It's been 2 months and 5 live blogs since I first announced that I was getting together a crew of 4 other Scorum users to try and produce content as the biggest matches in the Premier League took place. Honestly, I didn't know what was going to happen when I set out on this project. At the time it seemed like a great idea and given the amount of chat that we were getting on the Scorum Writers Group on Telegram every time match day rolled around, I was fairly confident we had an audience for it. Of course, as the time for the first blog drew closer, the doubts began to draw in. It was a little bit like when you've organised a party and then about an hour before it begins you start to wonder if anyone is actually going to turn up! Fortunately, people did turn up, they did interact and from the feedback we've had they generally enjoyed themselves. However, throughout the process of producing those 5 blogs we have learned a lot both in terms of our own experiences of running the thing as well as in regards to what makes it better for the users who participate.
Lessons Learned
It's bloody hard work!
Remotely organising 5 guys who all live in different countries and time zones and all have busy and exciting lives to lead off the blockchain is hard work! I don't just mean for me but for all of us. @writingamigo, @philnewton, @jon.bonomo and @idunique have all taken turns in hosting the blogs and in doing so all had to take the strain of managing and co-ordinating the whole thing. On the day itself it's a case of trying to watch the game, trying to see what's happening in the telegram chat we have going on behind the scenes, updating the blog, responding to comments and occasionally coming up for a breath of air! I just want to take the opportunity to say thank you to the 4 guys mentioned above for sticking with the project and giving it their full commitment. They could have chosen to just pump out some lame, half-arsed post that contains a minimal amount of effort and sort to get rich off their own upvotes but they didn't! In doing so, they've shown what can be achieved if people are willing to roll up their sleeves and work together on a community centred project that actually adds value to Scorum!
Are people really reading what we write?
The initial idea of the blog was the content that we were creating would drive the discussion in the comments underneath. However, I think all of us ultimately felt that this was probably not the case and while people were interacting, they were more willing to do so based on existing comments already posted under the blog without reference to the work we were doing above. There is nothing inherently wrong with this but it did make us question whether it was really worth a lot of the effort mentioned above.
We were getting a high number of comments but was it really high-quality engagement?
This isn't meant as a criticism of any individual users but some of the comments we received were rather short and more general observations than engaging opinions and analysis that might drive further conversation. The other issue with high comment volumes has been that it is very hard to keep track of the comments coming in. When you click on a notification in regards receiving a reply to a comment, the system just takes you to the blog, you then need to scroll down through 300+ comments to find the ones you'd like to reply to. Again it's hard work when you are trying to do half a dozen other things at the same time.
The people know what they want!
People like prediction contests and they like betting! On our blog we didn't have to wait for the betting platform to open we had people making wagers with each other left, right and centre while the blog was on. We also ran a few competitions in the later blogs which users seem to enjoy taking part in and regardless of whether we asked for them or not, everyone loves giving a score prediction and then bragging about how they got it right! Ultimately it's no good fighting the tide, we need to adapt and keep the people who are on the blog happy in what we have to offer.
A brand new look for the Live Blogs
Bearing in mind the above points this is what the team and I have come up with as a format for at least the remainder of this calendar year.
Scrapping the 10min updates within the blog itself
As noted above, we don't really think they are driving interaction and getting them written, sent in and then added to the blog is a bit of a pain. Therefore we will now have
- Comments in the Comments Section - given that this is where they seem to get the most traction anyway we thought we'd move that part of the blog to the comments section. What we hope to see is that the opinion and analysis we leave there will drive a higher level of discussion on the blogs. Of course those leaving higher quality comments will get higher rewards!
- Major Incidents remain in the body of the blog - we will continue to report on the major incidents of the match as they happen within the main body of the text. Jon Bonomo also has also been creating GIFs of the main action and where possible we'll continue to add these
Adding contests and betting into the post
- Prediction contests - I ran a couple of them on the last blog we did. People seem to enjoy them so we will continue to do them. They will be a little bit different from the regular predict the score kind of posts that we see around, hopefully a little more challenging but also a little more fun. The standard reward will be 5SCR per contest but we will also be rolling over that amount from match to match so that if it isn't won for a little while the pay out and excitement around it should grow
- Betting analysis - We've gotten some good action going as a result of the posts. Wagers being made, bets being won and of course with the betting platform now live what we hope is that these blogs can help drive liquidity on the exchange. To that end @philnewton and @writingamigo who know their markets will be providing tips on where you may wish to put your money
- Predict the result league table - Given that everyone loves to share their prediction of the results prior to the kick off, we thought why not start making a league table to see who has the best record of calling the outcome of matches. Starting in the next blog we will have a specific comment that asks for predictions, all predictions added under that comment will be considered under the following scoring system 3points for a correct score prediction, 1 point for the correct result
The timing of the Matches
We've done a little bit of experimentation with different days and times. We've had Saturday lunchtime, Saturday dinnertime, Sunday afternoon and Monday evening matches covered so far. Our feeling is that Saturday afternoon seems to be a time when most people are around and looking to interact. As such we will be focusing mainly on the games that have a 5:30pm (GMT) kick off on Saturday, there will be a few matches outside of that period but the schedule for the remainder of the year will be as follows
Tweaks behind the scenes
Most the changes that we are making are behind the scenes. I won't bore you with all the details but in order to make everything as smooth as possible, to ensure that no one person is having to bear too heavy a load and ultimately to make sure that the 4 guys mentioned above are enjoying themselves then we have tweaked a few things around in regards the roles of the contributors and what is expected of them. If anyone is interested in learning more about how we do it then as always I'm happy to be contacted via telegram.
We will never stop striving to improve
This project will continue to evolve and the way we present the blog will change as the platform itself changes. We are all of the mind that having live sporting events covered on Scorum particularly now the betting exchange is launched is going to be a massive bonus to the site and as such we want to continue improving the blogs we offer.
If you have any feedback for myself or the team then we'd love to hear it. What do you think would make the blogs better? What could we add? What do you want to see? How has your experience been so far? We are all ears ...........
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