Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[boldie]

OHNO, that's just wrong. Can we please agree that anything other than Co-host or co-ordinating is simply unacceptable and that this marketing tool of an American must just be illiterate?

[tikay]

OHNO, that's just wrong. Can we please agree that anything other than Co-host or co-ordinating is simply unacceptable and that this marketing tool of an American must just be illiterate?

Quite possibly.

Curiously, the missive originated not from WSOP or Harrahs, but from ESPN, who are hosting it, which struck me as somewhat odd.

[gatso]

OHNO, that's just wrong. Can we please agree that anything other than Co-host or co-ordinating is simply unacceptable and that this marketing tool of an American must just be illiterate?

no because that would be agreeing to something that's wrong. coordinating is perfectly fine. if you're going to question it then you should go for coördinate rather than co-ordinate

cohost is decidedly dodgy though

[Bongo]

What about collocation?

[gatso]

What about collocation?

what about it?

[MereNovice]

Just to prove that I am not a total "stick-in-the-mud", I would say that coordinate and even cohost are perfectly acceptable.

Although coordinate may look clumsy it is no more awkward than cooperative which I'm sure that we have all accepted.
It is the natural course for words to become dehyphenated as they achieve common usage. Yes, I just made that word up (I think) but I'm sure that you all knew what it meant and it appears to fill a gap.
I have a slight quibble with cohost because it almost seems tautologous but I fear that I may be accused of pedantry if I were to object to it.

Words evolve constantly to describe new situations and requirements. The fluidity of the English language is one of its greatest charms. As long as the pace of the drift of the language is sufficiently slow that people can still understand each other there is surely no harm in developments such as these.

I even saw the word geotarget used by one contributor to this thread without a murmur of dissent recently.

I'll stop now as Ginny and Annabel are on TV. Obviously, not all of us get to rub shoulders with them so we just have to make do with the vicarious pleasure of reading our host's tales of mixing with the stars.

[Bongo]

What about collocation?

what about it?

Is it dodgy or acceptable?

[MereNovice]

What about collocation?

what about it?

Is it dodgy or acceptable?

It's fine although I prefer colocation.

[gatso]

What about collocation?

what about it?

Is it dodgy or acceptable?

I don't get the question. are you asking if it should be hyphenated? if so then the answer is no, there's not even a tiny argument for it

you could argue for the hyphenation of colocation however but you'd be wrong to do so

[byronkincaid]

Small world.

I am engaged on a 2 + 2 Thread, for business purposes, & who should reply on thread, asking me a direct question, but byronkincaid.

I'm not entirely sure if his question was genuine, a tease, or simply adding grist to my PR mill, but it was appreciated, & I replied in kind.

Tin helmet now firmly donned over there, but so far, I've escaped relatively lightly from the warriors.

And now, moving on from 2 + 2, I've been tasked, for next door, with getting cooey-wooey with "Pocket Fives". In truth, I don't actually even know what "Pocket Fives" is, but my spies inform me that Flushy has his foot well & truly in their door, so I'll be asking Flushy for help, shortly. Weird how this little poker world works.   

so google alerts will tell you when the word sky is mentioned on 2+2? apparently cardrunners have some software that flags up whenever they are mentioned on poker forums, so you get Taylor on some very obscure threads that probably hardly anyone reads. maybe it's just google???

fascinating to me how poker sites have started getting more and more involved with poker forums, in a way, i imagine the last people you want on sky is a bunch of sharks, not that posting on 2+2 automatically makes you a good player of course. it's a great way to improve customer service i think, if done in that manner. spam of course just turns everyone off.

[tikay]

Small world.

I am engaged on a 2 + 2 Thread, for business purposes, & who should reply on thread, asking me a direct question, but byronkincaid.

I'm not entirely sure if his question was genuine, a tease, or simply adding grist to my PR mill, but it was appreciated, & I replied in kind.

Tin helmet now firmly donned over there, but so far, I've escaped relatively lightly from the warriors.

And now, moving on from 2 + 2, I've been tasked, for next door, with getting cooey-wooey with "Pocket Fives". In truth, I don't actually even know what "Pocket Fives" is, but my spies inform me that Flushy has his foot well & truly in their door, so I'll be asking Flushy for help, shortly. Weird how this little poker world works.   

so google alerts will tell you when the word sky is mentioned on 2+2? apparently cardrunners have some software that flags up whenever they are mentioned on poker forums, so you get Taylor on some very obscure threads that probably hardly anyone reads. maybe it's just google???

fascinating to me how poker sites have started getting more and more involved with poker forums, in a way, i imagine the last people you want on sky is a bunch of sharks, not that posting on 2+2 automatically makes you a good player of course. it's a great way to improve customer service i think, if done in that manner. spam of course just turns everyone off.

Pardon the long reply, but this is my job, I love it to death, & am as enthusiastic as a teenager, so this may be a long-winded response.

Yes. I have google alerts set up for a bunch of handles, including, of course, "Sky Poker", SkyPoker.com", "Online Poker", "Tony Kendall", "tikay", "APAT", etc. They are completely free.

They come through once a day at a pre-agreed time. Because of the way the algorithm works, sometimes it picks up unrelated stuff & nonsense along the way, but it takes but a second to skim read the results & ignore the guff. I probably get 60 or 70 "alerts" daily spread across my range of selected names, of which 10% or 20% are relevant, or of interest.

If the comments are on an away Forum, I then go & reply as appropriate.

Spam? Well replying to customer feedback is a many headed dog, because if the reply is well-constructed, it serves several purposes - including raising brand awareness, profile-raising, &, of course, in effect, spam.

Why respond on 2+2?

It's my job, & I do it on all poker forums. I often get abuse -  all old people are dumbschmucks who don't understand poker, of course - but the default setting is that I'm reasonably well-received, because I reply honestly, & with tact, care, humility, civility, self-deprecation, &, I hope, a little humour. You'd be surprised how less toxic most poker forums are compared to blonde, which has been horribly impacted by a handful of gob shiites & trolls.

You'd assume that 2+2 is the last place where SP would attract players, but in fact, it's quite the opposite. I get measured (amongst other things) by sign-ups from such activity, & SP measure closely - miroscopically closely - how these players perform, as to rake generation. And I've managed quite a lot of sign-ups from 2+2, most of whom have become regulars. I throw them a little ground bait, of course, to oil the wheels. A few Tourney Entries goes a long way, a surprisingly long way. "Play these 3 Tourneys as my guest, & if you don't like the site, fair enough". Which means they get to spend 4 or 5 hours on the site for free, which is time enough to get a feel for it.

Occasionally, some young gun will say "will you play me at Omaha or Omaha Hi-Lo, I can't get a game there at 50p-£1?" or whatever, & so I set the game up. He tells his mates to come along & watch the slaughter, & suddenly, we have 8 or 10 new eyeballs on our site, & Mr Gun does not realise how helpful he's been.

Today, as an example, I'll be active across as many Poker Forums as I can, as tonight SP have their £220 Monthly Tourney on, so I need to raise awareness. The Tourney is simulcast live on Sky Sports, & will be analysed on TV by a most eminent Analyst. So I send the message "you can be on TV tonight" da de da, & I get that message on various poker forums, as well as all the usual social media platforms - FB, Twitter, etc.

There, you asked, & off I went. And I squeezed in a spam for tonight's big Tourney. George2Loose played it last month, was featured on TV, & very well he did, too.

[GreekStein]

It's my job, & I do it on all poker forums. I often get abuse -  all old people are dumbschmucks who don't understand poker, of course - but the default setting is that I'm reasonably well-received, because I reply honestly, & with tact, care, humility, civility, self-deprecation, &, I hope, a little humour. You'd be surprised how less toxic most poker forums are compared to blonde, which has been horribly impacted by a handful of gob shiites & trolls.

Maybe the section of 2+2 you post on doesn't have many but half of 2+2 is trolls, MANY more than blonde.

[TheChipPrince]

Tikay, how is Sky Poker doing now?  You mention the 'decline of online poker' quite often, just wondering how Sky is fairing.

[MereNovice]

Can you give us an update on the latest news on the renowned actor "Tony Kendall", please?
I'm aware that one month today (i.e. 28/11/2010) will be the first anniversary of his death.
Will your "Google alerts" be going into overdrive?

[tikay]

Tikay, how is Sky Poker doing now?  You mention the 'decline of online poker' quite often, just wondering how Sky is fairing.

Lol, you could not make that up! You see, this is how it works. Answer a question "just so", & it produces other questions, & so it goes.....Byron had asked a question on 2+2, I answered it, genuinely, I teased it further here as a regular Diary Update, & off we jolly well go.

So, being as you asked, yes, I do mention the current decline of Online Poker a lot. Or more correctly, the decline of most regular sites,  most especially, the networks, who are being squeezed out as margins compress. google Alerts will flag up reports for all Online Gaming Sites, & I get them all, & one after the other, & they are all coming in with depressing revenues from Online Poker. Party reported sparkling numbers last week - except for Poker. Ditto Wm Hill, i-Poker, Laddies, da de da. Even 'Stars & Tilt have suffered double digit y-o-y traffic declines in 2010. (Party said "PartyGaming announced that group revenue had risen from €78.3m in Q3 2009 to €85.3m in Q3 2010, with growth in all verticals except poker. Poker revenues fell a further 5%".)

Sky Poker? Well it's a young site, yet to reach maturity, & at the lower end in terms of size, so results must be viewed in that context.  But even allowing for all that, the figures are breathtaking, with phenomonal y-o-y traffic & revenue increases. Our Forecast for 10/11 is xty% ahead of last year's actual, & we are absolutely murdering that Forecast, so work that out! With 1 day remaining of the current "poker week" (which is Friday-Thursday incl) we have achieved 109% of the week's Forecast. So today is all bonus, a freeroll if you like.

And all that has been achieved on a Flash Client. So heaven knows what will happen when the DC is fully released. It's currently on soft launch, which will roll out over the next 10 days, then we have to spend a whole bunch of ££££'s promoting it, & off we go again. A very exciting time, to be honest. I've been part of it since 6 months prior to it opening, almost from "the clean sheet of paper" & watching it grow, with all the hiccups along the way, has been immensely satisfying. Now we have TSP, too, which I think will be of enormous help in profile raising. All good.

Oh, & thanks for the opening. I mean, question. Perfect!