In case you haven’t noticed, I have been making some upgrades, changes, and tweaks to the site. Part of this is that I am becoming more comfortable with WordPress after moving over from Blogger. Another part is that I have a bit more time at this point in the year than I do from August through November, or even through December/early January, when Michigan is still in season. Despite my best efforts, the new site didn’t launch until right when football season began, which stunted my abilities to learn the ins and outs of WordPress earlier.
A few things to note:
ADVERTISEMENTS
When Blogger was hosted for free, I had little to no expenses until I started the site redesign drive (which many of you generously contributed to). Now I have a domain and hosting to pay for, as well as some occasional professional help with technical stuff. What I don’t want to do is clutter the site with ads. However, in reading about how to monetize blogs, I have picked out some tips and things that I would like to try, hopefully without being too invasive.
One of those is Amazon Associates. Amazon Associates works by basically giving a finder’s fee to the referring site if something is purchased on Amazon. When you click on an Amazon link, ad, banner, etc. and order something, I can earn 4% or more of that purchase for referring you. I put this in action myself by frequently using MGoBlog’s Amazon portal. I can’t make any money from using my own links. So literally every time I purchase something from Amazon, I go to MGoBlog, click on the Amazon link, and purchase through that link. My way of giving back to that site – where I spend a fair amount of time – is to give them 4%+ of my Amazon purchases. It may not sound like a ton, but it adds up. So if you’re inclined to help, please consider shopping on Amazon through my site. Along with the links I occasionally post within the content, there’s a permanent banner on the sidebar (currently a link to John U. Bacon’s Endzone).
AVATARS
I made a forum post about avatars (LINK). It directs you to Gravatar (LINK), where you can create one avatar to use on any number of WordPress sites that employ Gravatar. All it requires is your e-mail address, a password, and then a picture of your choice. It may not work on all the sites you visit (such as MGoBlog, 247 Sports, Rivals, etc.), but if you participate in other blogs and message boards, it might pop up there, too. I chose a Brandon Minor avatar.
FORUM
I’ve been trying to promote the use of the forum (LINK) more in recent weeks by tweeting some links and such. I’ve posted a fair amount of content on there, stuff that’s not necessarily front-page material, but is still football- or Big Ten- or recruiting-related. Oh, and also an occasional movie trailer or something similar that I’m excited about. You can keep up with comments made both on front-page posts and the forum by skimming the sidebar, which is helpful.
Do you have any other ideas or suggestions for the site?
You need to login in order to vote
Ok, i’ll bite. Why Brandon Minor?
You need to login in order to vote
Well, first of all, he was a pretty good running back who was one of my favorite guys to watch because of his ability and his running style. If he had been at Michigan at a different time – and stayed healthy – he might have been one of the guys we talk about in reverent terms (like Wheatley, Thomas, Biakabutuka, Perry, Hart, etc.). He averaged 5.0 yards/carry at a time when Michigan didn’t have much going for itself on offense (2008 and 2009, especially). And second, I stood up for him at the time when people were calling for younger guys like Sam McGuffie and when the coaching staff kept rolling with McGuffie, Vincent Smith, etc. Basically, he was my Mike Cox before Mike Cox was my Mike Cox.
You need to login in order to vote
Hi magnus,
you know me from mgo. one thing you might not know about me is that i work in digital advertising. Since you’re working so hard on this site, i do have some suggestions about what you should be doing to grow your exposure.
1) adsense: you might or might not know about adsense. essentially, native advertising through content and banner ads and things like that. if you’re looking to make some money off of banner clicks here and there, adsense is a viable / useful tool similar to amazon associates. its not much, but it’s a start from your daily traffic.
however, a better option would be..
2) facebook ads: what you are making from this site should be invested into facebook ads, which is a cheap and extremely effective source of traffic you can invest a few dollars in per week. you see, fb has a “promoted post” option that allows you to target very specific, very niche oriented fan bases and demographics. As you can imagine, its something the 247 site does very well.
If it sounds complicated, it really isnt – i can help you set up an inexpensive campaign that will pay dividends in terms of hundreds of visits to your new posts, and your website becoming more popular overall. Free of charge, I don’t want anything in return.
Good work on the upgrade.
Carlos
You need to login in order to vote
What a clever, evil trick… I just spent the better part of the last hour trying to create a Facebook ad, and it kept glitching whenever I hit “Place Order.”
Just kidding (about the “evil trick” part, but not about the time wasted). I may be contacting you for some help, since I’m clearly incapable of working it out on my own.
Anyway, I do run AdSense on the site. It makes me a decent sum, but the more articles I read, the more I come across people saying “Only 20% of my income comes from AdSense” and stuff like that. So if AdSense were only 20% of my income, then that would be pretty swell. Although I don’t have the time/capital to make blogging my full-time gig, so I can’t do some things that others do. Still, it depends on traffic, so if traffic is static, then so is AdSense for the most part.
You need to login in order to vote
As you know, I’d love to be able to go back and look at YOUR ratings of a player after they commit. Recently, I wanted to see your review for Zach Gentry and Andrew David but I couldn’t find it. I also want to review some of this years earlier commits like Swenson and McKeon.
Also, I’m not a fan of “faded banner bar” at the top of the screen. I’m not a techy by any means so I’m not sure if there are advantages to it. Yes, it constantly keeps the Touch the Banner logo on the screen but the faded part isn’t necessary. I’ll give an example, I start reading an article and then I’ll click below the scrolling bar on the right and the page jumps. However, the next sentence (or paragraph) I want to read is now in the faded part on the top of the page. I can’t read it because I now have to go back to the scrolling bar and re-adjust it so I can read where I left off. If you want to keep the Touch the Banner icon just eliminate the faded part. Sorry if that’s confusing.
Finally, I’m happy to order my Amazon items from your site. Great idea. I love your info and scouting and visit the site daily.
You need to login in order to vote
FWIW, if I’m looking for a commitment post and I’m not logged in to the website already, I either go to Google and type in “zach gentry wolverine touch the banner” or I go to the offer board, click on Zach Gentry, and then click on the link to the commitment post. I’m not as consistent about updating individual player pages, so that’s the less trustworthy manner; that’s one of the things I want to improve. I’m also looking into adding a column to the offer board that would have my TTB Rating.
I get what you’re saying about the faded banner part on the top. I think you mentioned something about that before. Personally, I find it helpful when navigating, because I tend to click back and forth to various links (offer board to offer board to forum to offer board to homepage, etc.). I know I’m not the only one using the site, though, so I should probably get more feedback.
Thanks for any orders you can make through my page/Amazon. I figure I spend $100/month or so on Amazon items, so that’s $48 minimum that MGoBlog gets out of me per year (not to mention HTTV and such)…but it really comes out of Amazon’s pocket, not mine.
You need to login in order to vote
I don’t mind the all the logo and links staying, just suggesting you take out the faded part and make it a solid background (white, gray etc). The faded part acts as a “tease” when jumping to page down and read. I lose a few sentences in the faded part. Also, I never mentioned it before so maybe someone else had the same suggestion.
l just joined Gravatar. Pretty cool.
You need to login in order to vote
Ah-ha. Well, I guess there are at least two of you out there who don’t like the faded part. Welcome to the Gravatar club, Dwight.
You need to login in order to vote
I know I mentioned this in the past, but I’d love to see your ratings on recruit reviews who are not commits. Whether they commit or not, they are the same player, so it gives a feel for your personal preferences. That said, keep up the great work.
You need to login in order to vote
I understand what you’re saying. The reason I stay away from that is threefold:
a) My ratings are intended to attempt to show how a player will perform at Michigan specifically. For example, a dual-threat QB or a tiny speedster RB may be perfectly good prospects, but they might not fit Michigan’s system very well. Or there may be guys who are just going to be buried on the depth chart considering all the other guys around them.
b) Players and ratings change. Just like Rivals and other sites add/remove stars, things change. I simply can’t keep up with the 200-300 prospects Michigan offers, many of whom won’t consider Michigan or will commit early on to other schools.
c) It’s important to me that my information has integrity. Since I don’t have the time to thoroughly review every single prospect, I’m afraid giving grades out would a) take up a significant amount of time and b) dilute the information I provide. Of course, I may well be incorrect in my assessments, but I want to be able to stand behind them. Slapping a 4-star rating on a kid after watching three clips and then moving on to the next prospect is not a great recipe, in my opinion.
I respect your opinion. And in some ways, I wish it was feasible. I just don’t think it’s realistic for my situation, since I’m not a full-time recruiting writer/analyst.
You need to login in order to vote
I think the flaw in this approach is that it is very speculative. See: Derrick Green. It seemed pretty clear you thought he’d be a very good player but apparently it was all dependent on having a great OL. Any back can be highly successful behind a great OL, so that seems like a bit of a cop out. (yes, some guys depend on it more than others, but you get the point.)
We think we’ve stabilized now under Jim Harbaugh, but the truth is that we haven’t known what Michigan football will look like 4 years ahead in a very long time. Even under Carr we transitioned to a zone run game. 2004 looked different than 2000. 2008 (Rodriguez) looked A LOT different than 2004. Ditto 2012 (inept O/solid D) to 2008. 2016 thankfully looks a whole lot different than 2012. What will 2020 look like? Will Michigan be some sort of hybrid Alabama/Stanford powerhouse with a lifer coach. Will Harbaugh be in the NFL? Will Brady Hoke be back in charge with the lessons learned from his back-to-back national championships at Oregon? We don’t know what the future holds.
So, my two cents, evaluate the recruit for the quality of player he is, more so than how good of a fit he is. Just my 2 cents.
You need to login in order to vote
I don’t really care for the assertion that it’s a “cop out.” One of the reasons I started this site was so I could record my own thoughts and evaluate them at later times. I posted a scouting report on Green in August of 2012 that said the very things that ended up being the case with Green. My weaknesses section discussed issues that did become a problem, and my projection section mentions that he would need a good offensive line because he can’t create for himself. Those aren’t things that I bring up with every recruit, but I brought them up with him.
http://touchthebanner.blogspot.com/2012/08/scouting-report-derrick-green.html
As things turned out, obviously my TTB Rating of him was not accurate. I can’t argue that. It’s there for all to see. But if you look for specific descriptions of his game – which the scouting reports are intended to do – then I think it was mostly dead on.
As for not knowing what the future holds, I would argue that’s a flaw in any rating system. If Rivals rates a kid a 5-star before he ever commits, then he goes to a bad situation, the coach gets fired, his two best receivers transfer, his All-American left tackle tears an ACL, etc., then he might not play like a 5-star. Similarly, a low-level recruit might end up in a perfect situation with an up-and-coming coach and a stud QB ahead of him who gets hurt, so then the 3-star kid steps in and makes a name for himself. I don’t think that’s much different than rating a Brady Hoke recruit who finishes out his career for Jim Harbaugh, or rating a Rich Rodriguez recruit who finishes his career with Brady Hoke.
You need to login in order to vote
Predictions are hard and will often be incorrect – for anyone. I think you do a pretty good job at them (beyond RB where I think you are generally off). I don’t really mean it as a critique, I just think that saying the evaluation is context-dependent creates a built-in excuse for players. Your negatives on green were spot on, and the positives were very off. Your overall evaluation was extremely positive for a guy that most would probably categorize as a bust and who was passed over by a lot of other players. I think focusing this is one that where you say “I should have focused on the negatives I identified” and move on.
If a 5-star kid is not productive in college but still makes the NFL (or even the CFL for that matter) the Rivals rankings can make the case that they were correct. If Green goes to Florida and rushes for 1,000 yards next year then I think their rankings will be validated. Since yours are Michigan dependent would you still put that down as a loss or would you say “see I told you he’d be pretty good if he had an OL”. I think it’s a built in excuse is all I’m saying. I think you can evaluate the player for the player he is and then just add a comment about fit separately, since that’s sort of a different issue.
You need to login in order to vote
I’m not referring to all prospects as I would never expect that form a single person. I’m specifically referring to recruits you’ve reviewed (I think you call them breakdowns) that Michigan is heavily involved with that are as of yet uncommitted. You’ve already watched all the film and written a review of the player with strengths and weaknesses. It would seem like a natural extension to assign a grade at that point.
I don’t recall you doing many of these reviews recently. Seemed more common on the old site.
You need to login in order to vote
Ah, okay. Well, maybe that’s a little more feasible.
Most of my scouting reports on individual players come out-of-season. There’s too much other stuff to write during the season. I posted one last week, and there will be more coming up soon. So that’s kind of the explanation for the timing. You’re right that I haven’t done many on the new site, because it launched in August.
You need to login in order to vote
I enjoy and appreciate the site. Keep up the good work.
You need to login in order to vote
And I appreciate your comments…even if we do butt heads quite a bit.
You need to login in order to vote
I view it as a discussion. Sometimes that means a debate which can occasionally devolve into an argument, but I hope you appreciate that my opinions are stated with all due respect. I wouldn’t bother having the conversation with somebody who didn’t have interesting opinions and insights to offer that are different than my own.
You need to login in order to vote
Not sure if you will see comments from this far back but a feature I’ve always wanted was a page containing all the committed players. That would be an easy way to find the welcome posts and ratings. Could even be a depth chart of the team with columns for each year going into the future so we can look back at write ups from when they committed in a couple years.
You need to login in order to vote
Yep, I see these comments, too. I get an e-mail with every comment just to make sure I don’t miss anything. I’m not sure how manageable such a suggestion would be, because the offer boards are quite a bit to keep up with already. But I do appreciate the feedback, and I’ll keep it in the back of my mind.
You need to login in order to vote