blonde Live Updates - your opinions needed please.

[TightEnd]

I'll find a non-monetary solution guys, apologies for the confusion

[Djinn]

Wow, this is all interesting stuff.  I have sort of semi-retired from the updating business, but I know it pretty well from the inside, as well as being aware of the problems faced by a site providing free stuff to anyone who wants to look at it.  I am not a businessman and would be frankly out of my depth trying to comment on ways of managing or raising funds, so I'll just comment on it from an updater's perspective. 

1)  You can't run an interactive service with one person.  Period.  We'll be just like everyone else, posting once an hour, if we cut the staff.

2)  Half of the people seem to want more general info, introductions of 'unknowns' and chip counts, while half seem to only enjoy hearing about people they already know.  Focus too much on the former, and you lose the interaction and some of the fun - focus too much on the latter and blonde gets smaller and cliquey-er.  I think a bit of both has to be the ideal.  Most times we get chatting to a chip leader/crazy player/someone in a funny hoody, they kind of get absorbed into our regular updates whenever they surface and they (the updates) should just get better and fuller over time because of this.  When I started reporting I knew the Hendon Mob and Tikay, and that was it.  Now I can report hands and stories on literally hundreds of players whom I recognise by sight.

3)  If it is not financially viable to cover the full EPT schedule, so be it.  I do think that getting out and about covering the best and biggest in the tourney world is a goal for a site that purports to be the best at live updates, and 'unknowns' or not on a final table, they're playing the big boys for big money and people interested in poker for its own sake rather than just following two or three mates surely see the value in our being there as it happens.  It's a global community, the poker world, and if it were financially viable, I think a local £500 Main Event isn't as purely newsworthy as an €8k megatourney with 500 (mainly) good players in it.  I may have the wrong end of the stick as to what the blonde updates are for, though, but that was always my goal - to report on Big Things Happening in the World of Poker as well as Big Things Happening in our Local Poker Environment.

4)  Scrap the WSOP and the WPT - fine by me.

5)  Don't restrict the updates for Guests - forcing people to become part of a community they don't live in isn't the answer for the card room.  It will just decrease numbers of viewers, which don't seem to affect the cardroom much either way, according to what has been said here.

6)  Er... that's it.

[danafish]

Obviously I don't have much idea about how any of this translates into cardroom revenue in practice, but it seems to me that excellent opportunities to lure people into the blonde cardroom are being missed. Very often when I'm updating, people will ask me who I'm working for and whether we have a cardroom, and then get very excited when I mutter something about 30% rakeback. As it is, I then further mutter something about looking at the website and point to the logo on my shirt, but I think if in these situations I could hand them some promotional materials - a sign-up CD or even some kind of flyer - then the updates might have more of a positive effect on sign-ups for the cardroom.

Many people on here are saying that they prefer the UK updates to the European ones, but in my experience we've almost always had better numbers and better interaction on the European threads than on the UK-based ones. Even when we've had an EPT and a GUKPT/Gala update running simultaneously, the European event always seems to win on numbers. Which seems to suggest to me that the EPTs are worth keeping, as far as money will allow, and if we can find some way to better self-promote at these events and on the update threads themselves, then they might end up paying for themselves. Even if they still have to be subsidised a little, I think that covering major European tournaments (so long as we get access! Goddamn them Holland Casino rules) is good for blonde's reputation - it's good to be visible, and it's good to be providing what is after all a more-or-less unique service with the interactive nature of the updates.

I agree with Jen and Snoopy that solo updating is a bad idea - the quality will drop, updaters may die, and I don't think it's worth covering large events at all if we can't do it properly. Please let's not do that. I suspect there'll be some changes to the UK tournament schedule next year - what with the GUKPT dominating and poor numbers for a lot of the festivals (and indeed poor viewer numbers for the updates - see Walsall and Luton just recently) so there will be fewer UK events for us to cover anyway. Obviously blonde should not bankrupt itself trying to cover every EPT if funds just don't allow it, but I think to drop them completely, particularly when there will most likely be fewer UK events to cover, would be a mistake.

Oh, and I don't think blonde should pay for Snoops and Floppy to go to the Bahamas any more. 

[kinboshi]

Obviously I don't have much idea about how any of this translates into cardroom revenue in practice, but it seems to me that excellent opportunities to lure people into the blonde cardroom are being missed. Very often when I'm updating, people will ask me who I'm working for and whether we have a cardroom, and then get very excited when I mutter something about 30% rakeback. As it is, I then further mutter something about looking at the website and point to the logo on my shirt, but I think if in these situations I could hand them some promotional materials - a sign-up CD or even some kind of flyer - then the updates might have more of a positive effect on sign-ups for the cardroom.

Business cards is the easiest idea - easier to carry around, and more likely to be held on to by the recipient, who can pop it in their pocket/wallet/handbag/man-bag rather than put it down and forget about it.

Oh - it's not rakeback, it's a loyalty bonus (no, I don't know the difference either).

[TightEnd]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

[Djinn]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

Snoopy and Dana profess to have no knowledge of CDs, and I don't have any either.  Our collective thoughts:  Ship us a stack of them and we'll start handing them out (but we're not allowed to leave them in tempting little piles anywhere these days for obvious reasons, sadly, except our own tournaments - we should definitely do that in February).  I hand out cards to whomever shows the slightest bit of interest.

Oh, and I never got a hoody

[TightEnd]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

Snoopy and Dana profess to have no knowledge of CDs, and I don't have any either.  Our collective thoughts:  Ship us a stack of them and we'll start handing them out (but we're not allowed to leave them in tempting little piles anywhere these days for obvious reasons, sadly, except our own tournaments - we should definitely do that in February).  I hand out cards to whomever shows the slightest bit of interest.

Oh, and I never got a hoody

  off for a stiff drink

[bobby1]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

The big problem there would be that the sponsors of the events would surely come down like a tonne of bricks if  you started freely handing out rakeback cards and cd's, can you imagine the Blue Square tour allowing you to do that for instance?

[TightEnd]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

The big problem there would be that the sponsors of the events would surley come donwn like a tonne of bricks if  you started freely handing out rakeback cards and cd's, can you imagine the Blue Square tour allowing you to do that for instance?

we've never done so at Grosvenors, nor would we try to take the piss ..but it doesn't stop every other card-room and poker site dishing out flyers/cards/cds at every event I attend no matter the sponsor

[snoopy1239]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

Snoopy and Dana profess to have no knowledge of CDs, and I don't have any either.  Our collective thoughts:  Ship us a stack of them and we'll start handing them out (but we're not allowed to leave them in tempting little piles anywhere these days for obvious reasons, sadly, except our own tournaments - we should definitely do that in February).  I hand out cards to whomever shows the slightest bit of interest.

Oh, and I never got a hoody

  off for a stiff drink

CDs? If they exist, I seem to have been on vaction when they were being handed out to updaters.

I am still awaiting blonde clothing too. 

[TightEnd]

onto my second stiff drinkl

[bobby1]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

The big problem there would be that the sponsors of the events would surley come donwn like a tonne of bricks if  you started freely handing out rakeback cards and cd's, can you imagine the Blue Square tour allowing you to do that for instance?

we've never done so at Grosvenors, nor would we try to take the piss ..but it doesn't stop every other card-room and poker site dishing out flyers/cards/cds at every event I attend no matter the sponsor

just to note, i used Blue Square purely as an example but your situation seems slightly different to the general poker reps trying to get business at the bigger events as I assume you need clearance to attend the events and provide updates you have a lot to lose by upsetting the sponsors.

[KarmaDope]

cds and cards have been available for a year to hand out at updates but, to be frank, the will to do so has been half hearted at best.

and we aren't dropping all epts.

The big problem there would be that the sponsors of the events would surley come donwn like a tonne of bricks if  you started freely handing out rakeback cards and cd's, can you imagine the Blue Square tour allowing you to do that for instance?

we've never done so at Grosvenors, nor would we try to take the piss ..but it doesn't stop every other card-room and poker site dishing out flyers/cards/cds at every event I attend no matter the sponsor

This is true. Of the 4-5 sites I see updating the GUKPT, one is BSQ, and at least 2 other sites freely drop cards/flyers all over the place during the 4 days. Maybe there's an idea here...get exclusive permission to advertise/drop during GUKPT tourneys?

[Ironside]

i had a few of kev's cards and got rid of the lot

not sure if we got any sign ups from them

i have been asked for a card many time and/or cd

i would love to give these out

even if its to some passing mad taxi driver

but have been told this aint the best way to advertise

[kinboshi]

onto my second stiff drinkl

Sounds like you've already had a few, or maybe Ironside is posting on your behalf.