RiverDave
In it to win it
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2007
- Messages
- 123,397
- Reaction score
- 151,474
As most would note, I haven't been online as much as usual.. Front page content slowed down to a crawl, etc.. I was talking to someone last night and I told them "The more I put into it, the more I hurt it." To explain that I have been working behind the scenes to try and bring some next level shit for 2018. At the end of the day I'm only one guy though, so if I'm off doing that stuff, then I don't have time to do the day to day stuff and vice versa.
I'm really happy to say though, that our transition is over, and things are running very smoothly. According to the website tracking (posts / likes) we are actually up in participation overall on the new platform! So I'm happy about that.. The Lounge does seem a little slow right now though, which I'm going to spend the weekend working on some good content for next week.
As for the website overall, the front page still needs a lot of work in my mind.. It doesn't look like I want it too yet, but we are going to start in on that next week. We are developing a whole new RDP store front as well with some cool features. On all the other store fronts you have to create a separate account and login etc.. We are going to tie the new store front to RDP so it's single login, and all your account information will actually be in your member profiles.. Basically making it easier for people to buy stuff, etc.. I'm hoping to tie that into registrations for poker runs down the road, where if you want to sign up for something like Desert Storm, you click teh button send the money and the website sends them all your information with one button. Seems like it would be a lot easier than filling out all these forms over and over and over every year.
I'm happy to say as far as functionality for the forums.. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The forums are working flawlessly and just need minor tweaking at this point.. (getting rid of thumbnails and my never ending list of little things). I'm really really happy though with the move.
The app thing was / is a god damn disaster.. That was one of those leap of faiths, where I should've probably done a lot more research on it before I did it. I dipped my pinky toe in the water instead of going for a swim type stuff. They are working on solving all the issues, but I think they are months out if not longer.. Hence the reason why I bit the bullet and brought back Tapatalk. It is what it is at this point. With the new site I prefer the browser over any of the apps anyways. But for those that don't we aim to please.
It's the holidays and per members requests we have added snow, and a little Christmas Cheer around here today.
I hope you guys like that for the time being, and we'll take it down sometime right after new years. (or leave it up if ya want a little longer)
If you guys want to know a little behind the scenes stuff, we got some of our ad packages back up and running today. If you click on the Allstate ads or EP Insurance ads they will actually put a form up for you to fill out, and it will e-mail the agents directly. That's kind of a cool feature (RDP only as far as forums go to my knowledge) and we will begin using that for other things in the future as well.
Not sure how many remember, but close to a decade ago I used to send out an e-mail to all the members every so often with updates on the site, some of the cooler threads of the week and things like that. When we crossed a large amount of membership that became kind of difficult to do.. If I sent out too many we'd get blackballed as a spammer. And if you send out to few you look like a flake, so I just kinda quit it all together. I signed up for a mass e-mail service today (f'n expensive, but I think it's going to be worth it), and we are going to be bringing back the newsletters! So that will be cool. I'll be looking for some input on what you guys think of them, and what you want to see.
As always I'm always looking for content contributors to the site.. If you are a talented writer, or have industry knowledge? Perhaps you are going to an event, and want to help offset the cost of attending? Just let me know!!
That's about it for now.. Really looking forward to Desert Bash this weekend, and hopefully we will come out of that deal with a few "feature vehicles" from the run, that will be worth writing about.
RD
I'm really happy to say though, that our transition is over, and things are running very smoothly. According to the website tracking (posts / likes) we are actually up in participation overall on the new platform! So I'm happy about that.. The Lounge does seem a little slow right now though, which I'm going to spend the weekend working on some good content for next week.
As for the website overall, the front page still needs a lot of work in my mind.. It doesn't look like I want it too yet, but we are going to start in on that next week. We are developing a whole new RDP store front as well with some cool features. On all the other store fronts you have to create a separate account and login etc.. We are going to tie the new store front to RDP so it's single login, and all your account information will actually be in your member profiles.. Basically making it easier for people to buy stuff, etc.. I'm hoping to tie that into registrations for poker runs down the road, where if you want to sign up for something like Desert Storm, you click teh button send the money and the website sends them all your information with one button. Seems like it would be a lot easier than filling out all these forms over and over and over every year.
I'm happy to say as far as functionality for the forums.. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The forums are working flawlessly and just need minor tweaking at this point.. (getting rid of thumbnails and my never ending list of little things). I'm really really happy though with the move.
The app thing was / is a god damn disaster.. That was one of those leap of faiths, where I should've probably done a lot more research on it before I did it. I dipped my pinky toe in the water instead of going for a swim type stuff. They are working on solving all the issues, but I think they are months out if not longer.. Hence the reason why I bit the bullet and brought back Tapatalk. It is what it is at this point. With the new site I prefer the browser over any of the apps anyways. But for those that don't we aim to please.
It's the holidays and per members requests we have added snow, and a little Christmas Cheer around here today.
I hope you guys like that for the time being, and we'll take it down sometime right after new years. (or leave it up if ya want a little longer) If you guys want to know a little behind the scenes stuff, we got some of our ad packages back up and running today. If you click on the Allstate ads or EP Insurance ads they will actually put a form up for you to fill out, and it will e-mail the agents directly. That's kind of a cool feature (RDP only as far as forums go to my knowledge) and we will begin using that for other things in the future as well.
Not sure how many remember, but close to a decade ago I used to send out an e-mail to all the members every so often with updates on the site, some of the cooler threads of the week and things like that. When we crossed a large amount of membership that became kind of difficult to do.. If I sent out too many we'd get blackballed as a spammer. And if you send out to few you look like a flake, so I just kinda quit it all together. I signed up for a mass e-mail service today (f'n expensive, but I think it's going to be worth it), and we are going to be bringing back the newsletters! So that will be cool. I'll be looking for some input on what you guys think of them, and what you want to see.
As always I'm always looking for content contributors to the site.. If you are a talented writer, or have industry knowledge? Perhaps you are going to an event, and want to help offset the cost of attending? Just let me know!!
That's about it for now.. Really looking forward to Desert Bash this weekend, and hopefully we will come out of that deal with a few "feature vehicles" from the run, that will be worth writing about.
RD
