Official Club Website

[Harry Chibber]

Transfer news now there. it's obviously taken them 12 hours to write such a comprehensive explanation of the transfer activity.

http://www.ictfc.co.uk/articles/20100202/t...2208825_1952805

[AJS]

You can now understand why it took so long for them to post. A descriptive piece like this takes much time to prepare.

[caley100]

The delay was because they couldn't work out the spell check..

kind of pathetic eh.

[TheKarl]

I'm a design student and even then I find the time to write atleast 10 times that a day of my own accord with blogging and such, might put my name out there and approach the club with a solution to the website malarky. I've created several design solutions for ictfc.co.uk of of both boredom and love for the club and maybe see about taking it further.

[Scotty]

I'm a design student and even then I find the time to write atleast 10 times that a day of my own accord with blogging and such, might put my name out there and approach the club with a solution to the website malarky. I've created several design solutions for ictfc.co.uk of of both boredom and love for the club and maybe see about taking it further.

Good on you Karl and good luck !!! I hope you have more success in breaking through the barriers of suspicion than we did even when we were the official site !

At the request of the chief executive, I first put an offer on the table for them before they signed the contract with PTV 6 years ago and it was viewed with suspicion by certain people.

At the time we were still the official site and their was no animosity or hard feelings that CTO was to split from the club in an official capacity, in fact it was a huge relief as it was becoming more and more apparent that either the official tag had to go or the forum had to go as the football authorities were taking clubs more and more to task over web comments of fans and I was in the unenviable position of being able to please no-one, not the club who wanted comments sanitised and not the fans who did not.

Our offer - as die hard Caley Thistle fans - was very favourable, free design, free hosting, free email system, free integrated club shop, free maintenance and free upgrades to the platform/technology as the need arose. It also included 100% control over the site itself including content and advertising as well as being able to retain 100% of the advertising revenue (minus any capital costs for additional features they wanted that actually cost money to provide such as SSL certificates and such like). A win-win situation if ever there was one. The only concession we asked for was that the club extend their copyright to allow us to use images and/or stories on here if we needed to (with a 24 hour time delay for breaking news articles meaning news was always on their site first). We even agreed to try and split the types of service available on each site .. eg, we would have a forum, they would not, they might want a gallery so we wouldnt have one, we would share the same stats database and this sort of stuff.

As I said, this was viewed with a lot of suspicion. I think some could not believe that we would provide this for free and wondered (but never asked) what the catch was. It was simple, there was no catch, it was a genuine offer because we are fans of the club. Our biggest benefit would have been advertising our own web business by way of a "designed by" link and therefore use the site as one of our "flagship" designs (which also means we would constantly make sure it looked its best). The chief exec chose PTV, because it supposedly offered more guaranteed revenue generation opportunities (and less effort on the part of the club to keep it updated) and the rest is history.

We are not actively pursuing anything as we have enough work to keep us going for now but the club are well aware that pretty much the same offer is still on the table should they wish it ........ Hopefully Darren turns out to be less skeptical and suspicious than his predecessor over the motives ... which are the same as they always were.... to provide at service for ICT at no cost to them for the good and benefit of the club whilst raising the profile of our own business.

[Scotty]

I'm a design student and even then I find the time to write atleast 10 times that a day of my own accord with blogging and such, might put my name out there and approach the club with a solution to the website malarky. I've created several design solutions for ictfc.co.uk of of both boredom and love for the club and maybe see about taking it further.

Karl - we are always on the lookout for people (especially ICT fans on this site) with IT/Web skills that we can refer clients to if we are too busy, or sub-contract parts of projects to where we might not have the requisite skills. Assuming this is of interest to you, If you let Don and myself know what you can do we can maybe add you to our list of "go-to" people .........

S.

[PullMyFinger]

Is that how you do job interviews in Canada Scotty?

[Scotty]

well, I'm certainly not paying his bus fare ;)

seriously though, we do get asked to do many projects and being just the two of us we sometimes dont have the time, or the skillset to do what is asked. We are not afraid to admit that. However, I would far rather refer someone who has an IT need or a web design query to a fellow ICT fan in the same field than some random person who might support County or the OF !!!

[PullMyFinger]

Transfer news now there. it's obviously taken them 12 hours to write such a comprehensive explanation of the transfer activity.

http://www.ictfc.co.uk/articles/20100202/t...2208825_1952805

The person responsible for updating the website may have other duties. Are they even full-time employees? It is all too easy to point and laugh, spare a thought for the person you are trying to ridicule.

[CaleyD]

We will, of course, need to do a search to ensure TheKarl has never expressed an opinion on this forum we don't like before firming up the offer :tonguecheek:

[TheKnowledge]

The person responsible for updating the website may have other duties. Are they even full-time employees? It is all too easy to point and laugh, spare a thought for the person you are trying to ridicule.

Ha! It's you! Busted.

[TheKnowledge]

We will, of course, need to do a search to ensure TheKarl has never expressed an opinion on this forum we don't like before firming up the offer :tonguecheek:

The Karl might have said Barrowman could try a bit harder so it's best to probably avoid him.

[Scotty]

The person responsible for updating the website may have other duties. Are they even full-time employees? It is all too easy to point and laugh, spare a thought for the person you are trying to ridicule.

I have always been very supportive of the job done by ICT's webmistress as noted from my post below, but the simple truth of the matter is that there is definitely a lag on "real" news on there now. Whether that is because of pressure on her other duties (I believe she is also press liaison) or whether her hours have been cut, I dont know but it is certainly noticeable compared to what it was like even up until recently.

I know you are only trying to stick up for the club but as someone who has always tried to post positively about some of the stuff on there and the job that is done by a single person, I am finding it harder and harder to do that. Today is one of the 3 or 4 days of the season when hundreds of folk will be hitting the site looking for information. No information = no return visit.

[PullMyFinger]

The official website is a luxury as far as the club are concerned, they pay it little attention which is why this website is the first port of call for all ICT fans. Having reduced the staffing at the stadium the remaining staff find themselves taking on more responsibilities and they like the rest of us are human, with strengths and weaknesses.

[Harry Chibber]

The official website is a luxury as far as the club are concerned, they pay it little attention which is why this website is the first port of call for all ICT fans. Having reduced the staffing at the stadium the remaining staff find themselves taking on more responsibilities and they like the rest of us are human, with strengths and weaknesses.

Come off it mate, I don't care how busy Fiona was that is a p!ss poor attempt of a report, which was also 12 hours behind what everyone else knew.

"The club have confirmed the transfer of Dougie Imrie to Hamilton FC and the release of Andrew Barrowman from his contract.

We would like to thank both players for their service and wish them all the best in their furture careers."

It looks more like a statement of disinterest than an update

[Georgeios]

The delay was because they couldn't work out the spell check..

kind of pathetic eh.

I have nothing to do with the Clubs Site!!!

[PullMyFinger]

The official website is a luxury as far as the club are concerned, they pay it little attention which is why this website is the first port of call for all ICT fans. Having reduced the staffing at the stadium the remaining staff find themselves taking on more responsibilities and they like the rest of us are human, with strengths and weaknesses.

Come off it mate, I don't care how busy Fiona was that is a p!ss poor attempt of a report, which was also 12 hours behind what everyone else knew.

"The club have confirmed the transfer of Dougie Imrie to Hamilton FC and the release of Andrew Barrowman from his contract.

We would like to thank both players for their service and wish them all the best in their furture careers."

It looks more like a statement of disinterest than an update

Maybe she is disinterested, which is understandable in the circumstances. New responsibilities, heavier workload for little reward. Would you have her leave her home late at night just to update a website for you? This is her job, she was likely given a snippet to cut and paste into the website by a faceless director.

We're a' Jock Tamsons bairns, Harry.

[stevico1]

The official website is a luxury as far as the club are concerned, they pay it little attention which is why this website is the first port of call for all ICT fans. Having reduced the staffing at the stadium the remaining staff find themselves taking on more responsibilities and they like the rest of us are human, with strengths and weaknesses.

Come off it mate, I don't care how busy Fiona was that is a p!ss poor attempt of a report, which was also 12 hours behind what everyone else knew.

"The club have confirmed the transfer of Dougie Imrie to Hamilton FC and the release of Andrew Barrowman from his contract.

We would like to thank both players for their service and wish them all the best in their furture careers."

It looks more like a statement of disinterest than an update

Maybe she is disinterested, which is understandable in the circumstances. New responsibilities, heavier workload for little reward. Would you have her leave her home late at night just to update a website for you? This is her job, she was likely given a snippet to cut and paste into the website by a faceless director.

We're a' Jock Tamsons bairns, Harry.

That may well be the case but those that run the club have ultimate responsibilty for the website not Fiona and its them that should be addressing it.

[PullMyFinger]

[That may well be the case but those that run the club have ultimate responsibilty for the website not Fiona and its them that should be addressing it.

Agreed, but at the moment Fiona's getting pelters and it's out of order.

[Scotty]

Would you have her leave her home late at night just to update a website for you?

The site is not hosted at the stadium and could therefore be accessed from anywhere.

Having said that, we seem to be moving away from talking about the site and focussing on an individual tasked with working on it which is wrong. None of us know what her current remit is. for example, as has been pointed out, if she only has a certain number of hours that have to be dedicated to the site per day or week in amongst other duties then I would fully understand why it is not getting updated so frequently or why she wouldnt bother to login from home and update it. Like most of you however, I feel that the whole thing is shoddy. not on her part, but just shoddy in general from the generic design and incorrect information upwards.

From my own personal experiences, I would say the club have never been web savvy and it still looks like they treat the internet like a passing craze ...

[Pele_Is_God]

I think we have more important things to worry about than the website, is it really that big a deal? It's not fair to criticise , as another poster says nobody knows if her hours have been cut or not. A bit of perspective please....

As a foot note I received another item from the club shop today with a free gift, so big thumbs up from me!