as important and can't be bothered to make an effort even if they do.
We are not going to "lose" £50k and sacrifice jobs - we are trying to put together an alternative model that preserves our identity. If that's not possible then at least we tried.
We can continue with Player as it is, but it makes very little money - a bit less than the OS costs us in hosting fees. That's not of itself an issue to us. We provide it as a service to fans because we were asked to make commentaries available and we have to do that through a subscription model.
The BBC have been paying us for the (broadcast) rights, but this contract is up. It has nothing to do with FLi. One way or another we have to source commentary if we are to provide it.
Basic content would be free on the FLi site, but we do not have complete control over how it is presented and the design has to come from a set of templates currently used elsewhere. At its simplest, our site is built around news, theirs are built around adverts. We are focused on communication with our fanbase, they are focused on raising money from the site.
The driver of this decision is that we could get an extra £50k or more from going FLi and we need the money - so we need to achieve that revenue stream in another way if we are going to avoid it.
The fact that nearly every other club uses it suggests that the argument for independence has been had, and lost, many times around the country.[/quote]
I think what it actually demonstrates is that most clubs don't see it as important and can't be bothered to make an effort even if they do.
We are not going to "lose" £50k and sacrifice jobs - we are trying to put together an alternative model that preserves our identity. If that's not possible then at least we tried.[/quote]
I was obviously only supposing to the reason other clubs have moved over to FLi, I assume you are giving more fact based info. If the club has spoken to any of them about why they did have we also asked how they / their fans have found it?
Are you saying that you are trying to work up a model that will keep the sites independence and also raises revenue to match potential FLi revenue? If so it begs the question why this hasn't been done before.
How much does the current site costs / make?
Sure the club could organise a couple of tickets for every away game and there are plenty for home games. That would be hilarious.
We've spoken to other clubs, at least some of whom would like to get out of the FLi arrangement if they could because they believe they could raise more money independently. They look at money, not the fan experience. To understand why an alternative model hasn't been done before (if it's possible) you'd have to look at the trajectory of the club's business, the areas it has chosen to prioritise and the advances in video on the web over recent years. The simplest answer, however, is that it's been nobody's job to do it and this is partly because it may not be possible.
I'm not giving any figures, but the hosting cost is not prohibitive.
One is more than enough...
Forgive me if I've missed it, but I haven't seen the costings for keeping the site as it is.
At the moment we're talking solely around the £50k potential income from FLi, but not including the cost savings (hosting/bandwidth etc.). This would make the net worth of an FLi website greater than the £50k being quoted.
eg. If keeping the site as it is were to cost (for example) £25k per season, the net benefit to the club of outsourcing is £75k (£25k in reduced costs + £50k income).
It sounds like FLi drive a very hard bargain, but if the financials add-up (and hopefully save some jobs!) I'll be reasonably happy to go with an outsourced website.
Would I pay more for the Player service? Yes, if they improved the offerings perhaps including a weekly chat show with a quality downloadable podcast then I would. To help simply raise more funds for the club. Then of course I would.
Personally I would prefer an independent cafc.co.uk but Airman's post has made me realise that often days will go by without me looking at it mostly only referring to it for for ticket news and official confirmation of player/club news.
As others have said, if moving to the FLi platform gives the club more money to save jobs then I am all for it. If it goes on players salaries, then I think that is a different issue.
I think whichever way this pans out you will see a bigger and bigger video offer over the years because it will make money. Some quite small clubs have teams of people working on it, because it is driving revenue.
I don't think it's appropriate to disclose those figures, but the £50k plus includes the cost savings. It's all informed guesswork anyway as far as the revenue is concerned because it's based on projected take-up and information from other clubs of comparable stature.
This has actually made me revert to checking the OS more than I used to when we had the daily text bulletin.
to CAFC TV for the away commentaries, the desire and habit for that
stretches way back to the days of the Thamesmead service, and even as an
avid listener to the old updates we used to get on LBC. I pay, what, 30
something quid a year for that, and regard it as good value....I would be
prepared to pay more for that service, possibly double that (mind you it
would be good if it were utterly reliable and Emma free...or at least have
commentary that actually describes the action!).
I would also be happy to pay a levy on my season ticket instead, possibly a
levy with an opt out offer if you don't want to subscribe. Season ticket
holders are the more loyal fans, and if the right approach was made, i.e.
access to decent commentary online, maintaining independence, and a premium
online service in one or two other areas...maybe priority on some tickets in
the future, then I would find more money for that.
Then again maybe 24/7 would donate to the service from severance.
Bulletin ?
Daily ?
Another one of CAFC's cliques ?
(Seriously....Bulletin ?)
CAFC news bulletin delivered to your inbox every weekday during the season and once or twice a week during the off-season. Have you really not heard of it before MOG? It's been running for a few years in text format and a few months ago changed over into a more modern look. I like it, it's been a useful little read over the years.
I used to like the text message service the club ran through T-Mobile, that was even faster than the regular news channels and even the OS at delivering quick info. I remember getting a text informing me we had sold Danny Murphy before it was reported anywhere else.
let me start with the BBC, I do not like the coverage, or the commentator I should say, and although a recent BBC employee I would not want to keep that particular ladies talent!, Have a word with David Robey BBC's London editor mate, it really is painful at times!
The OS: Used to be a regular/very regular subscriber, but got sick of the Your views 'warriors'. I rarely use the site except for matchday tickets, or if games are called off!.
As a designer I find the design dated, but that is me as a 'creative type' so for now I would keep it, as light 'tart up' could work.
Charlton TV: Do not subscribe, will not subscribe, on a mac and spoke to the Charlton office about this at the inception, I know there is software, but why try to deliver what you can see on the football show later!
Overseas Fan's: Sympathise with them, but the club is probably concerned with costs that will not enable it to subsidise this worthwhile, but for the present expensive service, probably not sustainable outside the Premier.
Bulletin, receive it...... Save your money!
Twitter: Let a third party do it, what about Kevin Nolan, if he knows how to use a computer!.......
I appreciate that the club needs to keep in touch with it's fans, communicate effectively, and deliver a quick, news effective website, but it cannot do it all!...... or try to!
Posting two or three news stories a day on the site is probably all it can hope to deliver,.....Is there really that much daily news to cover If you want to embed video/podcasts Choice TV?
By the way you could put the programme ( printed) up as a pdf after the game like they do at the bbc on it's internal website. No cost takes half an hour to make, and think of the increased coverage! for advertisers. You also have an archive online for research and looking things up!
Just some ideas Airman, in short do less, but try and deliver quality, easy to chant, not always easy to achieve!
Hope I have been constructive, good luck with it.......
It's a joke with its html links stuck all over the place, I've been on non-league sites that put it to shame...
Does it even have Java or Flash scripts...?
I would say that 99% of the content on it could be found on many hundreds of other websites for free and a lot of stories break long before they appear on the OS anyway...
Don't know how much they pay Digital Link for its services, I've noticed AFKA is being quite cagey about it, but it cannot be much, put it up for tender, I bet we could do a darn sight better job on here and a lot cheaper and better produced too...
I certainly wouldn't pay for it if they started to charge , if FLi are offering £50 grand to move in take my advice, snatch their hand off, now...!!!
If other clubs don't like FLi is there an option of starting an alternative clubs controlled conglomerator?