Who Do We Think We Are?

Initially, I was thrilled to see this game on the schedule. I mean, with Tennessee and Boise State on our schedule, and the anticipated improvement we should see on the offense, we have the makings of a break out season. I know, but I am an optimist at heart…

But now, I’m not so sure.

Boise State was rather shrewd about this. I don’t think Boise State will be as good this year as they were last. We play them in their house first (when they’re likely weaker than they will be next year). Having the games in back-to-back seasons also allows their coaches to have a good idea what talent they’ll have on the field. And get the most recent recruiting class, which was probably one of its best through to their second year before they see the Rock.

I’m also concerned this will be the 2007 version of the Nebraska win. Yes, any win on the road is a good one. But if Boise State completely flops this season, then the win is meaningless to us. Yet, it could mean a lot for their conference if they beat us while struggling with their own.

We lost our opener to the eventual National Champion Florida Gators. We don’t have an opponent who is close to that on this year’s schedule. Maybe that means we can win out. But will that even matter. I don’t think we’ll ever be the media darlings that Boise State was. I’d almost rather we played Florida again, or maybe Oklahoma…

I hope this will be my last post that only relates to the site for a while. There is a lot going on and I’d much rather be writing about it. But alas, I feel compelled to document the final touches.

I’m pleased that we’ve had over 100 members sign up.  That is a lot more than I expected, especially since the site is currently open to view without signing up.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the domain name pointers work well and we don’t have a gap.  If so, we should have a great transition and not dip too far in page views.
I have gotten the start dates moved over for all of the users. I plugged post counts, but many of them will change through the end of the month, so I will run through them one more time tomorrow night. So, for those who do like to keep a tally of their history, it’ll be there.

I figured out the sitemap this morning. I ran one that should get us some ranking out of Google. It did seem to help the ads be more appropriate. So, we’ll see if we get some hits from that.  I’m going to continue to work on optimizing the site as this only helps us get traffic.
I’ve done most of what needs doing from a coding perspective and have added all of the content that I have with the exception of some sports schedules after March. The football schedule just came out, so I’ll be adding that soon, too! So, really most of what is left is cosmetic.  I’ll now be able to focus on those tweaks over time and hope to make the board better and better.
We’ve had a few times where people have had issues with chat. I’m not sure I can fix that issue with the current application. I am going to go back and see if my original choice will work (I took the easy way out after my initial try was unsuccessful). I’m not in a hurry to move, but do what to have a reliable chat room for members.

One of our members turned me on to a whole new set of videos on Youtube and a few people have sent pictures. So, I’ve recently updated those services. Eventually I’ll have to break the multimedia into categories to ensure it will load fast enough. I’ll be updating the content at least weekly, so check back often.

The auction is ready to go! I’m very excited about the offerings and hope we’ll raise some serious cash for the Eagle Club. Help me make it happen with a bid.

After we go live, my next mission will be promotion. I have a lot of ideas. Some will depend on members.  Help me get the word out!

And finally, we’re still looking for Sponsors.  I’ve had a few people who seemed interested, but only the one who signed up so far.  There are four open Sponsor slots on the message board and four open Sponsor slots on the main page.  You can buy a spot at about the same cost other sites charge members per month!

Okay, I’ll quit rambling…

Okay!  Just over one week to go before our launch!  The to-do list, although short, is proving a challenge after all.  Most of the remaining things are back end things that aren’t very visible, but are turning out to be very challenging.

The bad news:

• There is a bug related to the chat and firefox.  It only seems to affect users who try to use the private message.  This is a very complex issue (and a program I still haven’t really figured out), so it may take some time to fix (please be patient). 
• The calendar is still not functioning the way I want it to.  I’ve put an initials legend link at the bottom to help you know which sport is which, but the drill down links are not working.  As such, the time of the game is not right (assuming the schedule had it right to begin with).  As a general workaround, I’ve put a link to the actual schedules through the initials ledend.  Know that I’ll be working on this too, but it isn’t a priority at this point.
• I want to have a decent sitemap for the site, which should drive traffic from the search engines.  This might be the most difficult task to date (which is bizzarre to me).  This is one thing I will get done before we go live.  Wish me luck!
• We need more pictures for the gallery.  I’ve had one member step forward and donate, but the gallery is really bare.  If you have some good pics, please send them to me!

 The good news (and this is a preview you won’t get anywhere else):

• The Auction items that Dick Vogel sent me are fabulous!  Autographed photos of some of the Southern Miss greats to include, Ray Guy, Todd Pinkston, and Reggie Collier.  I still have a little work to do to get it ready.  The auction goes live on March 1st.
• It appears I’ll be able to manually update post counts and user registration dates in the database.  It is a bit tedious, but I figured most folks would appreciate that.  I still have to figure out how the date formatting works (not intuitive at all), but I’ll get there.
• About 90 users have registered.  While not a holding a candle to the 1400 or so who are registered on the old site, I feel this represents a more accurate picture of who is currently using the service.
• The current messageboard is getting more views than ever!  We topped 125K in January and appear to be on target to match that this month.
• Chat is getting a decent amount of traffic during basketball and baseball games.  You should log in and check it out!  You should log into the messageboard first (www.eaglepost.info/board/) and then click on the chat link (top right section of the header).
• We announced our first H’burg based sponsor last week.  I’ve also had two other inquiries, but no others have formally signed.  If you know any H’burg based businesses that you believe would consider advertising on a site like ours, please tell them about us.

I am pleased to announce that the new EaglePost, which is scheduled to go live on March 1st has secured our first Hattiesburg-based, long-term sponsor - Dohtery’s Furniture and Bedding (http://www.dohertysfurniture.com/).

I thought I’d take a moment to explain why this is so important to the future of EaglePost:

To users, EaglePost has always been and will always be free. That is not to say that the service is. The cost to run and operate EaglePost has always been covered by the Board Owner and other generous individuals who’ve made donations.

EaglePost has never had the resources to promote itself to any great extent (the Board Owners have in the past spent some money on promotion, but very little). You are most likely here because you heard about the site through word-of-mouth. I would like to change that. I would like to apply additional resources to ensure that every USM fan is aware this service exists.

To fund this additional promotion (beyond what I’m capable of donating), I have made a few changes to EaglePost. You’ll notice some Google ads on some services and the Sponsor Board. I currently have a few national services as sponsors and a “donation” button on these Sponsor Boards. The addition of Doherty’s Furniture and Bedding is a major step in the direction I hope the Sponsor Board goes for a number of reasons. Most importantly is to help build a relationship between the Hattiesburg-based businesses and the USM fan base. There has been a lot of discussion about this relationship and the basic conclusion we always seem to get to is that a good relationship is mutually beneficial.

So, with that in mind, when you or any friends or family are in the market for furniture and/or bedding I hope you’ll stop by and tell Bill I said, “Hi”. I cannot thank him enough for his support of EaglePost.

Go Eagles!

Okay, with three weeks to go, I feel really good about the new site.  It seems to be stable and I’ve worked out a lot of the kinks.  Still have some work to do, but most of that won’t take too long.

Messageboard

On the messageboard, I created a new ranking system.  All transition members will be ranked as VIP members.  I wanted to try to update post counts and start date, but unfortunately the new system won’t let me do that easily.  I’m going to keep looking into it though…

Chatroom

The Chatroom has been up and stable for almost a month now.  We’ve had some decent traffic during a basketball game, and it seems to be working well.  Remember to login to the messageboard first as they share the same user database.

Pictures

I’ve had some baseball pictures come in and I hope to get them posted next week.  I have limited Internet access this week, so I haven’t had enough time to get them done.  We’re always looking for more, so please do contribute to our library!

Auction

The Eagle Club has donated some items for the auction.  It will be run similar to the previous one, with just a little tweak on closing to make it fair for all bidders (since this is email based, we need to have appropriate time for feedback on the winning bids at the end).  The auction will formally start on March 1st with the kickoff of the new board.  I’ll have the items up prior to the actual start of the auction, so stay tuned!

Signed Pro-Line Helmet Of Brett’s Alma Mater. Comes with Favre C.O.A, Photo Of Brett Signing, and all matching holograms.

Authentic Autographed Brett Favre All American Bowl Jersey with COA and picture of Brett Signing the Jersey.

The crowd of just over 3,000 watched and many of us listened (thank God for Yahoo! Sports), as Southern Miss pushed ahead in the second half to beat UTEP at home last night.  It is always good to defeat a conference foe, but this win was even sweeter given the way USM lost in El Paso the last time the two teams met.

The Eagles are playing very well as they approach the final stretch of the season, which is ideal going into the C-USA Tourney.  Hopes are high that the team will make a good showing and get a shot at the NCAA Tourney.  But short of winning the C-USA title, that might not happen.  In any case, excitement is building as Eustuchy has put together an exciting, young group that will only improve next year!

Go Golden Eagles!

Okay, I’ve fixed the problems with Firefox (at least it seems to work with version 2.0.0.1).  Time to upgrade if you haven’t already!

I’ve also gotten a lot done on the cosmetic issues here and there, so my to do list is getting shorter and shorter.  March 1st here we come!

We had a very good run on the chatroom last night.  Lots of people dropped in from time to time during the USM basketball game.  Seems to be working well.  Not a heavy load test, but enough to show it functions.

I’d still like folks out there when they get time to get a good cross-section of users feedback.  So, enjoy!