... and that is all it ever will be as long as Telstra is paying millions of dollars to host the site.

From my limited knowledge of the agreement between Telstra and the clubs it is very restrictive. Basically Telstra tell the clubs you use the facilities and applications we supply and that's that.

Telstra is not going to encourage the independant development of software applications on the club sites. It presents a security risk to their server and the asset they have spent millions of dollars obtaining.

All the club can do really is try to provide the basics (that Telstra provides) to the best of their ability.

Having said that though there are still lots of things that could be done to improve the site even given the restrictions.

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The team is usually put up on a Thursday or Friday night (Sun games) by around 7 pm- usually has to wait for all the other teams to go up. I've noticed that Essendon*, who have an independent site have their team up much earlier. But if we can have the team up here (when sas visits) or SEN have it, why can't they get it up earlier?

Training reports- who would do them? You usually get better info here & it's a lot less sanitised than you'd get from the club.

Yep, the teams come out through other sources before they make it to the website. I'm sure plenty of fans are hanging on finding out who is playing, so why make them listen to SEN rather than check the club site? Makes no sense to me, although I do understand that it means you have to have someone available to update the site latish on a Thursday or Friday afternoon.

I'd love to see training reports each week with a bit of input from a player. It would only need 12 - 15 players to do it once each to get through summer. Just drop into communications and spend 15 mins relating what happened, one or two funny annecdotes and have someone "ghost" write it.

It doesn't have to be a full run down. Just "Denis was keen for us to work on xxx yyy". "aaaa is looking great this year, he was killing it on the track". "zzzz copped a ball in the side of the head cause he was paying more attention to a girl in the stands than the footy". A bit of a run down on a few of the drills. If they can manage some photos of the boys in action to go with it, all the better.

It obviously going to be all positive, but a bit of positive press about the boys getting out there and being excited would be a good read. Good way to keep the supporters who aren't keen enough to trawl TC interested over summer.

Security risk? Give me a break. they could easily quarantine it from anything too sensitive.

Our major sponsor of more than 10 years is the second biggest telco in the country, and arguably better and service and implementation. Why is it not possible to have our website developed by them as part of the overall sponsorship package?

One more area where, I'm afraid to say, Essendon* is streets ahead of us, and every other club.

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

If someone from one of the AFL sites installed a susceptible php application, the site could be easily be hacked and the server made vulnerable. That is just one of many possible examples. Telstra would have safeguards in place but they would be foolish to give the clubs too much free reign on the sites.

Not sure where you are getting this Optus stuff from? The deal is with Telstra, I hope Optus would have been sounded out, but they would have had to offer a ridiculously good deal to better what Telstra has offered all the clubs.

IMO Essendon* cost themselves a lot of money by going alone for the last five years.

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Yes I agree. Matthew Lloyd's input on their website was quite expensive or was it James Hird?

Now who's the one not reading posts properly

What I actually said was I don't understand why some form of website deal wasn't part of Optus' sponsorship arrangement with the Club. If it was talked about with Optus, but not followed through simply because of cash over serviceability, then we shot ourselves in the foot.

Are we that pathetic that we're prepared to take dodgy cash upfront for no gain in an area which is an essential part of Club communications with the wider Victorian, Interstate and International Blues family? That's false economy.



I think if you did all the sums, while it definitely cost Essendon* guaranteed cash up front, the revenue stream from potential sponsors and advertisers means their website would be a long-term revenue raiser.

And you call yourself an economist....

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

The last sponsorship arrangement with Optus was made right in the middle of the Telstra deal (2003-04?), not sure how you can negotiate internet rights when you already have them with someone else for another couple of years.

Also, it's not false economy when the money being offered is unbelievably high.



You would have to calculate the difference between the extra revenue (merchandise, memberships etc) an independant site made (if any) compared to how much they would make using a Telstra site.

I'm saying I reckon the difference would not make up for the extra money obtained from the Telstra deal, therefore they lost revenue overall.

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Thanks for the specifics KK and Mordan - that's useful.

I agree on the ad-heavy stuff and not sure how many hits those sponsors would ever get. In terms of having to wait for information (and the cfc site being slower than here say) that tends to have more to do with a Communications Department of 2 and 1 of them having to do all the lackey work. The team articles come from sportal overnight..perhaps an idea would be to have a 'Breaking News' box somewhere where Carlton Communications could delegate to someone like me the ability to put in teams?

Broken links..I must admit I've never had that problem but perhaps my searching is more limited?

Search function.... agreed.

Optus v Telstra...I think this is a big sore point for Optus and our sponsorship but the $ Telstra throw at the contract is apparently very impressive. With $ comes power.

Either way, I'll bring this thread to CC's attention to see if there's anything else they can work on.

M