How do we compare?

[spaceman70]

I hope that our strength continues to grow as it already seems to have done thanks to nikkiboy's skill, to be fair I suspect much like Adrian as soon as I see the words embed, insert etc. I immediately adopt some sort vegitative state completely involuntary. In other words it.s all greek to me. That's tough coming from a turk! I still don.t know how to put a picture up, I just do not have the ability to read technical instructions. Also the reason why I can't put a Brian Turner of cookery fame up against a picture of Dennis Priestley on the lookalikes thread. How can we measure ourselves against our peers in dart forum world? As well as registered sites like darts100.com? I have noticed that we have had more members online than other forums recently. The ones I have used for the markers scheme are SoD obviously, df for maybe 30% of volunteers. 2 or 3 from dartsforum, 2 or 3 from double16, 1 from bdoforums and nothing from thedartboard.co.uk. Or everythingdarts.com. Sorry for the lack of paragraphs but i'm on my phone. My question is how many members, active members, users online and guests, regular posters and player posters do we have? Where do we think we are or can be with our influence? What are our collective goals as forum mods? I noticed we were above the PDPA site today on that 100 site today finishing in 14th I think. This may be good but I need to know if this is a website you just sign up to in order to be listed and not a true reflection of what regular joe who likes darts finds when typing 'darts' in the net. How do we measure and support our continued influence in darts and answers on a postcard by Sunday please as I will be trying to sell us all night whilst trying to disguise the fact to my partner.

[Booji Boy]

My oh my Dave, thats a whole bunch of questions hehe.

Re the forum and the future. I see us expanding in numbers and to keep those numbers we might have to diversify into other areas away from just being a place to chat. Ideas such as the streaming of games etc could set us apart. I would really like it if we can become like a one stop shop for everything darts, almost like an online magazine. If we can keep growing the numbers of the site and as I have mentioend previously this will increase the ad revenue potential of the site, which in turn could allow us to develop other ideas and innovations. But the core value of the site should always remain as a place where darts fans can talk to other darts fans and players.

[chissy]

I hope that our strength continues to grow as it already seems to have done thanks to nikkiboy's skill, to be fair I suspect much like Adrian as soon as I see the words embed, insert etc. I immediately adopt some sort vegitative state completely involuntary. In other words it.s all greek to me. That's tough coming from a turk! I still don.t know how to put a picture up, I just do not have the ability to read technical instructions. Also the reason why I can't put a Brian Turner of cookery fame up against a picture of Dennis Priestley on the lookalikes thread. How can we measure ourselves against our peers in dart forum world? As well as registered sites like darts100.com? I have noticed that we have had more members online than other forums recently. The ones I have used for the markers scheme are SoD obviously, df for maybe 30% of volunteers. 2 or 3 from dartsforum, 2 or 3 from double16, 1 from bdoforums and nothing from thedartboard.co.uk. Or everythingdarts.com. Sorry for the lack of paragraphs but i'm on my phone. My question is how many members, active members, users online and guests, regular posters and player posters do we have? Where do we think we are or can be with our influence? What are our collective goals as forum mods? I noticed we were above the PDPA site today on that 100 site today finishing in 14th I think. This may be good but I need to know if this is a website you just sign up to in order to be listed and not a true reflection of what regular joe who likes darts finds when typing 'darts' in the net. How do we measure and support our continued influence in darts and answers on a postcard by Sunday please as I will be trying to sell us all night whilst trying to disguise the fact to my partner.

Think i am in the non techie boat aswell dave although i seem to muddle by.
tbh my goal as a forum mod is the same as the reason why i joined the sponsorship scheme and why i try to attend as many pro tour events for marking as i can - i absolutely love darts, always have, always will and as i can no longer play to a competative standard i looked to see how else i can be of assistance. That and of course my best mate and other "friends" are part of the tour. As a forum i feel we plug the gap between player and fan and think the potential for this is massive. When you look at number of hits and potential sponsors/advertisers and the revenue we could achieve the possibilities are endless. Andyf had absolutely no idea what he had tapped into (mind you it never really fired up until your sponsor/marker schemes started) and tbh i don't think he had the vision to take it out into the wide world. I firmly believe with Nikkis hard work with the techie stuff, your contacts and association with the top people in our sport and the enthusiasm and hard work that you have demonstrated to them coupled with the energy from the rest of us, trevors stats and attention to detail, colins level headedness (now he is 39 - a great age )and outstanding tolerance when dealing with Bradders , adrians passion and exuberance (hope thats the right word and i haven't just made you out to be a tosser of some sort ) Lee keeping us from going fully over to the dark side and because we have to include a short person (equal rights and all that) and me for my quiet shy sensitive nature that we can take this as far as we want to. I was only thinking the other day that with the right investment/sponsorship/advertising who is to say that we couldn't get to a point of sponsoring several players and having money in the bank to pursue live streaming etc, literally i think we have an opportunity to tap into a niche market and we can make this work.
Right from that first morning when i was on the phone all day with yourselves (sorry colin and trevor i didn't know you then) i knew we could assemble a team that could pull this off and the proof of that is where we are now already.
I think the coup d'etat will be getting little rich involved with the streaming ideas etc as he will open up another whole avenue of possibilities.
Reading colins post above, i love the idea of the one stop shop for darts idea,is there any reason that we can't entwine this forum with a retailing type business i.e unicorn online catalogue etc , i was only thinking the other night that if things really took off which i am sure they will, we would need someone(already know who i think it should be) to commercially manage the site and draw a wage from it for doing so. Might be pie in the sky right now but like i said the potential is there!

Just a thought dave, if we start to receive funds from ads etc and want to account for monies in and out (sponsorship/hosting etc) would we not be better registering the site as a business/charity or whatever from a tax and vat point of view - over to you on that one i only deal in cash

Wow, you see why i don't post much don't you

[nikkiboy]

Well for my tuppence worth I think the sky might be the limit, we can assemble the best forum and I think that will be the easy part, but we have great people here and great contacts and it would be criminal not to put them to good use.

Online streaming of PDC PC's
That would be the feather in the cap, we need to find out the costs and then approach Unicorn, 180bets and whoever else to partner us in this venture, we may even get reduced equipnment and set up costs from people like DiM if we pitch it correct and give them enough credit and advertising.

Competitions:
We need to run a fortnightly competition with exclusive prizes, i.e. signed Gary Anderson shirts, signed Rocky boxing gloves or a James Wade signed dartboard, this will attract more people to pop in every week and get involved imo.

Tie ins:
Contact Robert Holmes and Dave Allen and try and get the heads up on announcements, why not tell us first so we can publish it before anyone else.

Interviews:
This is where we will be better than anyone else, we take a decent standard digital camera to all pdc and some bdo events and actually ask the questions on camera and film and publish the interview, even if we have to get a TSOD printed backdrop to put behind the players when we interview them.

Online photo gallery:
For the publishing of player and member photos, open to all to upload what they like

Rileys:
Howard from Rileys has joined but not yet posted, I propose that we enter negotiations with him for a complete Rileys section where they can advertise their events directly in return for sponsorship and/or prizes for events. We should not underestimate how good a tie in with Rileys could be, they have money to burn in darts and with their tie ins with the BDO and PDC we could cater for both codes.

BDO/PDC:
Again approach both Holmes and the PDC and set up meetings to see how we can work with them to be a source of information and promotion, no revenue but invaluable information.

Members:
With people like Krispy, Little Richard and others in our midst we should approach them more and get them to help out

I think Chissy has a point and we should look to setting up a company to handle the revenue and also give us a bit more of an official look

Just a few musings but I think we could do quite well guys.

[Lee Taylor]

My thoughts..

I always thought that SoD was the number one darts forum, mainly due to the quality of the members on there (ie the Pro darters, their partners, and generally people well connected in the game).

I have always viewed the various other forums as "minor" in comparison. I rate Double16.com as a very well run forum (and Neil, the guy that runs it, is a great guy).
df, in my opinion, is just pub banter so can't really be viewed very highly.

So, with the demise of SoD, when we started this venture I always hoped we would get to the level of SoD.

In my opinion we have, with the odd exception, got all of the quality members from SoD and more besides.

With Nick's excellent technical knowledge and Daves "connections", along with the rest of our enthusiasm, I think great things are ahead.

In Prestatyn at the weekend me and the lads I was there with handed out over 500 of the business cards to all and sundry, and with only one exception they had a very welcome response, bearing in mind these are all BDO lads and they do occasionaly get a rough ride on the forums, I think this is very encouraging.

Long term, who knows, but I personally think we are already the best forum out there so already it's a massive achievement, considering this started only a month ago with a few frantic emails and text messages!!

I think the marking and sponsorship schemes are crucial for us to stand out from the other forums.

Keep up the great works lads, I think we need to meet up for a booze up at some point too?

Lee.

[chissy]

I think we need to meet up for a booze up at some point too?

Lee.

Definitely!!!

I know at crawley myself, lee, adrian, dave and i think nick will all be there, how are you two fixed, colin and trevor? Obviously not sure of each others commitments and situations obviously but it would be great if we could get something arranged. I will also be in Barnsley with Lee and i expect dave will be but again i don't know if that is easier for some of you?

Travel lodge for crawley is £29 per room at the moment guys

[nikkiboy]

Crawley is good for me

[Lee Taylor]

Love that this thread has decended into organising a piss up!

[Booji Boy]

I think I can do crawley.

If were to start generating income, I think we will defo need to set up an account and register ourselves or some such thing.

From tiny acorns................................................

[GtotheF]

Good thread.

I'll jot some thoughts down later - have actually had to do some work today.

[nikkiboy]

Good thread.

I'll jot some thoughts down later - have actually had to do some work today.

why has your PA got the day off

[xtreme rebel]

2 things!

1) I'm not going to make any UK venue other than Blackpool - going for 10 days.

2) I don't drink

[nikkiboy]

Stats for May 2010:

May-10

Hits: 3122767 (3.1 million)
Unique Visitors: 8187
Number of Visits: 34271
Pages: 739116
Bandwidth: 22.88GB (actually a little more but it doesn't take bots into account)

Looking quite impressive fellas

[nikkiboy]

Also just to add, on the old SOD Andy is advertising that he got peak hits of 10 million so we cannot be doing that badly so far

[Booji Boy]

Stats for May 2010:

May-10

Hits: 3122767 (3.1 million)
Unique Visitors: 8187
Number of Visits: 34271
Pages: 739116
Bandwidth: 22.88GB (actually a little more but it doesn't take bots into account)

Looking quite impressive fellas

That really is impressive. The unique visitor and pages loaded numbers are excellent.

[nikkiboy]

we won the hits battle last night fellas

[GtotheF]

That's really good news on the 'hits' we got last night.

Must confess I was expecting to see a few more members on last night.

Generally we had around 50 - 60 which isn't that much different to a lot of evenings.

There were peaks when I checked of about 75 - it will be interesting to see how the numbers go over the next few days, as this is our first TSoD major.

Not being negative by the way, just some very broadbrush observations.

[nikkiboy]

still doing ok

[spaceman70]

Just a little check around for registered users online.

Double16.com 28
Doublefinish.com 16
Dartsforum.co.uk 16
Bdoforums.co.uk 10

Thestarsofdarts.com 71

[GtotheF]

Just a little check around for registered users online.

Double16.com 28
Doublefinish.com 16
Dartsforum.co.uk 16
Bdoforums.co.uk 10

Thestarsofdarts.com 71

Still a steady flow of new members as well.

A 1000 registered users would be a great target to hit and I think we will do in the next few weeks.

Looking good boys.

PS. Nick if you see this I need the artwork for the patches as the company who I've asked for a quote for polo shirts need it.