March 24, 2007
Blackjack Blog has gone NUTS!!!!
This blog has been going since late November and has seen a steady increase in the nmber of people frequenting the avenues and hallways of the blog. February saw a big jump in the number of ‘hits’ on the site and by the end of the month all records had been broken. This is all very predictable as February would see most teams in training, summer cup starting, etc. So it was no real surprise to see just over 40,000 hits in the month.
From late February everything went NUTS.
We still have a week to go in the calendar month but I am enormously proud to say that we have had 105,370 hits on the site in the first 24 days of the month. This equates statistically to over 5,000 individual visits with some 51,000 pages viewed.
I find this simply amazing and speaks volumes for how desperate Tasmanian’s are to talk about football and how it should be run. At this stage the blog really only services the South of the State and I’d like to know how we can better service our friends in the North & North West.
So stand up and give yourselves a congratulatory pat on the back, for it is you, the Tasmanian football public, who has grown this site into what I think is a very worthwhile and useful product. I hope you agree.
I welcome input on how to improve the site or ideas to make it more accessible. This site is for EVERYONE!!! (even FFT personnel if they care to use it).
I’ve got a suggestion mate.
How about creating a forum?
Works better, requires people to register and you spam will be just as easy to moderate. You can also get people to assist in moderation of the forums.
For example:
Forum
Works really well.
Comment by chalky — March 27, 2007 @ 10:53 am
all this activity and still very little to talk about if you are from the north, infact of late Nothing!
Comment by Captain Australia — March 27, 2007 @ 11:00 am
chalky, a forum requires a moderator to be ‘online’ at all times otherwise arguements/debates can get out of hand and slanging matches can cause massive rifts. As we don’t have the personnel or time to devote to this full time activity I think, at this stage anyway, it would be best to keep things a little bit tighter as it were. Good suggestion for the future though. Thanks
Comment by Blackjack — March 27, 2007 @ 12:46 pm
Capt. Australia, if people from the north and north-west wanted to send some results, pictures, feedback, ideas to float on the blog, etc. I would be only too happy to put them up. To date I have written to a number of clubs and personnel and you are the only one to respond by permitting me to lift reports and pics from the Northern Rangers site. Great for NR but you’re not the only club up there. What are the others doing??
I think you blokes need to be a little more proactive in promoting your game rather than waiting for someone to make it happen.
Huge plaudits to NR for their web site though. A great source of info but using NR info only has led me to accusations of being a NR stooge!! Can’t win either way.
Comment by Blackjack — March 27, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
I agree with the forum idea.
I subscribe to a couple and spend far too much time there, none of these have full time moderators, and I am yet to see any major problems arrise, or are Tasmanian soccer players just a little bit more hot-headed and likely to cause problems??
Comment by A Zed — March 27, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
What do you mean by ab NR stooge?
I do have the results posted ) every Monday morning by 8 :30am, results for all hudson cup games I might add, not just ours. I am aware that uploading our report is not ideal as I write it as a Ranger to the Ranger faithful, unbias but about us.
Results could still be posted to allow those of us that are using this sight to discuss, but it has become apparent that this is a Southerner sight only, this is why I pass my comment. what more can one do to premote the game other than run our web site as best as we can. I could start a Northern Blog spot or forum sight but this would only drive a stake further through the divide between North and South!
Comment by Captain Australia — March 27, 2007 @ 1:47 pm
Maybe someone will start up a forum then. I have my work cut out for me just looking after this place.
Comment by Blackjack — March 27, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
Capt. Australia, because I was lifting the Hudson Cup reports from the NR site, I was accused of being a NR club person or bias toward NR.
Please understand, I don’t have any issue with the NR guys, they are some of the ‘regulars’ around here. The NR website is a great source of info for results etc. Likewise, one of the Burnie boys has been a regular especially on youth development.
I have put up northern results for the first three legs of the Steve Hudson and it has attracted virtually zero comment. But I will put up the results from the northern matches if someone sends me those results before they go up on the FFT site.
I don’t have any problem per se, that this blog is seen as a southern site but maybe as the season progresses other might become more aware and feel confident enough to contribute. Maybe the southern guys are just more loud than the demure northerners!!! LOL
Comment by Blackjack — March 27, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
See what you have started now blackjack — North v South war !!!! lol
Lets be honest if blog writers from the over the Oatlands wall want a piece of the action let them put forward their ideas and respond accordingly.
Response is speaking very loud already, as you have indicated the Northern Brehan are not interested thats their choice…
Comment by sent off — March 27, 2007 @ 2:21 pm
I also agree with the forum idea, although there is one thing that annoys me with Australian (nationwide) football forums - the biggest one (The World Game Forum) is full of dickheads, the next best ones are sub forums of others, eg. Melb Victory’s forum, SFC’s forum etc.
What I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is that Tassie is too small for this sort of duplication, you should contact the admins of soccertas.blogspot.com and mvfctas.com to see if they want to assist in the setting up of such a forum!
Comment by Chuq — March 27, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
And also … contact the major clubs and see if they would like a subforum.. some may have their own already but hosted on generic forum sites which are full of ads and popups.
Comment by Chuq — March 27, 2007 @ 3:18 pm
why would i be interested in a game between hobart olympic and taroona etc just as you arent going to comment on a game between riverside and somerset.
Comment by billy — March 27, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
Chuq, Kingborough, Northern Rangers, Beachside & Launceston City all have forums.
I don’t think there is any need to duplicate services, reinventing the wheel if you like. Why not approach one of these clubs or even just go and start chatting.
Northern Ranger & Kingborough welcome members of other clubs (and there is little or no advertising) to their sites. Beachside (proboard forum, therefore advertising) & Launceston City (can’t even get in to have a look without registering) are unknown quantities in terms of welcoming others than their own.
Comment by Blackjack — March 27, 2007 @ 3:26 pm
I guess my example is that when I want to see if someone is discussing something relevant to Australian football - I tend to go check The World Game Forum (both the General and Australian forums), then the melbournevictory.net forum “Australian football discussion” section, then the sfcu.com.au “Australian football” forum, then the Whirlpool ’sports lounge’ forum, then austadiums.com “Australian sports” section, also the soccertas blog, this blog…. even bigfooty (generally AFL) has a football (soccer) section. There are also others with minimal activity, such as kickoff.com.au and talkaleague.com, also the GGArmy forum.
My thought is that if I have something related to, say the SPL, of interest to all clubs, I can just go to a single site, and find everyone there. I haven’t been to the individual clubs forums but I would presume they would have, as well as club-specific forums, a generic statewide football forum, which causes the redundancy.
All just my opinion of course, but I thought I would post the thought and reasoning that led to my previous post so you could see where I was coming from!
Comment by Chuq — March 27, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
I’d be happy to assist in Moderating a Bulletin Board style forum if one was created.
I’ve done it before in the past and still do currently, it’s pretty cruisy and straight foward.
Comment by chalky — March 27, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Hey Blackjack what are the odds on who will be the first coach to be relieved of his duties this year ??
Who will be the first SPL player red carded this year ?
First goalscorer in SPL for THIS YEAR ?
To keep Captain Australia happy u can include the NPL but doubt if you will get much feedback !!..lol
Comment by sent off — March 27, 2007 @ 6:44 pm
if a club wanted to sack a coach - where would they find a ‘qualified replacement”
Comment by sj — March 27, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
sj…what, you mean to tell me there are no ‘qualified’ coaches in Tasmania that are currently unemployed or not utilising their superior qualification and no new courses in which to obtain these said qualifications before the end of the season??
sj, tell me it isn’t so!! I guess the clubs that scak their coach will have to go a poaching then!! LOL
sent off your post is not relevent to this topic discussion. Can you please refrain from posting unrelated topics in a unrelated discussion topic. We do have a ‘Mixed Bag’ topic that would be more suitable!!!
Comment by Blackjack — March 27, 2007 @ 11:20 pm
SJ YOU ARE BEING VERY HARSH ON YOUR FFT , or should that be ex FFT ) they have implemented acoach education system with mandatory minimum requirements - extra courses - which many previous blog writers supported - so as far as accreditted coaches - we should have plenty running around - but having seen some of the last minute appointments whether they are suitably qualified is a matter for discussion.
not sure if this is the right area again blackjack guess i have either a red or yellow card depending on the referee..lol
Comment by oncesacked coach — March 28, 2007 @ 11:46 am
no - not harsh on FFT at all - harsh on clubs not able to take advantage of the many courses offered
Comment by sj — March 31, 2007 @ 12:51 am
Blackjack, considering there are this many hits on your blog you could start looking at some advertising via sponsors. This would allow you to run a competion were the winner may score a trip to the mainland to view a major game or something similar. I’m sure you’d get the support from companies with these amount of hits. It just shows you the how much support is in Tassie relating to football, and with FFT really way behind the 8-ball doing Jacks..t. Pardon the pun.
Just a thought mate.
Comment by Boots — April 1, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
ahhh…NO!!!
Advertising = spam, flashing signs, slower loading of pages, etc.
It’s just not worth the hassle and besides, I’m a ABC kinda guy. I HATE flashing signs, loud annoying voices, etc. Simplicity is the name of the game. This blog is a labor of love and I NEVER want it to become drudgery.
A suggestion well intentioned I’m sure but one I’ll pass up thanks Boots.
Comment by Blackjack — April 1, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
The final stats for March are as follows:
Hits: 143,202 (19 hits per visit - someone’s reading a lot)
Number of visits: 7526 (4.07 visits/visitor)
Pages: 70209 (9.32 pages/visit)
We have had visitors from: United Kingdom, Ireland, Ukraine (don’t ask me!!), Japan, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Samoa, PNG, China, USA & France
The clubs that visit in the most, as a direct link from their club’s website (in order) are:
)
)
Tilford Zebras
Kingborough
DOSA
Clarence (they reckoned they were going to blow my stats sky high)
Beachside (I’m sorry for everything that was said about you guys.
Northern Rangers (even though there’s nothing for them to look at!!!
Melbourne Victory (go figure)
Adelaide United (wow)
Way to go people.
Comment by Blackjack — April 1, 2007 @ 8:22 pm