New Forums, New Blogs, New Network

We have the new network in a ready-to-launch status. Here's what's going on...

Blogs

- http://www.sculu.com" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow is the new parent website, and will be used for all club sites (forums) to write blogs.
- Blogs will be categorized by team, and each team category will feed into the forum as featured articles
- Writers covering a game (ie Blazers vs Lakers) will be syndycated to both clublakers.com and clubblazers.com
- Feeds are already being collected as backup articles for sites that don't write their own blogs
- There is some final work to be done on sculu.com, but blog writers can begin today: http://www.sculu.com/write/" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow

Forums

- http://www.clubblazers.com" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow is the model forum, and will be replicated (starting tomorrow) for each of 100 club domains.
- We will have ONE forum build, so I can spend time growing members and working with admins instead of hassling with security on 100 different sites.
- Each site will be able to modify graphics, and admins will collectively determine revisions required to the network
- The admin forum will return (maybe in a few hours)
- Each forum will feed latest discussion topics into http://www.sculu.com" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow blogs to attract additional traffic

Network

- I have purchased many improved domains, such as http://www.clubdodgers.com" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow and http://www.clubcowboys.com" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow (without the hyphens).
- Old forums will be converted into the new forums without losing posts or members
- OpenID is implemented on the new forums, so a membername can be created once and used on all forums (simple registration required on each first visit)
- We are running our own ad network, so admins can submit ads for their club (forums) to broadcast across the entire network.

Clublakers.com will remain unchanged until we are done rolling out all 100 forums. At that time, if you wish, we can adopt the new network build.

...and all of this means we are ready for new forum admins. If you are ready to admin a team site that is not called "clublakers.com" , tell me about it at clublakers@gmail.com

Out.

CL

ps - I still hate the Celtics, and I like it that way.

More progress...

The new Admin Forum is up: http://skybox.sculu.com

If you happen to be a current admin, please add your account there so I don't have to go hunt you down. I'll get more content in there next week -- and particularly after we roll out all of the forums.

If you are NOT and admin today and desire your own site, the list of sites are in the footer of skybox.sculu.com. If you click a link and don't find a live site (or just redirect back to the Skybox, then it is available. You can apply for an admin position here.

ANYONE can start writing blogs for the network today as well. Syndication will follow shortly (perhaps another day of testing...).

sent registration request..

does that mean ClubDodgers is getting a makeover?


when does this take place?

interesting changes going on sounds fun

DarthRekal wrote:sent registration request..

does that mean ClubDodgers is getting a makeover?


when does this take place?

It sure is... I'm hoping that we can start rolling out new sites this weekend. In fact, I woke up thinking about your conversion process -- I might migrate your front page articles into sculu.com asap.

clublakers I went over to the Club Blazers site since you said that will be used as a model, and I am curious to know if there will be a front page at all? Or will it just be the forums and all the articles written will be on sculu.com?

Snake Eyes, correct, the front page will be a mashup of the forum and latest blog posts. If you go back to clubblazers.com today you'll see the blogs being imported that were written in the "Portland Trailblazers" category on sculu.com.

Once the Jazz site is launched, that first article Jan 31st vs Utah Jazz-Game Preview will be published on both the Blazers and Jazz forums.

There are 3 reasons we did this...

1) Most sports sites rarely update their front page, and it makes the site look stale to new visitors (example)
2) Many active forum users claim they never visit the front page of active sites
3) Managing 94 different blogging tools absorb too much time for security and maintenance - this permits me to be more active in getting traffic to all new forums

Sculu's primary purpose is to drive new traffic into each team forum. There is more work to be done on sculu.com to complete that process. Until we complete the category-specific promotions, be sure to promote your forum within your blog post.