Hi Smashers,
As you may know, we've mentioned more than a few times that we were looking for ways to take Smash forward and to try and draw new members in. Well, the Mod Mob have not been idle, we have been considering how to do this. And the answer always came back to the same thing: Some sort of portal site or page, much like Smash Wrestling was to SmashLife, to catch attention and guide people in here.
The problem was always what form it would take, where we'd get the content from and how it would actually be capable of drawing people in. Building something without even knowing what we were doing was out. But gradually the idea of something a number of people could contribute columns to came up.
The developer in me clicked in - I started seeing images of diferent coloured sections down the right hand side of a page, highlighting contributions on certain subjects, searchable by author. Main menu to all sections down the left. Big link to the forum on all pages. Ideas like regular sports, TV, film and event reviews. Fully searchable. All database driven for archives, page templates, and because I could build bloody databases.
Sounded good.
But of course that needed one big thing: regular contributions. And how many games on Smash have shown we can't guarantee that? So back to the drawing board?
No.
The idea bubbled under for a while until I was surfing online a couple of weeks ago. At one point I found out about Steven Page leaving the Barenaked Ladies, and found myself on their Blog pages. And his Blog page. And I saw how rarely some parts of theirs were updated and how often others were - some contributed regularly, others when the mood hit them. And it worked. Surprisingly simple...
I explored quite a few online blog communities and I've found the perfect one in blogspot - it allows multiple contributors, you can host your blog on their server with or withour a URL (just like smashlives)...and it's free to set up.
So welcome, divas and gentlemen, to SMASHBLOGS...A chance for a number of our regular posters to speak a bit more about what they want, more column inches than they generally get in a forum post, but with a link to "meet the bloggers" on Smashlives. Not everyone will be able to blog on there, because that would just be a mess - it needs to be focussed - but there's an ability for everyone else to add comments to any of the blog entries.
We picked a list of guys who are intelligent, literate and who have a bit of variety in interests and tone, and where generally we've seen something to show that they'd be good in the medium. We've asked them, some are in, some we're waiting on, and there's a couple who may come onboard a little way down the line. We're looking at seeing how it goes with this line-up, however we'll be looking at it and discussing possible additions if we decide it works or needs a shake-up.
I'd have liked to have a couple more in place by today, but there's a big reaso for launching tonight.
As an initial line-up, we're going the following guys:
The Mod Mob (Me, Sweatsock and BoD)
Bradshaw101
Inno
The url, as it stands, is http://smashblogs.blogspot.com/. That's not a permanent one, but I can't afford to buy that one until we see if it works.
The big reason - assuming he sees my response confirming that we'll go ahead with it, tonight will see the official launch with BRADSHAW101'S LIVE MANIA BLOG!
Bear in mind that any rules in here will carry out there, and that we want to get people in here to inject fresh blood into Smash, so to both Bloggers and commenters, I say please keep real bitching here in the asylum, and consider the Blog as "selling" the forum.
Welcome to Smash: The Brand. Smash: The Evolution...SmashBlogs
As you may know, we've mentioned more than a few times that we were looking for ways to take Smash forward and to try and draw new members in. Well, the Mod Mob have not been idle, we have been considering how to do this. And the answer always came back to the same thing: Some sort of portal site or page, much like Smash Wrestling was to SmashLife, to catch attention and guide people in here.
The problem was always what form it would take, where we'd get the content from and how it would actually be capable of drawing people in. Building something without even knowing what we were doing was out. But gradually the idea of something a number of people could contribute columns to came up.
The developer in me clicked in - I started seeing images of diferent coloured sections down the right hand side of a page, highlighting contributions on certain subjects, searchable by author. Main menu to all sections down the left. Big link to the forum on all pages. Ideas like regular sports, TV, film and event reviews. Fully searchable. All database driven for archives, page templates, and because I could build bloody databases.
Sounded good.
But of course that needed one big thing: regular contributions. And how many games on Smash have shown we can't guarantee that? So back to the drawing board?
No.
The idea bubbled under for a while until I was surfing online a couple of weeks ago. At one point I found out about Steven Page leaving the Barenaked Ladies, and found myself on their Blog pages. And his Blog page. And I saw how rarely some parts of theirs were updated and how often others were - some contributed regularly, others when the mood hit them. And it worked. Surprisingly simple...
I explored quite a few online blog communities and I've found the perfect one in blogspot - it allows multiple contributors, you can host your blog on their server with or withour a URL (just like smashlives)...and it's free to set up.
So welcome, divas and gentlemen, to SMASHBLOGS...A chance for a number of our regular posters to speak a bit more about what they want, more column inches than they generally get in a forum post, but with a link to "meet the bloggers" on Smashlives. Not everyone will be able to blog on there, because that would just be a mess - it needs to be focussed - but there's an ability for everyone else to add comments to any of the blog entries.
We picked a list of guys who are intelligent, literate and who have a bit of variety in interests and tone, and where generally we've seen something to show that they'd be good in the medium. We've asked them, some are in, some we're waiting on, and there's a couple who may come onboard a little way down the line. We're looking at seeing how it goes with this line-up, however we'll be looking at it and discussing possible additions if we decide it works or needs a shake-up.
I'd have liked to have a couple more in place by today, but there's a big reaso for launching tonight.
As an initial line-up, we're going the following guys:
The Mod Mob (Me, Sweatsock and BoD)
Bradshaw101
Inno
The url, as it stands, is http://smashblogs.blogspot.com/. That's not a permanent one, but I can't afford to buy that one until we see if it works.
The big reason - assuming he sees my response confirming that we'll go ahead with it, tonight will see the official launch with BRADSHAW101'S LIVE MANIA BLOG!
Bear in mind that any rules in here will carry out there, and that we want to get people in here to inject fresh blood into Smash, so to both Bloggers and commenters, I say please keep real bitching here in the asylum, and consider the Blog as "selling" the forum.
Welcome to Smash: The Brand. Smash: The Evolution...SmashBlogs
Last edited by Garibaldi on Sun Apr 05, 2009 1:06 pm; edited 1 time in total