Ja606 - Needs you! Well kinda..*UPDATED*.

Here follows a big article....

It has been almost 2 years since the launch of ja606 and the closure of the BBC606. We have introduced various features including the oft derided “geo-checkin"(It is ahead of its time ). FYI. There was a sneaky update yesterday, the swear filter now shows the banned word in the error box

We still have a specific, albeit secretive, roadmap of interesting and exciting things we want to do. The first of these things is the launch of a 'sports news' site (name to be revealed later). For those familiar with “goal.com", it is that kinda thing. So there will be also be scope for the witty and well thought out satire type stuff(e.g. Lady Eowyn, Barry Smith etc). The other added benefit, will be the ability to use the kinda stuff "normal" sites have, such as images and html. So no more smiley art abominations.

*** This will be a brand new site on a different domain ***

The main driving force behind the creation of this site is to increase the exposure of the main forum and grow the site. Ideally we would also be tapping into people who support some of the more under-represented teams on ja606(You know who you are). Unlike the on the old BBC forums we cant have a link to our site on every sports story they publish, so we need to stimulate fresh traffic/membership growth in other ways

The site will be of a significantly more high brow format(match reports, player analysis, signing speculation) which will allow us to get included in the online news feeds, Google News, News Now etc. So the ja606 type articles about what people are having for lunch is likely to be off limits, same goes for the mad ranty surfer stuff. The content will need to be unique and unpublished elsewhere, so you cant just copy content from your own blog for example. There is a significant benefit to having a centralised site, a bit like on ja606(which has now had 200,000,000 page-views) it will hopefully help to ensure people are reading your stuff.

What we are looking for is the site to generate fairly regularly the big impact viral articles such as:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/greggdd69/10-owls-that-look-like-roy-hodgson-england-footbal-5v0w

By clocking up 5k Facebook likes, it means the reach of that content is probably way higher....If you scroll down on the link above, you can see ja606 was one of the sites to make that article even more viral. This type of stuff would clearly help grow the news site and also importantly the forum.

Due to our limited resources, the plan is for the site to be a “crowd sourced" operation, i.e. it will be run and operated primarily by the members. We will take care of and support the technical side of things.

The key roles(**All unpaid**) we need to fill:

Approx 3 Editors: Aside from wiring articles, these are the users that will ensure the articles are fit to be published then publish them. Any potentially libellous stuff gets removed out. So any sports journalism students or former journalists are welcome to put names forward. Word-press experience preferred, but I am sure you could pick it up.

Contributors: People who want to write articles for the site. You can write them by logging into the site, but it will require the Editor to ultimately publish it. Once you have a few articles under your belt, you may be escalated to Author status where you can publish your own article.

Social Media: We will need a few safe pairs of hands to run the social media channels(around 3 people)..Twitter/Facebook/Google + ….So please take note, we wouldn't expect to see even the hint of a LAL appearing on those channels.

Ideally users will publish the content under their real names and we can display also display a associated Google+ account. So we get this kinda thing, showing the Google+ Square

https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=sJp&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&q=The+11+canteranos+who+could+win+the+Champions+...+-+Goal.com&oq=The+11+canteranos+who+could+win+the+Champions+...+-+Goal.com&gs_l=serp.3...194326.194326.0.194562.1.1.0.0.0.0.144.144.0j1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.1yI39oPpEc0

If you want to publish anonymously, we could probably get the Editor to publish articles by 'guest writers'.

So it would be great if those that are interested could drop an email to contactja606<@>gmail.com, with your ja606 username, (or just post on here) expressing your interest in one of the roles(+ any experience you have) or whether you would simply just be interested in becoming a writer.

Since we are still at an early stage(I'm still coding/tweaking bits of the template), we are happy to take ideas...... In terms of the navigation menu content/sections of the site, we have been giving some thought to it recently and aside from Football>Prem>Team type hierarchy, sections such as Fantasy Football hints, Saturday Coupon and Transfer Zone we thought might also be worth a shout? Any other ideas welcome?
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UPDATE 12/03/2013
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I attempted to send out this email but it seems to have gone into most peoples spam.

Hi,

Just a quick update on the progress of the new site......

Here is a screenshot of the new news site we are working on. Still a bit away from being finished. Tried to keep the site flow as stripped down as possible so it is clear what is new content wise. It is a responsive design so looks different(single column) in smaller viewports.

http://www.ja606.co.uk/jalobwip.png (jalob.co.uk)

We have registered the Twitter(@jalob_official), Facebook(http://www.facebook.com/JALOB.Official) and Google+(https://plus.google.com/109050838866966754618/posts) pages. They are still totally empty, but the next step will be to get those that are interested in running each page the appropriate Admin accounts set up. You can take it from there. The JA font we use is the "croobie font" so for those that a graphics oriented feel free to play about creating promo related stuff. "Become a writer", "Sports News Site launching" type stuff.

If possible those that want access to the social accounts, could you reply to this email with a Subject title that goes along the lines of. "Facebook and your ja606 user id/display name", "Twitter and your ja606 user id/display name" etc etc.

We can then look at getting three or so people on each platform. With Twitter we are trusting each member quite a lot as there is only one single shared login . So we cant have that account abused and need to take that into account when allocating roles.

We are making efforts to have the site up by the end of March and all password protected so authors such as your good selves can play about with it first....Then we will wipe out all the test garbage and hopefully open it to the internet a few weeks later. If those interested in being authors could write non time sensitive articles, that would help us ensure we have decent stock content to fill the site with when we go live.

It all feels a bit like spinning plates at the movement but hopefully we are heading in the right direction.

We will keep in touch.

Admin1

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UPDATE 05/04/2013 - Email probably in your spam folders!
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Hi,


Just to keep everyone in the loop... I am sure at least a few have noticed that we are running behind schedule with the creation of the new sports news site “www.jalob.co.uk"


This has mainly been related to difficulties in coding a design that is responsive to the device that it is viewed on. This has been a horrific experience.


By the nature of the site we have also have taken a fair amount of time ensuring the security settings are as tight as we can possibly make them. This has resulted in a fair amount of pain too.


The plan is that by the end of next week to identify three or four editors and create the associated editor accounts.


After getting in touch with each editor we will set up “@jalob.co.uk" email accounts for them. After which it will then require them to set up a “disqus.com " account to allow them to administer comments from the commenting system under each article. This will be similar to the telegraph commenting system(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/lancearmstrong/9972355/Lance-Armstrong-forced-to-abandon-comeback-in-Masters-Swimming-event.html )


To stop Google indexing the spoof content currently on jalob.co.uk, the site is password protected.

We will issue the password to the editors along with their account so they can log in and play about creating their own mock stuff and getting a general feel for things.

If all goes well and the site doesn't fall over, we will then look at getting accounts set up for the contributors. The exact date of this is dependant on the feedback and user experience from the editors.


Will try to keep in touch as best we can.


Regards,


Admin1
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Update 05/03/14

Finally after a year or so of various distractions....

The site http://jalob.co.uk is live. We have had a few unfortunate souls whose names you might recognise seed the site with a few articles. So feel free to check it out... Should you wish to contribute similar news style/opinion piece articles drop us an email at contact...@...ja606.co.uk with your ja606 account/display name and the kinda stuff you are looking to write and we can see about creating a writers account for your. Alternatively feel free to email the editors with articles and then will publish them on your behalf.

Thanks for your patience.

As things stand we are looking to get the site included in various news exaggerators to help bring fresh blood to both that site and fresh members to ja606.

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