Site Update

[Chisoxfn]

The Talk Chicago Sports Network (TCSN) and Soxtalk.com would like to announce a revoluationary change which will be happening to all of the sites sometime in Q1 2008 (ETA March 15th, 2008). That change will be a content driven network based front page which will have original news and content on all of your favorite Chicago Sports Teams.

 

You may be wondering what will change on the forums and the answer is nothing (unless of course there are new features you'd like to see on the forums). Soxtalk.com will still take you directly to these forums, just like TalkBears.com will take you to the Bears forum. However, when you go to talkchicagosports.com you will be taken to a media driven front page which will provide the forum members with unique Chicago Sports content and articles. The articles will be provided through a partnership with CSweekly, which is a weekly Chicago Sports Magazine (ran in part by one Mario Scalise, who is the founding member of SoxNet.net, which was the precursor to Soxtalk.com).

 

CSWeekly has full press credentials, which means CSWeekly will be able to request interviews that Soxtalk would have never been able to get. This will enable Soxtalk.com to post interviews with any player, including front office personell, which are performed by CSWeekly for the TalkChicagoSports sites. We want to point out that not only will CSweekly do Sox interviews, but Blackhawk fans can now have a way to get there questions (on a random basis, we will PM members privately for questions) answered by one Dale Tallon. This means in the future, if you are curious about what goes on in the MLB draft or NFL draft, well we now will have the resources to get out there and find out (and these resources will include questions that come directly from the forum members). These interviews will not only be text written, but the new front page will have audio outputs of such interviews, plus podcasts, and hopefully one day video clips as well.

 

The site will not only have original articles & interviews specifically for the members here, but it will also have a blog portion (for breaking news stories and more blog-driven pieces) & RSS Feeds (syndication of other stories surrounding all of your favorite teams).

 

Our goal is to be able to complete what will be a place where if a person wanted to, they could hop onto TCSN's front page, see a brief overview (which could be as in-depth as they want it) of what is going on with their teams (both our network stories as well as ESPN/Tribune/Yahoo/ETC) and than pop onto the specific forums to discuss the news and get further information (as only die hard fans like ourselves would be privvy/curious about).

 

The features above are what we have implemented in our early design process, but I'd also like to reach out to all of the members that have made this network even possible and see if there are any other features they would like to see on the front page (aside from the stories, blog, media (ie podcasts/audio clips), and RSS Feeds).

 

In addition to the features found on the web, we hope in the future, to be able to hold viewing parties at specific Chicagoland bars (where Soxtalk members can gather to catch a Sox game...TalkBears members can gather to catch a Bears game....TalkBhawks members can catch a Blackhawk game) which will include prizes/raffles and all sorts of cool stuff.

 

Also, if you take a look at top, you will see a survey which is being performed by CSWeekly. The winner of the raffle will get a Sox jersey.

[BearSox]

awesome stuff, can't wait!

[Steve9347]

This is actually quite cool. Good job.

[Soxbadger]

Nice work, this place has come along way and I would say should be the example for any fan message board on how to make it work.

[whitesox94]

Thats cool, this site is getting there. This site always needed that "homepage"