Wednesday, January 04, 2012

We are cruising along trying to do a mountain of work.  And we've reached an agreement to merge two women's basketball sites, Inside Women's Basketball and Full Court, and are now building a new site for combined content.

Steve Yelvington, who consulted with us in August, has been hired to build out a new content management system for the new site using the Drupal platform.  Having worked on website builds for several major newspapers, we felt his expertise would help get us past many of the hurdles and mistakes that plague many new sites. Steve is able to look at the big picture and help us prepare for future growth. He is also helping us maximize the tools of the internet which will be an asset when we launch.  

So far, the biggest challenge has been trying to merge three basketball websites.  After three months of trying to hammer out a three-way, equal-partner deal, Cheryl Coward of Hoopfeed decided not to move forward.  We were uncertain about her ability to match the award funds, so better to happen now than later. It was a small setback, but ultimately, it has left the door open for us to partner with other people.

Read more...

Saturday, October 22, 2011

When I found out that Inside Women's Basketball had been awarded the New Media  grant.... I was thrilled, flattered, ecstatic and given a new sense of hope that the work I have been doing for the last two years was for a purpose.  The next emotion was a mild sense of panic and a huge sense of responsibility that I now have to accomplish the goal my heart desired, to create the premiere web, mobile and social destination for women's basketball.

The first order of business was to bring on board colleagues in the business who I respect and believe would help accomplish the goals spelled out in the grant process.  Prior to being awarded the grant I had begun talks with Cheryl Coward, the owner of Hoopfeed.com & Lee Michaelson the owner of Fullcourt.com, about the possibility of merging all three of our sites.  The idea being to pool our resources and be able to have a more thorough nationwide coverage map of women's basketball.  Also, by pooling our respective audiences, we would increase viewership and put the new product in a place to better reach advertising sales goals.

To get the ball rolling,  I hosted a weekend retreat at my home in Atlanta.  The three of us kicked off the weekend by attending an Atlanta Dream game, the Eastern Conference Champions in the WNBA.

Read more...