FM Fanboys blog, which is penned by the talents of Julius, Game or FM Fan boy on twitter and tumblr what you call the one guy that runs this site all depends on the time of day it is, Melissa at weekends. FM Fanboy has recently come back and with a bang with a very strong attack on the Football Manager community and the lack of diversity entitled “Every Patomine Has to Have a Villian”.
Finding it difficult to leave a comment on the tumblr page (found out because of silly IE at work), what better place is there to spotlight the blog and adding my own thoughts to the topic, than my own blog. I whole hearty agree with what this post is getting at, it is not a new problem and it is not a topic that I have shyd away from myself in the past. The article and his views are summed up well following paragraph:
How does another site dilute the quality of other fansites? – Well I’ll explain. Go visit three fansites, any three you like. All of those fansites offer you the same thing; some average articles, a few uncompleted facepacks, a mega useful team guide of Real Madrid and they all have the same members.
This is correct, few people are actually trying anything new. I have tried, much of my effort has gone into trying to change the thinking of fansites that I interact with on a daily basis, even those who even recognise the problem for themselves but always revert to type of the FM community and never actually doing anything about it. They setup a forum, spam it with the usual rubbish crowd sourcing posts that have already appeared before and thinking that the member numbers and activity are the most important things on the site. This I beg to differ on a measurement of success, it is a bit cliched but “content is king“, produce good content be that good forum posts for discussion, good articles or any given area of Football Manager that you choose to concentrate on. Just look at FM-Britain they have cornered the market for FM tactical advice, something that many FM players and Google searches are looking for. They may not have the most active forums, but it is full of intelligent and engaging discussions on tactical matters which shows by the numbers that have rushed to download the ‘Tactical Thermos 2010′ eBook and the foundations they are laying to make a reasonable amount of cash on the back of it.
So where does FM Pundit fit in to all this?
I hope that you are not judging me too harshly yet as the site has been up and running for only two weeks now. But the whole reason that FM Pundit is here is to try something new, to move an FM community blog forward in terms of what they are capable of. You notice that there is no forums attached to the site, this is because I want the content I produce to be at the centre of the discussion, for it to speak for itself and engage with an audience instead of you being talked at. I hope to corner the market in what is something that has lacked in previous years on the FM community, but discussion about aspects of the game, help and commentary on the game I have so much love for that I choose to dedicate a vast amount of time to.
I don’t just expect the community to come to me, but I try make a conscious effort to go where the fans are, if that is Facebook and Twitter you will find me there and in time I will look to appear on your home corner too, instead of trying to get everyone to my party. Seeing me around everyone’s forum shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing, I am a big advocator for sites to come together even if it is just an attempt to bring the conversation to one place. But while there is forums out there I hope you will see in my activities getting involved with topics that are unique and there to be discussed instead of telling you what my last win was.
FM Fanboy is right when he says that the community is killing itself, it is made up of a small percentage of the game players and with a market of over a million plus people, if you want a successful and diverse site then shouldn’t you be looking to bring new consumers to view your product? Instead they saturate the small market within. Getting out there to where these people are is key, if they are on Twitter engage with the their, if they are on Facebook gather questions and answer with them, share you knowledge and information and trust will be gained. They maybe on another forum or blog entirely, but reaching that audience is key if you want to keep your community alive here. This is part of the big plan of Football Manager Pundit, it’s early days at the moment and once I have been able to concentrate on getting quality blogs stocked onto the site, I will be making moves to promote the site in various ways (not just random advertisements shouting come here!) to reach that potential market. Guest blog posts at unconventional blogs, use of more social media and just basically getting to more home corners.
FM Pundit does not differ itself on features or competitions or even trying to gather as many members as possible, I infact hope to actually produce good content enjoy doing so and interact with the community within as well as those that have yet to venture the Football Manager Community walls, engaging in a social web that we live in as well as talking about the game I love. This is what I feel sets FM Pundit apart from the other sites around and hope to continue to be at the forefront of what a blogging site in the Football Manager community can be.
Just look around you site owners, you are being left behind in what is the new web where we have more power to market ourselves then ever, more potential in our hands then we ever had and plenty of people willing to share their knowledge. Look at over blogs, communities and sites in other areas and you will hopefully see where the FM community has been going wrong over the past few years, in its lack of forward thinking, over zealous and lack of innovation.
FM Fanboys can be found on Twitter @FMfanboys and is promising to blow our minds with his latest projects, so please do follow and keep up with his latest goings. Join the debate on Twitter @FMpundit or leave a comment below or at FMfanboys. What do you want to see from FM Pundit and most importantly the Football Manager gaming community?
I had this discussion at FM-Britain.co.uk a couple of days ago and Millie (FM-B staffer) was saying that he felt the community could handle more sites if people we’re doing something about reaching a bigger audience.
My reply was, if you’re actively recruiting outside the Scene, then great. However those people are being introduced into a vicious circle. Whilst at Los Wonderkids.com we had a Facebook page which brought a guy called littlefoxo- he’s now at another site. He left, most likely due to incessant advertisements and paoching by this other site.
So ultimately, social networking is the way forward to growing the community, but if the cycle of inter-site poaching isn’t stopped, the content will be as generic and the members accross every site the same.
What is the point in going accross a universe of internet sites to read the same generic site and opinion you get at one? You only ever go to see if there is anything a little bit different at another site, but you’re so often disappointed to see it’s the same material as you’ve seen at the other sites you’ve visited that day.
The only way to grow the Scene and expand on what we have is to either merge some of these more generic sites or to come up with a way to cultivate a new audience and new material in a fresh way – the latter is something I’m working on right now. We’ll see if the opinion is backed with fact soon enough
Good article, L.
.-= Awesome´s last blog ..fmfanboys: RT @fmpundit FM Fanboys – Every Pantomine Has to Have Villian : Football Manager Pundit http://bit.ly/6uTgGX =-.
Not just social networking though, I think that there a number of avenues that we could go down to promote our sites, guest blogs at football and game sites across the web. No one has fully embraced the likes of YouTube just yet.
Dont complain about the fragmentation of the scene though, obviously these sites that are taking a slice of pie bring value to their consumers (members), instead we should be concentrating on adding value and actually growing the pie to give us all more people to market too, selling or not this is what any blog wants because at the end of the day we want people to stick around and interact with us, thats what a websites do.
We should concentrate on making our own ventures as good as they can do and all we are saying is that in a weakened market there is plenty of room for us to make it better and more efficient and in affect putting ourselves in a better position overall.
Do they really bring anything to the table? I don’t think they do in truth.
The same things happen at every site. All that is happening is that people are spreading themselves around more.
There is no benefit to that as you rarely see a new audience. What you have is people moving from site to site, in order to talk about the same thing.
You find if people stay in one place, you get more community and that brings more discussion and more atmosphere to the place. You can then use that to grow and make a better site.
At the moment, with so many sites, all you’re seeing is the same thing everywhere, with the only difference being that it’s someone different doing the same thing.
As I said previously, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and so on, will get you a more varied audience at your site. The problem is, that once they come, you’re inducting them into “The Scene” and that’s where people end up flaking and moving around sites. That then repeats this circle of people posting drivil over the span of 3 or 4 sites, instead of posting on one and maybe getting some good information out of it and putting some back in.
The Scene is lacking good content purely because it’s the same topics. People want it all, that’s the failing point. Because they want to do everything, they have to start at the bottom and work their way up. If everyone is doing this, who is at the top? No-one.
This is why there is little quality, big sites have rested on their laurels and little sites have caught up, new sites have srpouted and they’re all pretty much on the same level now – average.
.-= Wonderkid/Awesome´s last blog ..fmfanboys: @Qzinho you know you have a problem when you’re stock piling that amount of pornography. =-.
*RE “people want it all..”
I mean, people at sites. Site owners want it all..
.-= Wonderkid/Awesome´s last blog ..fmfanboys: @Qzinho you know you have a problem when you’re stock piling that amount of pornography. =-.
Thanks for suggesting a great product we can merchandise at FM-B… the Tactical Thermos!
.-= Jordan Cooper´s last blog ..Why making things easy does not really make things easier =-.
Just to make something clear.. Littlefoxo was not poached by any website. He stopped posting on Loswonderkids a couple of months ago due to various reasons
Irrelevant. He joined via social media and fell into the circle of the Scene. He was once only at LW posting, then he is at TAS and LW posting – as I said, the recruitment of people into FM sites will only be beneficial if they stay at the site they’re recruited to.
If not, they’re diluting the quality of their posts by spreading themselves over various other sites. That then takes away from the point of recruiting them in the first place.
ATM you recruiting on Twitter for example is great, but it won’t make any odds if other sites are exploiting your userbase. You’re losing the quality you’re bringing in and even if they do stay, they’re not fully there. So you get less quality from them than you would if they didn’t visit other sites.
To sumise, the Scene is killing itself. Even with a new influx of people, you’re not solving the real issue and that is the amount of sites in existance who are the same, who are recruiting the same people and talking about the same thing. It’s a massive waste of time and potential.
It’s no coincidence that LW got better after merging with GFM, VFM and FMP. Think about it – merging and pooling your resources into one place instead of four, is going to multiply your productivity fourfold. That’s what happened, now look at how active the site is.
Just so people realize, having been on the scene for far longer than most people posting about this debate, I know the scene is no different to how it ever was.
5, even 6 years ago there was such arguments, poaching, name calling and things happening between ‘rival’ sites.
The only difference today is, people are actually debating it and saying the scene is killing itself. I’ll tell you something; the only reason the scene has such a negative cloud hanging over it is because of people like Wonderkid/Awesome who are actively trying to destroy the healthy competition between sites with they’re nazi views.
1. Rating your own point of view is extremely sad and shows that you’re aware that no-one is likely to back that comment.
2. Masking your identity and arguing behind a blank name, cowardly and a sign of immense weakness – most likely you know that I know you and have plenty of things I could say about you.
I have an idea of who you are, most likely affiliated with a certain site but that’s obvious with the bias in which your point of view is so richly steeped.
How am I destroying the “healthy competition” by posting a view? You’ve just said that it’s good people are debating and you’ve condemed me for having a view and expressing it. Are the only views that aren’t defamatory towards sites and the Scene those in agreement with your own point of view? Apparently so.
Rather ironic, when you’ve just aided the dilution of the Scene with an exceptionally average site – at best. You’ve taken members from sites via a gimmick of “fan points” which offer nothing to the user than a higher number in their profile. In return you get spam and low class FM discussion.
Frankly you need to realise that sites popping up who offer nothing to the Scene are paracites. You do nothing new, nothing original and as such, your leeching of members is only for selfish reasons. Pick one: Power, Glory, Fame.
TAS – what does it offer?
Writing – done better by http://www.footballmanagerfanboys.net
Graphics – done better by http://www.fmglive.com
DIscussion – done better by http://www.loswonderkids.com
Points of view – done better by http://www.fm-view.com
Tactics – done better by http://www.fm-britain.co.uk
Why start a site if not to offer something new or to do something original? Ah, yes. Power, Glory, Fame.
Your whole site is un-original. You’re only getting posts by setting up a transparent scheme to boost posts via spam and worthless FM topics. It’s funny, you of all people should be backing my point of view (even if it’s somewhat condeming your arrival) because frankly there is lots of competition and it’s all way, way better than yourselves – and you know it too, don’t you?
Go back to TAS, take your moronic point of view with you. Maybe they’ll buy it there, but frankly you’re out of your depth on here. Come back when you know the difference between “they’re” and “their”.
*pats head*
And please, don’t think that I just made that post as a way of disagreeing with your point, you didn’t even make a point.
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