Tuesday 30 June 2009

The Big Call: Help This Blog And Your Club

Less than one year and a half ago, I started a little blog. Now it has turned into something quite big with thousands of visitors every day.

Over the last year, I've become convinced that - through the internet - the fans can play a crucial role in spreading the name and fame of the club of our hearts and in attracting new fans.

I have many (many!) more ideas, but the time is lacking since I'm already stretched to my limits trying to combine a professional life, a private life and this hobby.

I on the other hand also feel that a lot of people are willing to help out in one way or another. Some have offered their help already, to most I have said "wait some more, I'll launch a big call soon". They must have thought this day would never come...

A few already joined in and I have to admit that I have truly been surprised by not only the motivation and the willingness to help but also the quality of their contributions.

I think now could be the right time to bring new people in and to take all of this step by step to another level. I think it would be great to form a group of people from all over the world working together on one project and developing some of their skills further. And on the way, making new friends.

And we all know how these things go: you visit someone, he offers you a room and you meet his beautiful sister on your morning trip to the shower. If it happens, we'll all invite ourselves to the wedding!!!

But enough sentimental stuff. What are we looking for?



1. news gatherers
We need people who go out on websites and look for Barcelone-related news. Maybe you're already surfing around the whole day looking for news: perfect.

Of course, Spanish, Catalan and English websites are the main sources of information, so every help is welcome there. But it would especially be nice if we could have some people to cover the Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian, French and German media too.

Everybody is of course also invited to send us reports that appear in whatever media anywhere in the world and that are linked to FC Barcelona.


2. report writers
In a second phase, people could help to transform the news found on the web into articles that can be put on the blog. Decent English should be enough, let's say that my not-at-all-perfect english is the standard, so that cannot be very hard to match.


3. opinion writers
Do you have an opinion you want to share with others and you're tired of just putting some comment on blogs, forums or sites where it immediately disappears in an ocean of comments? Grab your chance, turn your opinion into an article and send it to us, we'll publish it if it has some value.


4. translators
We're looking for people who can translate articles from Spanish to English. There is a lot of interesting stuff out there about the club and it would be nice we could bring that to you.

We've lost some people along the road (mainly my fault because I didn't have time for people management), but now we're going to organize things better. Al is so happy he'll be Head of Translations... Non-Barça fans welcome!


5. lay-out
You are too polite to say it, but I will say it in your place: the lay-out of this blog is just *
...fill in what you really think...*. I know it and despite the fact that I think the content is the most important thing, this site could use a serious make-over.

So all people who are willing to think about how we could do this and want to form some kind of global dream-team to make it work are invited to do so. Same here: people who're not Barça fans are as welcome. Unless their Madrid fans. Tolerance has its limits.


6. videos
Good videos are a great way to reach out to people, so if you have the skills and/or ideas to make videos, join in. We're also looking for people wanting to help out making compilation videos by going through existing videos.


7. funny stuff
I cannot draw and my computer skills are limited, but I think it would be totally great if we could produce our own cartoons and photoshopped stuff and get them out there on the web. None-Barça fans also welcome!


8. new subjects
We want to broaden the scope of subjects treated a little. Therefore, we would like for example to have people writing about the history of the club, the economic situation of the club, the youth teams and so on. We also want people who could focus on statistics next season.

And last but not least: we want to create our own wag squad that goes out there and finds us the best pictures (and all other relevant information) of the wives and girlfriends of the players. If you're interested in one of these subjects, let us know.



9. your suggestions
You think we're forgetting something? You have ideas about things we should include in the blog? Let us know!




For all this, you can mail me at:

fcbtransfers [at] yahoo [dot] com

just give me some little info about yourself (name or nick, age, daytime activity --- you can lie, don't worry) and what you would be willing to do and I'll get back to you asap. If you want to help but you don't really know how: don't worry, there's enough to do, we'll find you something.

We'll repeat this call every few months from now on, so if you don't have time now, feel free to join in later.

The team difficulty can do better than last season, but the fans can!
Visca'l Barça!





44 comments:

NouBarca said...

pheww. I would feel useless if I cant ad anything to this blog,I would sure holla at you pep

Stigsby said...

Wohoo, the day has come! Let's get ready to build the tower of Barcelona (If you all catch that one ;))

Ekar said...

YAY finally! I dont know what to do...I can translate french if it helps...

hieifcb said...

whooo! i want to help help help! but my English sucks at writing articles xD
NouBarca, i think you can do the Barca wives one... im sure i_love_boobs_and_barca will be the head for tht one!
im going to mail Pep now! yay

Furymaker said...

Great :)
Ill help with translation of some articles like from sportsport.ba and another Bosnian , Croatian , Serbian , ...sites
Im on the net almost whole day and im willing to help , if i find something interesting im going to post it in comment .
Im big Barca fun and i spend time at reading news of Barcelona so ill be happy to help.
:)

Harshawardhan said...

whoa! it must be raining mails already eh pep?

Harshawardhan said...

hey stig! good to see u man! was wondering whats become of u..

Unknown said...

i would like to write opinios/articles but i think i'm too young for this i'm 15 btw but this blog begane to take a very big part in my life

hieifcb said...

hey Pep, i make websites.
here's a personal website of mine:

http://cheng.r0bbie.nl

if you think im good enough, tell me =D

Xaviniesta said...

Me!!!! emailed ya just now pep, i forgot to say my age tho, nways its 20.

this is awesommme.

Anonymous said...

@Stigsby
Is your homepage http://fcbdraft.blogspot.com/ about FC Barcelona or only your privat life?

/Doug

Moe said...

Are we allowed to hack madrid websites??

Stigsby said...

Hehe hey Harsh, I just hit yet another busy period, but I'm back again now! I haven't commented on the blog itself in a while though, finding the transfer debates abit too heated at the moment ;).. How are you mate?

@Doug, it's not my site, it's a site created by Pep where contributors could upload their articles.

Anonymous said...

@Stigsby

Thank you for your busy answer.

I know you are Danish, so I think that you will write for my Danish online magazine about FC Barcelona - CULES? This website is www.cules.dk

You can also write to me at
cules[at]cules[dot]dk

/Doug

Anonymous said...

@ Pep

You've got Mail!


/Doug

Fred_FCB said...

Good stuff, we are growing!
Expect my contributions soon, as allways with a swedish angle!

Love
Fred

Fred_FCB said...

Gah I forgot. Pep n' co, im on vacation atm. Will be back in a few days and I'll contact you then. Id be interested in writing commentaries/opinions with (but not limitd to) anything scandinavian in view.

ograsrot said...

Maybe with the new desig we could have a little flag to represent which contry/region the commentaters are from, kind of what they have going on barcelona.theoffisde.com....

But really, If the design changes, I'm sure going to miss this one. Over the year I've been a follower, I've come to like it actually. It's unique.

barcacanada said...

i can help canadianize the blog articles by adding "eh...eh...eh" at the end of each sentence!

Bero said...

I would like to help,but I just don't have enough time...I have one suggestion:new design for this site,something connected with Barcelona...

Harshawardhan said...

hey stig.. am fine man... yup the transferdebates are a little more than heated up.. hehe.. lets see what the end of summer has in store for us fans!

Ba-Beka said...

I am Albanian , live in Michigan USA.
I can translate from Albanian , Macedonian-serbian-bosnian - almost same thing except Albanian , to English.
So i am ready to help , i check the web every day after 3pm -21:00 EU Time , and if there is something i can do holla at me .

I love this Site.

cheers USA

Marc4barca said...

this is a good idea, let everyone feel they are truly apart of the blog. gotta think what i could do lol, i am very limited.

Kambo said...

Has anyone heard of Kamikaze lately? I miss his articles!

rObReV7 said...

Ahhhhh, This is the best idea i have ever heard! Just like barca is a club for the people, this site gets us all involed! Id love to help, so i might try the funny stuff lol

Just one thing pep! You talked about a re-design, my advice to you is to glitz the site up, but keep the layout. It is such a simple and effective layout with the news stories in the middle, and you have done a fantastic job so far, that changing what we all love completley wouldn't seem right. Its just my opinion lol, im going to study media at uni next year and i think this is the best Barca website out there.

I really hope i can help more! :)

Random Juve Fan said...

I really like this blog even though i am a fan of Juventus. Things that could be perhaps added to the blog that i think would be interesting could be player biographies. I really enjoy reading about the players history when they are signed, or about prominent members of the squad. Perhaps a talent scout showing young players that Barca have been linked with? I also have some pretty cool videos of Messi, Ronaldo, Romario, Rivaldo, Edgar Davids, Maradona and Ronaldinho if they could be used for something i would be happy to contribute...or if your looking for news from a certain club from Turin i could help=P. But the blog is really great already. FORZA JUVE!!!

Anonymous said...

Whatever happened to the insideknowledge guy, he sounded legit. I want him to write stuff.

Random Juve Fan said...

I also have videos of Thierry Henry but most of the footage is from his Arsenal days so probably not relevant. I didnt make these videos FORZA JUVE

R10FCB said...

hey, i would love to try and help. at the moment im doing year 12 so im a bit busy but at the end of this year my brother and i can make compilation videos. we have done so in the past with some videos on youtube (i pick the music and clips he does all the important stuff like putting it together and making it smooth.)
ill contact you pep after my school year is done to see if you still would like me to contribute.

Dan R said...

This is a call to all fellow programmers here to assemble a little fcbtransfers interact program so that everyone can do stuff from their desktop =)

anyone interested?

FCB.my said...

Any thoughts of developing a new website with forum and stuff? i'll probably could help in that sense.

Marc4barca said...

do you like have to downlaod clips to make videos are do you take them from somewhere? if you do take them from somewhere can someone tell me how.

pep said...

I saw the mailbox was already quite stuffed this morning, keep it coming...

I'll start answering people this evening, but it could take me some days to go through all of them, so don't worry if I don't reply immediately!


As for kamikaze: he has joined the Somali pirates and will donate his part of the ransom money to Barcelona so we have more transfer budget! He'll be back in six months time... That's what I call sacrifice for yout club!

sashi said...

i would love to help in creating videos. but if someone like barca4life or someone who has already done it can give some suggestions as to where videos can be picked from and wat tools can be used to edit them n compile it.

i can help in making the UI more colourful. we can have a welcome page of sorts wit the Barca logo and having a picture of our squad and then there's a ENTER button to get into this page.

already existing in the left pane are players names and news stories linking them with Barca. wat we can do is add a profile page for payers.

wat more can be done is the personal info about all the members of the blog. i know who NouBarca is but it would be nicer to know him more as Showbore (which i am) :) same way with other members. the extent of personal info each person is willing to give is his prerogative but i would love it. how much ever we argue, we are all like 1 family and this way it would get us all closer.

my suggestions. Pep, im not sure how much help i can be of but i would be happy to.

maximi83 said...

hi pep!
I could help you at the redesign!
So I'm able to do webdesign, webprogramming, and Search Engine Optimization.

You got Mail!

ej said...

Huhu

AS you may noticed , my opinions are always right :)))

so i would like to help writing a monthly article about FCB.

Anonymous said...

Mohammad Ali,

there are soooooooo many people here in the arab world who love and admire AL BARCA.

The Arab world needs to know the latest hot news about their beloved club.

Some wants to help also by recommending youngesters football talents.

A lot can be done,
I am ready for the translation into arabic, from English of course.

moro20000@hotmail.com

Anonymous said...

I would like to translate Finnish columns and stuff and send to you pep.I have one column about busquets but it is kinda old,from march,is it ok? Btw i am on vacation and my only internet access is in my phone and it is so slow...probably in autumn could send you something to reject :D tero

buj said...

I have one suggestion to any of you guys who plans on changing the website. Please don't make it too graphic heavy as alot of ppl, i'm sure, constantly follows this site via mobile phone. So please keep it simple.

TengkuAmir10 said...

how bout making this blog look more barca like???i have photoshop too.can i help??

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm a comic artist, if you need some Barca related illustrations or comic strips, just tell me. I'm quite good at drawing Barca players, hahaha. Also I would like to translate Japanese articles.


Anyways, keep up your good work!

Anonymous said...

check e-mail man ;p

MBB said...

Pep, Love the blog! What I find so nice with it is it's simplicity. PLEASE do not allow this blog to evolve into what other Barca blogs have become i.e. filled with stupid pics at everyones postings!

pep said...

Going through the mails, guys (and girls!). You'll all get a reply Thursday or Friday, don't worry. Thanks for all the nice words already!

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