Nass: CyprusSid does not own not606, it's owned by a Mr. Michael Reid, a Guernsey-based bookmaker from Belfast, I believe. Here's an article I dug-up from somewehere:
Quote:
It’s like 606, but it’s not 606
Despite the popularity of the BBC’s 606 forums, it seems not everyone shared the same enthusiasm for it.
Long before its demise, Michael Reid – a Guernsey-based bookmaker from Belfast – was sowing the seeds of a rival website. Reid has been working in the online gambling industry for 8 years, and he specializes in building mathematical derivative models for automatically creating betting odds. This requires a decent bit of technical knowledge.
Reid launched ScottishPremierNews.com initially in early 2008, when 606 was at its peak, with a focus on the Scottish Premier League. “Basically I was trying to steal a couple of Google keywords in Scottish Premier News, to quite unashamedly attract those who were interested in Scottish Football searching for those keywords”, says Reid. “It was a bad name really but it was primarily an SEO thing”.
But that was just a precursor to the main site we see today. “We changed the name to not606 in early 2010 to try and target a wider audience including all the English clubs. It took a little while to have the desired effect.”
In the years prior to 606′s demise, Reid’s site acquired several thousand sign-ups. “We were teetering around the peripherals of the Scottish supporters for a while”, says Reid. Whilst its registered numbers were in the thousands, active members was substantially lower, “It would have probably been counted in the dozens”, continued Reid. “It wasn’t great, for the years we existed before hand we were mostly a small, inward looking community of disgruntled ex-606ers”.
Today, not606 has well over 13,000 registered members, the vast majority of which have signed up in the last few months since 606 was closed down. But what are the main motivations for launching the site – is it purely a hobby and for the love of the game? Reid said:
“I suppose I should say that for the moment not606 is really a hobby as it has been for the last few years. In terms of the actual amount of effort though it’s practically becoming a full time job. I’ve found myself putting most of my free time into working on the code and the design in the last few months since it really started to take off.”
As with any such site, covering costs is one thing, making money is another ball game (excuse the pun) altogether. Although Reid’s site is making some money, the nature of the beast means it’s having to upgrade rapidly to cope with the rise in incoming traffic since 606 closed. He said:
“Not606 at this moment does generate revenue but it’s a funny subject for me, in that for the previous few years it had been a personal (money consuming) hobby project and had practically no chance of providing any sort of income. With the closure of 606 though, I seen a huge influx of traffic and it required the inevitable upgrades in infrastructure to cope. We are now on our 4th dedicated server upgrade in seven months and I’m currently discussing adding a second local server to be a dedicated database host – to fund the extra hardware required it came to the point where I had to introduce advertising.”
The dreaded ‘A’ word. But the good news is, only those not logged-in to the site are subjected to it. So if you are a regular, logged-in member you’re not affected, and if you don’t log in then you see adverts and help pay the bills for the not606 team. Advertising doesn’t affect over 60% of visitors, people who choose to regularly visit the site, so it’s an elegant solution to the increasing costs.
So with increased traffic, not606 is really starting to grow, though Reid tells me he doesn’t take a penny out of the site yet, and has been pushing all the income back into it. Reid has some big plans for the future too, he says:
“We’ve a new design for our content management system coming soon, I’ve employed a full time journalist to promote and provide editorial for the best user-generated content and I am in discussions with PA Sports for them to provide extra content for the site. So while the site is now generating decent monthly revenue, with over 900,000 visitors a month, I have yet to see any of it myself.”
Just now, Reid has one full-time paid contractor who works as an editor, whilst there are dozens of volunteer moderators that ensure the forums maintain a certain standard. It really sounds like the closure of the BBC 606 forums has been a God-send for Reid, so how happy was he when its closure was announced?
“Honestly? Delighted. We were always going to be the main benefactors of such a move from the BBC. I know they had their reasons, but to simply kill such a popular service was for me a bad move, in that it gave no value to the license fee payer (of which I am one) when they had spent years building up such a service. I have personally benefited and I’m on the cusp of creating a decent commercial alternative so I can’t really pretend to be anything other than happy over the decision.”
A refreshingly honest assessment by Reid who believes one of the key differentiators to not606 over its BBC predecessor is that his forums would be free to discuss almost anything – as long as they do so in a ‘mature’ way. And this is one of the reasons many people disliked the original 606 forums, in that they believed they were too heavily moderated. Reid said:
“It’s been tough keeping to these rules and our original ethos, as inevitably there are will be bad eggs, but by in large I think we have done okay. We have individual moderators on the team boards who actually support that team, so I leave them to decide what their fellow supporters can and can’t get away with – and the general off topic discussion area is mostly unmoderated which can lead to some edgey discussion which sometimes needs a bit of intervention.”
But Reid then hit upon a crucial point, one that goes some way towards explaining why the 606 forums were eventually closed. And this notion could perhaps be applied across the board at the BBC, not just to its former football forums:
“When closing 606, the BBC stated that their reason was because the forums had been dropping considerably in popularity – I believe this is typical of a non-commercial organization. It basically let a product go stale because it was not revenue-generating. The difference with not606 is that, in turning commercial, there is a drive to constantly improve the service and to listen to the users. Our continued weekly growth is testament to our success in pushing forward towards a better platform.”
That is perhaps a valid point. Why did the 606 userbase fall by around half in three years? As I noted earlier, Ben Gallop from the BBC pointed to the evolution of the social Web as a key reason why it had dropped in popularity – so why couldn’t the BBC evolve alongside it? And that’s the point Reid’s making, if it had been a commercial enterprise, it would no doubt have pulled the stops out to make it a success.
The BBC may not be driven by profit, but it should be driven by what the licence-fee paying public want. It could’ve made a few simple adjustments to make the site more social, for example integrating with the Facebook and Twitter APIs. However, the BBC’s mistakes are there for others to learn from, and Reid is determined to not let his site go ‘stale’, despite users being resistant to change. He said:
“No matter what change I make it’s sure to upset someone. I added a Google+ button to the site and I had two private messages telling me to take it down! The original 606 reportedly declined in popularity because it refused to change and got stale. I am determined to kick on and try to improve the site for the better, it’s just hard to take everyone along for the ride when the users can be so vocal.”
We’ve now entered the decade of mobile, a fact that’s not lost on Reid either. Not606 has its own dedicated mobile apps, for both iOS and Android. So the banter can continue any time, any place.
Unquote.
.
*
good man
