Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who continues to follow and interact with Notts County Stats, it's very much appreciated.
Also, thank you to those of you who completed the recent survey, your comments and feedback were extremely helpful and have assisted me in formulating a plan for the site moving forward.
As you might be aware the content I'm now outputting is quite detailed and very time consuming. Additionally the costs have very much exceeded what I had originally planned.
With this in mind I have been contemplating a number of options that will ensure the reader experience is not devalued whilst my investment in time and money becomes easier to manage.
It became apparent from the survey that match stats reports, player stats and form tables are by far the most read items on the website. Additionally post match video analysis and pre match opposition analysis were clearly items that many would like to see on the site.
The survey also suggested that over 65% of the current readership would not pay for the content, however advertising on the site did not appear to be a concern for many.
When I started NCS my intention was for it to be a bit of a hobby and there was never any thought of charging people to have access to my work and that is something I will continue to stand by in the future.
With just 14 games to go of this season, plus of course a victorious play-off campaign, it wouldn't be great to make any wholesale changes, but by the start of next season I hope to have implemented the following;
The website design will change and will be optimised for mobile and tablet use as well as maintaining desktop settings.
I'm hoping to have live league games and tables. I currently have to download data from other web sites and then format and re-publish. If I can link to a suitable api this will save me some considerable time and you will have live data available via NCS website.
Stats will be streamlined to focus on match stats, xG and player stats. This will hopefully leave time for the addition of video and more detailed analysis.
Where possible in-depth pre match opposition analysis will be published but likely to be focussed on key opponents and not produced for every game.
It is likely you will start to see some advertising appear on the site to assist with the running costs.
There was a fans forum on the site. Due to inactivity I have now switched this off and won't be looking to re-instate it.
As well as the above I am considering inviting one or two people to be a part of NCS and assist with some of the stats, match reports and match previews. If this is something that might be of interest then please let me know.
One final thing that is really important is your site subscriptions. As well as having every match report drop into your email 'in-box' I'm looking at running a few fan and sponsor based initiatives once the new site is launched.
Site subscribers will benefit from having exclusive access, but for it to work I'll need a minimum number of subscribers signed up to make it an interesting proposition for future sponsors/partners.
As always, thanks for your continued support. if you have any questions please don't hesitate to get in touch !
COYP!
Richard