Crimson Red Sports

I like his comment about Chizik. And half of the SEC coaches in 2008 are gone?

http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20110422/ARTICLES/110429830/1136/GATORS01?p=1&tc=pg

Sarcastic wit, you just can't get enough of it.  :kickme:

The last sentence, however, is dead on.

I just noticed something about their site

the still have this http://forum.gatorsports.com/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=a45cb37de8fcc615def6a1b56058d13f

whats up with that ?

Takes you to their forum where a post reads "Oh those funny Bammers"

and they didn't sell out

maybe the NYT has seprate rules for the gators

(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSb-H2pFKSWJd5WXI0gaHeoG4g-ytsUIFwO5pXIL4dbJgEkdQ3A1g&t=1)

Nice read, thanks

Les Miles is to high, I think he is drunk during most games.  Dan Mullen is not high enough, anyone who makes Miss St. relevant is a good coach.

Saban's ego, when you are the greastest coach on the planet, haters gonna hate.

Let's hope they keep on hatin' NJ.

Well I have to agree and until we can beat Miles 2 years in a row to me he stands at #2. RTR!

Pat Dooley ? is she Barbra's sister ?

LOL, I just don't know the answer but I will watch for it. RTR!

yeah ... I think it's her 
(http://dooley.blogs.gatorsports.com/files/2009/05/dooley150x1502.jpg)

I have a theory on this.  No proof, just a theory.  I don't think TS is making the ton of money from the pay site like everybody thinks.  They had about 30,000 members signed up on the free site on that last day.  Most of them never posted, but many of them visited the site to read it.  And who knows how many people came by to read but never signed up.  Combine the insane amount of traffic they had along with the fact that they had ads plastered in every single corner of the page, and I will bet they probably made as much money on the free site as they do on the subscription site.  I don't know which site makes more, but the point here is that they also made lots of money on the free version.  They may have ads on the pay site, I don't know.  I have never been there.  But I can guarantee you that the traffic is a drop in the bucket compared to the free site, so if they do have ads they aren't making any where near as much money on them.  I would be very surprised if the much smaller ad revenue combined with the subscription fees is enough to equal the ad revenue they received on the pay site.  I really don't think the primary motivation here was the money.

So, if it wasn't the money, then what was it?  I think a big factor was all of the trouble makers they had to deal with constantly.  Random guys showing up and posting porn for example.  Constant flame wars.  Soft porn for avatars.  TideSports was owned by the Tuscaloosa News, which is of course is a business.  And the Tuscaloosa News is owned by the New York Times.  As a business, they probably did not like the "image" that was being portrayed in "their" forum.  It wasn't professional and just didn't look good at all.

Now private sites like shaggy bevo, tiger droppings, or Woolly Al, they don't care about protecting their business interests.  The site isn't attached to a business.  They are going for no censorship and freedom of expression, not for publicity and traffic for their business.

So my theory is that they put up the pay wall out of frustration to drive away the trouble makers once and for all.  Nobody is going to pay many, then go in there to cause trouble and get banned.

I don't follow the gatorsports forum, so I have no idea what it is like.  But TS was horrible the last couple of years from a business image standpoint.  My guess is that gatorsports probably has some trouble makers from time to time, but not as bad as TS there at the end.  If it ever gets that bad look for them to switch over to a pay site as well.

It probably wasn't the only factor, but I would just about guarantee you it was a contributing factor.  And I would be very surprised if they make a lot more many than the free site did back when it was rocking, if not less.

One for that SC. Great job. I know the last 1 to 1 1/2 yrs. I only went to TS for the recruiting posts from Tidal Surge and those that kept it going clean program. If I glanced at the other posts I checked it out before I was even close to posting. RTR!

Good insight, Super, about charging to eliminate an out-of-control site. Never thought about that factor.

I've mentioned before that when The Times of London started charging, they lost 78 percent of their readers. TS must be a shadow of its former self.

I'll bet the same thing happened to TS, but at least now they don't have to worry about pron guy.

Well I joined Tide Sports Extra at it's inception. I really enjoyed the troll free site. It never took off like they wanted it to - lots of people don't want to pay for stuff they can search across the internet for. I do in  fact miss some of the folks from TSE. It was completely different. I am a member of the Rivals group because they grandfathered TSE folks into it. I think we will also be offered the next year at TSE prices (rather than $99 Rivals price).
I am enjoying our site here (sorry Coach , I know it's your site but I feel like it's OURS!) LOL  Wouldn't trade my membership for TSE or TS.  We may not have as much news at the moment, but I'm positive that by football season, this WILL be THE SITE on the web! :)

It is OUR site Terrie.  I am just the poor slob that has to deal with all of the computer programming.  :(

:D

so Coach ? next time we get a troll can I work the BAN HAMMER ?   ;D

Deciding to erect a pay wall probably has more to do with revenue than anything else.  I work for a media company, and I can tell you that digital ads do not produce anything near what print ads do for a newspaper - believe me, it's not even close.. 

The key problem is giving away content for free over the web.  As web traffic increases on a  free site, the paid print circ goes down, thereby decreasing circulation revenue - which also negstively affects print ad revenue as well.. The amount of money gained by ads on a free site does not offset the loss. 

Thr model of a free site producing ad revenue has failed.  That is why you will see more and more newspapers who have websites erecting paywalls - simply a means to generate cirulation revenue.

The Tuscaloosa News is simply trying to make money of its most desired content - which is Bama football.



 

The free forum does not compete with the paper, IMO.  I totally agree that giving away the print articles for free is a mistake.  To be honest I don't see how many newspapers are going to survive the move to online media.  They just have not come up with the right business plan yet.

The newspaper views the forum as content - some people come to their site because of the discussion boards just like some come for the articles - again, its simply a way to monetize their site, which has harmed their circulation revenue.

What is interesting is that newspaper readership (if you include the pageviews and unique vistors to their sites) has gone up over the past ten years. The industry is trying to figure out a buisness model to monetize this readership.

What you are seeing and experiencing with Tide Sports is probably going to increase (look at what the Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp has been doing for two or three years).

The industry can survive due to the potential huge expense savings with shutting down the press and laying off all the workers associated with that aspect of the operation (not to mention huge savings in paper and ink costs, etc...) plus the fact their content is still desirable.

We're just right at the beginning of the transition to an all digital "newspaper" industry



 

Good points.  It should be interesting to see how this evolves.