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Author Topic: New Link Sport website live tomorrow  (Read 9235 times)
Sam Morshead

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« on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 17:16:10 »

Evening all,
It's not boardroom or manatee-related, sadly, but the new-look Link Sport site goes live overnight (www.swindonlinksport.com) and I'd appreciate your varying degrees of informed feedback. Anything to do with appearance and 'user experience' - I hate that phrase - would be gratefully received.
Equally, those of you who might have had a look at it over the past 12 weeks, what would attract you back more often content-wise? What can be done better? What's not being done at all that should be?
Thanks in advance, enjoy the weekend off.
Sam
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Arriba

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« Reply #1 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 17:28:22 »

There seems to be a few news and sports sites now in Swindon. Trouble is they're almost all identical in what they do.
Read one and you've read them all really.
The adver is pretty dire now mind with some glaring errors on a daily basis where their news is concerned. It's like people who have never even been in the town are reporting on articles. locations of stories are regularly completely wrong or misspelled for instance.
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china red

« Reply #2 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 17:40:59 »

I check adver site and linksport daily now, guess your in the same press conferences so difficult to have an exclusive.  Like the interviews with people from the past, also noticed adver copied this.
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Ardiles

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« Reply #3 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 17:57:58 »

I do love the bredth of coverage we have now, but do wonder how long it can be sustained on the medium-sized (my definition) fanbase that we have.  Sooner or later, there is going to be some consolidation, surely?  The Washbag is a fanzine and doesn't go in for reporting or breaking 'news' as such, so it will probably carry on along side everything else.  But my guess is that one of the Adver, Link Sport and FLIC Wiltshire would probably fall away at some point.
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Flashheart

« Reply #4 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 18:10:38 »

The adver is atrocious. Their over dramatic and misleading headlines have gotten on my tits for a long time. Since Sam left, we still have the same crappy headlines with the added problem that none of them appear to give a flying fuck about either the club or the quality of work they produce.
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Sam Morshead

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« Reply #5 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 18:17:39 »

There seems to be a few news and sports sites now in Swindon. Trouble is they're almost all identical in what they do.
Read one and you've read them all really.
The adver is pretty dire now mind with some glaring errors on a daily basis where their news is concerned. It's like people who have never even been in the town are reporting on articles. locations of stories are regularly completely wrong or misspelled for instance.
Very true in terms of a lot of similar stuff - that comes from sharing press conferences, like the nationals but in condensed form in a League One club. That's why we've tried to be different, with audio clips online, instant player ratings, more opinion, blogs, comment, stuff like the 'five things we've learnt' - to try to offer a variety.
The club is getting more open to offering access to players on an individual by individual basis, so that might help things, but we're trying to offer what we wanted to at the Adver but couldn't due to staffing issues and daft workloads. Hopefully, in time, we will win people over with the way we do things.
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Ardiles

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« Reply #6 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 18:18:21 »

I agree.  It's really sad, and I take no pleasure at all in seeing a local institution like the Adver going so badly downhill.  The Reading Post has already shut down as a print edition newspaper, and the Adver will probably go the same way before long.

It all has to come down to economics...and that is what I was trying to drive at with the earlier post.  I doubt that either Sam or Andrew Steele-Davis are working for the love of it (although I know they're both fans).  I'm sure that they have bills to pay like everyone else.  I just can't see how each of the outlets that currently exist along side of each other can continue to do so in the longer term.  Where are the revenues coming from to support the operations?  If we were Man U, or even West Brom, you could understand.  But we're not.
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Sam Morshead

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« Reply #7 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 18:18:43 »

I do love the bredth of coverage we have now, but do wonder how long it can be sustained on the medium-sized (my definition) fanbase that we have.  Sooner or later, there is going to be some consolidation, surely?  The Washbag is a fanzine and doesn't go in for reporting or breaking 'news' as such, so it will probably carry on along side everything else.  But my guess is that one of the Adver, Link Sport and FLIC Wiltshire would probably fall away at some point.
We're not going anywhere fast, he says, crossing his fingers and doing a page-view dance.
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Ardiles

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« Reply #8 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 18:19:50 »

I think you'll be OK, Sam.
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #9 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 18:21:03 »

I do love the bredth of coverage we have now, but do wonder how long it can be sustained on the medium-sized (my definition) fanbase that we have. 

I assume you go to the Adver for their "bredth" of coverage, and the others for their breadth of coverage...

Don't write off the Adver just yet....after all they did see off the Swindon Echo and Swindon Mercury.
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Ardiles

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« Reply #10 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 18:25:28 »

Fuck me.  Reg has turned in to Lynne Truss.
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Samdy Gray
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« Reply #11 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 19:00:23 »

I think you'll be OK, Sam.

I guess James Phipps sees a future (and a profit) in Link, otherwise he wouldn't have bought it.

It's plain to see that the future is online media and the town's current main news outlet isn't exactly capitalising in this area.
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sonicyouth

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« Reply #12 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 19:08:34 »

I've enjoyed the interviews of recent former players. Migs was very insightful.
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@mwooly63

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« Reply #13 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 19:20:39 »

 Adver is gash at the moment, online and print

Between link sport and flic there is plenty of good coverage from ppl who actually have an interest in the club.
The interviews with ex players being a current fave of mine
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Sir Pissalot

« Reply #14 on: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 19:36:32 »

Healthy competition is no bad thing.  But most of us only have limited time to read stuff.  We now have Linksport, FLIC, The Adver - and, today, I came across a link to  http://www.swindontownforum.com/  for the first time.  Haven't really checked that one out yet.  

I have found recently that the Linksport site has become my first port of call.  So, I'll be interested to see what the new site looks like tomorrow.  The Adver reporting is now very poor compared to what it used to be and I spend much less time there these days as a result.  As Sam says, there is bound to be some cross-over due to shared press conferences - not to mention instances of apparent plagarism.  That said, it was noticeable, for example, that both sites started running instant player ratings and listing post-match Twitter posts around the same time.  

The variety of articles on the Linksport site is better than the Adver's and have fewer glaring factual errors.  Maybe that's down to the Adver guys having to cover other subjects as well as STFC.  That said, they seem to send two people to every away game, these days, which seems a bit OTT.

« Last Edit: Wednesday, December 3, 2014, 19:50:27 by Sir Pissalot » Logged
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