Official site

[hector]

it is quite poor. i realise that staff levels may not be at their highest but i definitely agree that the club shop could be better. i actually think we could sell better stuff too, but thats a side issue. i was recently on the carlisle united club shop and they had last seasons shirts down to a fiver. home shirts, away shirts, long sleeved shirts. whatever you want.

the thing that annoys me a lot about the site though is the silly headlines. it seems like rather than state a fact or keep things sharp (even a good pun wouldnt go amiss), whoever writes them is intent on some misleading or cryptic sentence, usually involving alliteration, that often means you miss certain news stories because they dont sound interesting or relevant, or end up reading ones you arent interested in. happens to me all the time anyway, maybe im on my own with that but its so annoying, i wish he/she would just keep it simple.

Yes - I agree. The headlines are stupid. It is as though the writer is attempting to be smart. But no, it fails miserably. They are stupid.

[tufcbrett]

i find it funny that we go into a month untill the new season and 5 days before our first pre season game and we still have not got the new home shirt released yet. We have not seen an offical picture just one with a blonde girl and a few with the new signings. Cant be hard to take a picture of the shirt on a manakin and put them on the website?

I dont get why they dont sort it and and get pre orders on the go aswell.

[stevegull]

The headlines are the worst problem to me as well. Probably some clever ploy on their part as a way of getting me to click on every story so i find one that is relevant. For example when reading the headline "player and person" i have absolutely no idea what this is in reference to. Surely a simple "Saah happy to be on board" would suffice. Keeps the website more efficient and to the point, which is essentially what the fans will want when they visit the site. I have heard some people (not necessarily on this thread) saying that they don't like the website design however i think it would be unwise to move away from this clearly quite easy to maintain structure which some football league website 'machine' has created for every club. Clearly easy for the man at our end to chuck in new stories and the like but whether it is more difficult for him to dig in to player profiles to update them i don't know.

To be fair, i believe the website manager is only part-time and is not just in charge of the website, i think he is the main person that people from other clubs and papers talk to about press relations. To be fair to the lad (or lass) he does update the site with new stories very regularly and seems to be delving into the squad to get some of his own quotes from Ling or players which help keep the fans interested in the site.

Just maybe pick a headline that can tell me what is in the article perhaps?

[Wubble U]

Remember how bad the OS was a couple of years ago though.
we were lucky to get a new article every week or so, and we'd find out about new signings on the bbc a few days before the OS announced them.

while it still has a long way to go, it is a major improvement from the dark old bateson days.
Good to see the board have directed some efforts towards improving communication with the fans

[hector]

Is the website person Tim Herbert or someone? I think he used to report on Janner Argyle for the Janner Indy on Sunday. Therefore he obviously has some good journalistic credentials but I think he would be wiser to make the headlines on the site fit the story or make it obvious what the story is about.

Take todays headline - 'self-management' it hardly induces the desire to read. Had it said 'new team captain' which is essentially what it is about, then I think the desire to click on the story would have been more. It is just trying to be too clever and it doesn't really work.

[bixieupnorth]

the thing that annoys me a lot about the site though is the silly headlines. it seems like rather than state a fact or keep things sharp (even a good pun wouldnt go amiss), whoever writes them is intent on some misleading or cryptic sentence, usually involving alliteration, that often means you miss certain news stories because they dont sound interesting or relevant, or end up reading ones you arent interested in. happens to me all the time anyway, maybe im on my own with that but its so annoying, i wish he/she would just keep it simple.

sounds just like this forum!!

[bixieupnorth]

its def better than it was when we all referred to it as .con!! still leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. the out of date player pics and ex players wearing old tat in the shop are my two main bugbears, the daft headlines i can deal with tho.

maybe the person that deals with it is on their summer holidays, so i'm prepared to wait until after the first match before i wade in both guns blazing!!

time for another candy style volunteer from amongst the computer savvy of us, to grasp the nettle and offer to sort it out for them?

[highweekgull]

As I mentioned on another thread our previous chairman signed the club up for 10 years to ptv before he left and got the dosh.

The official site is better since the new guy took over in some respects (as in posting some actual news) however the rest of the club haven't got a scooby about how the website can help them do their jobs - notably our commercial manager.

Our previous chief executive did not understand the power of the internet at all and things haven't got that much better.

The club shop was hurriedly put together by us when the new directors took over 4 years ago as a temporary solution. 4 years on the club have sold the rights for now to someone else and neither party want to commit any time, effort or money to doing something better which will actually generate them money. Despite the fact that we have offered to do it at about 1/4 of the price.

Ah well - we'll be still be talking about this in 4 more years...

[portugull]

You only have to visit other sites to see we are light years behind commercially. Good sites generate revenue but sadly Devon is abeautiful area but we are considered "country bumpkins" by many because we do not act in a professional way. The site could and should be so much better. I just cannot get my head around the fact that the site makes no mention of the Members Scheme. It really is a crying shame.

[Fonda]

You only have to visit other sites to see we are light years behind commercially. Good sites generate revenue but sadly Devon is abeautiful area but we are considered "country bumpkins" by many because we do not act in a professional way. The site could and should be so much better. I just cannot get my head around the fact that the site makes no mention of the Members Scheme. It really is a crying shame.

Seem to recall making a thread to that effect sometime ago.

[DerbyGull]

We must have spies all of a sudden something has changed on the OS!!! Squad is still wrong but the players on the top banner have gone!!!

[hector]

As I mentioned on another thread our previous chairman signed the club up for 10 years to ptv before he left and got the dosh.

The official site is better since the new guy took over in some respects (as in posting some actual news) however the rest of the club haven't got a scooby about how the website can help them do their jobs - notably our commercial manager.

Our previous chief executive did not understand the power of the internet at all and things haven't got that much better.

The club shop was hurriedly put together by us when the new directors took over 4 years ago as a temporary solution. 4 years on the club have sold the rights for now to someone else and neither party want to commit any time, effort or money to doing something better which will actually generate them money. Despite the fact that we have offered to do it at about 1/4 of the price.

Ah well - we'll be still be talking about this in 4 more years...

Was it individual clubs that signed up for ptv? I thought it was the Football League. Go to virtually any league club and they all have ptv sites. Not sure individual chairman had much say in the matter.

[happytorq]

Was it individual clubs that signed up for ptv? I thought it was the Football League. Go to virtually any league club and they all have ptv sites. Not sure individual chairman had much say in the matter.

No, pretty sure it was optional; there were a few clubs who didn't sign up. I'd imagine that they way it's run is that PremiumTV offer the platform for free, but then probably get half of the income from ads and a cut from the Player portion. It probably made sense for smaller clubs because they wouldn't have had to hire somebody to run it or whatever.

That being said, the fact that it's always behind is down to the club; same is true of the shop. I could have one of my developers whip up a better system in about 3 days. I mean, I could install a free system in a few hours - but if the products aren't being added or removed properly it's still going to look a bit crap.

[Neal]

Franchise it

SIMNPLES!

[Wubble U]

I see the board have quickly moved to explain the situation with the website and are inviting ideas and suggestions for improvement:

http://www.torquayunited.com/page/News/ ... 02,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;