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Post by Usapang Football on Jul 13, 2012 12:07:57 GMT 8
Hey group, Been a while. How has everyone been? Anyways, I return to the forum with a major announcement for everyone. Let's hope it makes you as excited as I am. This is possibly long delayed, but I want to remind each and every member about the much-anticipated upgrade of the forum that was brought up last year. Basically, the whole concept is to make Usapang Football a more legitimate brand. The bulk of the plan consists of: - Renaming the website to www.UsapangFootball.com
- Getting the freshest Philippine football news out there - FIRST HAND
- and many more we can't disclose at the moment.
We hope to get everything on the checklist complete by the time the Azkals lift the Suzuki Cup on December. So you're probably asking, where do you come in? We need your ideas, your opinions and your say. Usapang Football is YOUR home as well anyways, what do you want to see added into it? What do you think will make the community the premier Philippine football portal online? I want this thread to be a discussion for everyone to voice out their opinions, what should and should not be done and how we can do it. It would also be a MASSIVE help if we have people out here who are good with graphics and can work with resident artist royG as well as computer programming experts who can help us get the domain running. So just drop a comment below and let me know what you think. Cheers.
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Post by Wiking on Jul 13, 2012 12:15:34 GMT 8
Wow nice one! Here's my suggestion. I've spoken to some ladies who are members here and quite a few have commented on the "dark" look of the site. Maybe we need to lighten up or have a more welcoming look(and color) to the site? After all fan girls are a big part of the Azkals followers. Can we get a tie up with PFF(wishful thinking) or maybe Ace Bright, it'd be great as we can announce relevant and exciting new info about the Azkals without trolling for it
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Post by cjeagle on Jul 13, 2012 12:26:04 GMT 8
I also suggest removing the tag "Where The Haters are Silenced". It projects a very negative and unwelcome message when you first open the site. I think it would intimidate any potential new member and will probably result in them having second thoughts about joining.
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Post by stellarboy on Jul 13, 2012 12:53:30 GMT 8
Welcome back, Admin Louie! As the second-in-command, I would like everyone to participate in contributing to what would be a much-anticipated major upgrade of Usapang Football later in the year. We in Usapang Football would like to establish itself as one of the premium sources of Pinoy football discussion, news and information. In this light, I, as the Forum Director, and as a self-confessed "geek," have well-contributed to the site by opening-up its social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, and developing the Usapang Football mobile application. These developments have been well-received by many of its followers, including those who are involved in this online forum. But things are still missing. We need to attract more visitors to this forum and help them be encouraged to help in the various topics being contributed here. Therefore, new strategies have to be developed such as the plans being laid out by our Admin here. I certainly agree that our site should change its domain name for it to attract more visitors and help establish the brand. Also, making our establishment as a source of Philippine football news and information will also be key to improve our coverage. In this way, our presence will more be felt by our followers. Admin Louie, royG and yours truly will work together in the major developments of the site. As an emerging software developer, I will certainly be willing to administer the web hosting and to contribute from the technical point of view of this online forum, including the databases, back-end applications and plugins, the social media pages, and the mobile application. I will certainly call for those who are skilled and willing to take part with us. Plus, I have proposed more long-term plans that will be laid our in the coming months. If you want to send more suggestions that you might not want it to be disclosed further in this board, you can send PMs to both Admin Louie and me. Cheers to all! Para sa Pilipinas Futbol!
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Post by galiwocky on Jul 14, 2012 0:41:43 GMT 8
Admin Louie, royG and yours truly will work together in the major developments of the site. As an emerging software developer, I will certainly be willing to administer the web hosting and to contribute from the technical point of view of this online forum, including the databases, back-end applications and plugins, the social media pages, and the mobile application. I will certainly call for those who are skilled and willing to take part with us. I'm an Information Technology student and still needs to learn a lot about my craft. But I'm willing to take part in case you'll be needing my limited skills, as it will be an opportunity for me too learn stuff.
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Post by badleftfoot on Jul 14, 2012 1:53:29 GMT 8
I support the ideas from cjeagle and wiking. And go for it stellarboy. An an IT professional myself (I do HR and Payroll systems), experience like this are priceless.
If we are going for our own domain, that will not be "free" anymore. I'd like to buy the the initial stocks now ... :-).
I'd also suggest "football education center" portion. Have links to football books from Amazon, or other bookseller maybe? Or, if anyone is wanting to "sell" a football book he owns? Coaching training oppurtunities, if there's any out there (I am talking here from point of view of US where we, coaches can attend US Youth soccer certified coaching licenses). Just some thoughts, might be full of holes anyway ... :-) Salamat po.
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Post by teddyandtimmysdad on Jul 14, 2012 1:56:10 GMT 8
Suggestion - I know you have a section for Azkals Men and Legends, but I don't think this particular need is being served. I spend a lot of time with my boys, age 12 and 10, and their football buddies. They all at one point or another have said how much they would like to turn their love of the sport into a potential career. However, there is really very little information ANYWHERE about what it takes to be successful at this. As a minimum, it would be great if USAPANG could profile current top UFL or Azkal players, and I don't just mean what are they like today. Really probe down to their youth and explore what they did, how much focus did they have, who was influential in their life, etc from a very young age. This kind of information would be very helpful for young aspiring players who may not really understand what it takes to reach the highest levels of the sport. This would probably require some time from someone to "interview" the players. This may present a problem, but then again, it might be an opportunity / excuse for the site admin/owners to get out and get to know the top players here in the Phils - and thus fulfill that idea of "Getting the freshest Philippine football news out there - FIRST HAND".
Anyway, just a thought.
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Post by Usapang Football on Jul 14, 2012 19:14:16 GMT 8
Hey guys,
Thanks for all the initial updates so far. badleftfoot and galiwocky you guys are definitely welcome to join the team and help out. And yes, we are getting a domain with the aim of making the community profitable in order to aid us in our services that we plan to offer soon. (watch this space)
Do you guys know how to set up the domain? I will need to confer with whoever is an expert with this.
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Post by stellarboy on Jul 14, 2012 22:19:25 GMT 8
Admin Louie, Regarding Wiking's suggestion, I have been receiving from my end via Facebook/Twitter that some of the newbies here don't like the dark look of the site. Although it's looks professional and serious, it somewhat feels off, intimidating and uninviting to look at considering this is a football-related online forum, and feels like this was a forum for a grunge/emo-punk rock band if you remove the header. I wanted to send the complaints to you and royG but I wanted to respect your decision. But honestly, I have to say we have to ditch the all-black layout. We should have softened it up a bit by maybe making the background lighter (light grey is fine) change the typefaces and do a new icon set. That was exactly what I did with the modified skin. Speaking of the modified skin, I supported the stand of cjeagle that we must change our tagline. Although I do like it as a serious football fan, it's plain intimidating for newbies or casual fans. It creates an impression that we are very harsh to our members, whom if they make slight mistakes that we perceive as violating forum policy, we will punish them immediately, in harsh way (which is the reason why many of our regulars like samhain13 & kulaspero15 left the forum). That is why I did a modified header image without the tagline one time, and it did feel inviting somewhat. For badleftfoot's suggestion, you should look into what the bigsoccer website is doing. They dedicate a board for discussing the basics of football, coaching tips, and player management. Plus we could put a dedicated classified ads thread for all things football in the off-topic section, but still keeping forum policy. They can sell football-related literature and football equipment. They can also post coaching job opportunities, football fields in the country that they can rent out, and many others. In relation to teddyandtimmysdad's suggestion, we should now make a dedicated section for player profiles of non-Filipino players currently playing or have played in the UFL like Izzo El-habbib, Yu Hoshide, Jonahan Romero, etc. Like the Profiles section, we could display their player profiles and such. In addition to that, we must dedicate a Profiles sub-board for the women's team players; it seems to be missing. Finally, you might need my assistance for setting up the domain. If there's anything technical you need help with, I am always available. I'll contact you soon.
badleftfoot & galiwocky, Send me a PM on what you know on website administration or developing apps, ASAP. Thank you very much.
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Post by cjeagle on Jul 14, 2012 22:43:45 GMT 8
Also, I suggest as I mentioned before the need to moderate with a light touch. The fact that we are scaring away regular members of this forum, who have had no history of being unruly or abusive, does not speak highly of our methods.
I do agree with following the bigsoccer example. Bigsoccer(or soccerboards when it first started out) began as a small forum for US fans developed by soccer fans which eventually with the help of media networks became the largest soccer media outlet for the US, with players, coaches and industry executives becoming members and communicating with their fans and each other on a regular basis.
Former US Coach Bruce Arena used it to scout potential opponents, as fans searched all over the internet to gather news and videos on America's next opponent and considering a lot of them are coaches and players themselves would make astute observations and analysis both before and after games. And BTW, a lot of the observations were not always very positive of his coaching performance. Unlike here, intelligent criticism of the coach, the manager, USSF officers and MLS executives are allowed and encouraged. They themselves read those opinions, try to learn from it and occassionally in a lot of cases, respond to the comments.
I personally interacted with US soccer players and their parents like Landon Donovan, etc. during the soccerboard days when he was still with the U-17 team and became good friends with the former general manager of the Chicago Fire Peter Wilt who used to frequent the Fire boards. Hopefully our players. coaches and industry executives can do the same.
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Post by Caz on Jul 22, 2012 21:55:29 GMT 8
Getting the ".com" domain is a huge leap forward in itself in getting the forum some at-first-glance legitimacy. Glad it's happening! I'm afraid that there's not much I can offer other than my services as a cartoonist. I'm sorry I couldn't deliver the planned podcast from earlier this year. I'd still be glad to be a part of one but I don't think I can handle managing it by myself right now.
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Post by veryfatchocobo on Jul 23, 2012 14:24:59 GMT 8
Does proboards have a widget for a Most Recently Posted (aka New Posts) box? For example, inside the box, it posts the 5-10 most recent posts made from any of the topics here into that box. It's just a shortcut for us to see posts that were recently posted in an organized way. If you need examples I can give links.
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Post by Caz on Jul 23, 2012 21:34:49 GMT 8
By the way, my site's hosting service has a plan which includes domain name registration. Most hosting services have such plans. The site does generate some income through advertisements from Google Adsense and Project Wonderful. Both are easy to set up. It's good that Usapang Football has stuck its boot into the main social network platforms. It would be great to integrate those into the revamped site somehow.
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Post by cjeagle on Jul 23, 2012 22:10:37 GMT 8
I suggest also that usapang uses a different method of navigating from page to page. Having to input the actual page number is time consuming and inefficient compared to other forums I have frequented in the past.
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Post by kluverbucy on Jul 31, 2012 20:33:31 GMT 8
I suggest also that usapang uses a different method of navigating from page to page. Having to input the actual page number is time consuming and inefficient compared to other forums I have frequented in the past. I Agree hirap din ako kung anong topic yung latest at kung may nagreply sa post mo.
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