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Lousy official sites

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Originally posted by Danni
As much as I bemoan the current website set ups, the Clubs do also wear responsibility on the content.

As far as I know - the clubs put the articles together, then send it off to be put up on the sites.

If a club doesn't send anything, then a site won't be updated.

If however St Kilda for example are sending info in, and it isn't being put up, compared to say the Lions who are sending info in and it is getting put up, then yes there is an even bigger problem than the crappy set up/visual aesthetics/blatent same look only different colours style problems we currently have.
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At last someone who understands.
Clubs are responsible for 90% of the content on their sites. Clubs like Brisbane are great, others not so great. The Clubs as well as accepting the money also have to take responsibility for the content.
 
Originally posted by The Hitman
AFLTN are meant to send reporters to Hawthorn training but don't. Yes, the clubs do have some responsibility, but AFLTN run it and have some reporting and production responsibility too.

I compare what AFLTN is saying to McDonalds saying they're better than KFC, even though the consumer like KFC.

It's an attitude like this that makes Telstra a second rate web runner.

The Hitman
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A representative from Sportal, who are contracted to provide some of the content, attend every press conference, training session and media event that the clubs have.
Sportal are also responsible for the production side of things.
Telstra just fund it.
I personally don't like all the club sites, they are all crap, and the AFL site is bland and boring, however at least someone is putting some money into the game, and not just taking it out.

There will be a NEW look AFL site in March by the way.
 
Originally posted by bb_gun
Sportsview looked after 4 sites. Again, the template wasn't the best, but it was a HELLUVA lot better than the current fiasco.

Yeah Kevin Diggerson is a real die in the wool Collingwood man is he?
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The other producers all folow the clubs they look after.
 
hitter

Hitter, you have the makings of a great sportswriter one of these days. But it's bad form to continually bag the people who built the AFL websites.
There are perhaps four media companies that employ sportswriters in Victoria (News, Fairfax, AAP and Sportal) and you've already done your dash with one. Keep it going.
 

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Re: hitter

Originally posted by egor
Hitter, you have the makings of a great sportswriter one of these days. But it's bad form to continually bag the people who built the AFL websites.
There are perhaps four media companies that employ sportswriters in Victoria (News, Fairfax, AAP and Sportal) and you've already done your dash with one. Keep it going.
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Hey!!!! AFLTN has brought a buddy with him!!

Now at least if you guys are gonna tag team, learn the good cop/bad cop routine.

I mean it wouldn't be the done thing to have both of you making sweeping statements without substantiating them would it?

c'mon, give us non-sportal plebs a chance here, you might have a better chance of getting your point across by playing good cop/bad cop.

Then again.............if the service is still ****, then maybe you won't.
 
Originally posted by AFLTN
AFL & 15 Clubs sold their internet rights for 5 years.
Telstra are investing over $20 millon over the next 5 years
The 15 participating Clubs receive $200k each year (for doing nothing)
Bonus pool each year also nets each club around $100K
Telstra invest a further $10 million per year in direct and indirect costs in running the Network.
The content on the site is provided by Sportal.
The multimedia on the site is provided by Silverspoon Productions (Harvey Silver used to produce the Footy Show)

If you do the math, Telstra invest close to $1 million per club per year!
So, instaed of bagging them, maybe you so called football fans should be suppoting them.
Where would some of your clubs be without this investment?
How much bigger would some of the Clubs debts be without this commitment?
Who else could commit to that much money each year for every club to run their website?
Can your club afford to run its own site?

At least this is what I have been told.
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I don't know about your costing's 'cos quite frankly, all the current content of PortAdelaideFC.com.au (which is the only official site I go to, out of obligation and nothing more) could be created at equal or higher quality for less than $100,000 and the site wouldn't crash at least once a month like the Telstra one.

I also believe we have good reason for bagging sites that don't work properly, are largely out of date, uninformative, and hardly keep us up to date with what's happening at the club.

AFLTN. I would strongly suspect that your source isn't telling you everything...
 
Re: hitter

Originally posted by egor
Hitter, you have the makings of a great sportswriter one of these days. But it's bad form to continually bag the people who built the AFL websites.
There are perhaps four media companies that employ sportswriters in Victoria (News, Fairfax, AAP and Sportal) and you've already done your dash with one. Keep it going.
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True. But why is it such bad form? No doubt I've done my dash with Sportal, but I liked Sportsview's stuff. Is it wrong to criticise something if I don't like it? Should I not say that I think someone is not performing as well as they should or could be? If it was a player performing badly, I'd do it.

But the journalistic game is now such a political one. I don't dislike Telstra/Sportal per se. I dislike what they've done to the AFL and affiliate sites. My view is that if they listened more to the fans, they'd have a much better site, instead of dismissing workers whose criticism was aimed to improve the site, not detract from it.

I love the idea of the clubs and the AFL making money from sites. But should the fans pay? No. Should the service be better? Yes.

The free netcast of the National Draft shows that the AFLTN can be a great setup for all concerned, and I think the club sites (well, Hawthorn's anyway) have improved as the season has gone on.

The Hitman
 
These are the facts:

AFLTN has three full-time writers plus producers and interstate stringers who contribute content.

All major club trainings and media conferences are covered by AFLTN writers. All major AFL events are covered. In most cases, content from these events is published within two hours, often in half that time. On match days, you can read a comprehensive match report within 30 minutes of the final siren. How is than an inferior service to one in which mainly used newspaper content from the day before? How can you honestly say they are "out of date"?

During the season, there was a requirement for 15 stories per day on afl.com.au and an average of one per day per club. That requiurement was met and reasonably comfortably. That's the sort of volume The Age and the Herald Sun run to in footy season. How can you people then say the sites are always uninformative?

Sportal has created a system for the AFLTN that allows the clubs to publish their own content. Personnel from every club have been trained to use the system. Some do, some don't. If your club's official site isn't updated often enough then blame the clubs, not the AFLTN, which are fulfilling their contract. If the clubs choose not to reinvest any of the $250k plus receive merely for signing an agreement into content, then take it up at the next member's meeting. Write an e-mail to the club instead of loading another negative post on Big Footy,

And as for charging for selected content, it costs Telstra $10 mil to run this thing each year. Even Telstra is entitled to some return on their investment.

The sites aren't perfect. They're a long way short of that, in fact. But they're getting there. And the growing traffic figures would suggest the negative types on Bigfooty are by far the minority.
 
I really don't care who runs them who writes the articles or who designs the pages, the fact is the sites are ****. Having to pay to hear interviews with a player or watch game highlights is a joke. The reason the sites are so popular is because they are the official site of the afl and the clubs. We expect those sites to have the correct information as it comes to hand.

I often hear a news report on the radio and think I'll check the afl site for more information and it's not up. I keep checking back every so often but it takes them forever to update. This is frustrating so I just go and read the stories on another site or find out from the message boards.

Having twenty million links to find an article is plain stupid and the afl should be aiming to make the sites user friendly. I think you'll find that a majority of people don't like the way the sites are set out. I know I only visit the richmond site very occasionally to see what's new most times there's only 3 or 4 articles I havent read since the last time I was there.
 
My major gripe about the sites is that there are no archives on past years like the old site and trying to find decent and relevant stats is near on impossible.

The other major problem is that the AFL sites are similar to what has happened at Inside Football. With the advent of the internet people want their information quickly and the fact of the matter is that the club's websites are way too SLOW in updating information. You are lucky if you get a decent review and if you do it is 3 days late and you have already read enough by then to not bother with it. They don't have any ground-breaking stories and considering the clubs run it, and they take responsibility here, why not give out some information early to encourage people to look at their site rather than read it somewhere else and then see it on our site 3 days later.
 
Originally posted by AFLTN
AFL & 15 Clubs sold their internet rights for 5 years.
Telstra are investing over $20 millon over the next 5 years
The 15 participating Clubs receive $200k each year (for doing nothing)
Bonus pool each year also nets each club around $100K
Telstra invest a further $10 million per year in direct and indirect costs in running the Network.
The content on the site is provided by Sportal.
The multimedia on the site is provided by Silverspoon Productions (Harvey Silver used to produce the Footy Show)

If you do the math, Telstra invest close to $1 million per club per year!
So, instaed of bagging them, maybe you so called football fans should be suppoting them.
Where would some of your clubs be without this investment?
How much bigger would some of the Clubs debts be without this commitment?
Who else could commit to that much money each year for every club to run their website?
Can your club afford to run its own site?

At least this is what I have been told.
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Oh... OK then. Just because Tel$tra gives the clubs money they deserve the right to F@ck up all the club sites and plaster them with Tel$tra ads?

Hang on guys, don't bag AFLTN. Tel$tra is doing us a favour?

BTW: I do know what I'm talking about. I am a qualified professional web designer and programmer. Anyway, i think even the internet novice would know a cr@ppy website when they see it. Afterall, aren't the public the people who the websites are built for?
 
Laughable

Really, Telstra is spending that much are they? What a bunch of fools. Sites like FTO look 10 times better, have more content and are up to date. It is run by three guys with passion and not much else. I suspect a lot like this site.

Dollars do not make a good product, and in this case it is just wasted shareholder money but TLS is good at that. How are you investments in Solution 6 and Keycorp going Telstra man?
 
I'm happy with Bomberland, it's the most popular site (I believe?) of the lot, and a hell of a lot better than that trash found at afl.com.au.

I would have no idea whose is the best site, I don't go to any of the others. Did the others shut down when the Telstra sites take over...ie is Bomberland one of the only independent sites left? Thank God it is still there anyway :rolleyes:
 

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Originally posted by BomberGal
I'm happy with Bomberland, it's the most popular site (I believe?) of the lot, and a hell of a lot better than that trash found at afl.com.au.

I would have no idea whose is the best site, I don't go to any of the others. Did the others shut down when the Telstra sites take over...ie is Bomberland one of the only independent sites left? Thank God it is still there anyway :rolleyes:
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Bomberland is the only official club site not run by AFLTN. I prefer it to bombersfc, the AFLTN Essendon site for the reasons mentioned before (doesn't take forever to load, not so many ads and not as many subscriber-only links, although the Engine Room section means there are some).
The other clubs' old official sites closed down and were replaced by the AFLTN official sites.
 
basically the main gripe here and i agree is the subscription fee to have to listen to player interviews and extra info, if the herald sun could do it as part of thier own sport site before the afltn took over, why the **** should we have to pay for this content now,

its all good that telstra kicks in to the clubs coffers but at what cost telstra ads everywhere.

bring back the highlights of the games for free like before, just for interest sake who here actually watches the whole replay of the game over the net:rolleyes:
 
Anyone who thinks the video feeds in years gone was at all OK obviously never watched it. The old site couldn't charge, because it was truly atrocious and people would have rightfully demanded there money back. The radio feeds were simply crap and only half the matches were covered. By far the biggest improvement that telstra have brought in, is the audio/video feeds, even if it does cost.

Just becuase of where I am, the only way that I can watch the footy is over the net. Last year you got a few jumpy highlights that were of poor quality and simply insubstantial in quantity. This year, I've been watching entire matches, in full screen mode with virtually no 'network interference'. This is a huge and vast improvment, and one that that was long overdue.

People tend to view the old site with rose tinted glasses. But it was simply a recital of Herald Sun articles, which unsurprisingly you can get at Herald Sun site now. Why people believe that the AFL site should have access to old Herald-Sun articles is a bit of a mystery to me. And it was slow to boot.
 
I don't really care that the AFL website is unreliable any more - the newspapers provide most of the content worth reading, and most of the rest turns up here.

Sometimes the Port club site has something worth reading, and come draft time the draftee profiles are nice, but gee.....is it worth getting upset over? Just realize that its not your main source of AFL news any more and get on with tracking the good sites down.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/footy/
http://www.realfooty.com.au
http://www.thewest.com.au/ (follow The Game link)
http://stats.rleague.com/afl/afl_index.html - superb stats pages
http://www.bigfooty.com

The only six addresses you really need.
 

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