I'll come clean: I've been bad promoting SB Nation's 2.0 platform and all the great community features. Truth be told, I come from a family of salesmen, and of all of them I am the WORST. In particular, I've been bad showcasing features like recommended Fan Posts, posting FanShots on the front page, and uploading more videos. I tend to focus so much on the writing end of things that I forget that there are other toys to play with.
I'm happy to see we have our first recommended FanPost in quite some time, penned by our longtime reader BlueVol03. One thing I've noticed with Fan Posts is folks are just using them to post news that is one or two sentences long, usually followed by a link. If the news isn't detailed enough to meet the minimum word count on the fan Posts, people just cut and past the Your FanPost must be at least 75 words long. Right now it's... text just to meet the word count. This isn't "bad," but it does bother me a bit.
Many of you who make Fan Posts are good writers. I've read your stuff. Equally important to the news you post is your opinion of that news.
Anybody can get "Colts news" anywhere. What I do this for is to hear what you think about that news. I enjoy reading comments as much as writing the articles. I can write articles anywhere, and probably make a decent living at it. But, community blogs offer me the unique opportunity for people to directly comment on what I write. Most of the time, your opinions are more interesting than my initial story. And folks, that's what this "blogging" thing is all about.
With training camp coming up, I'm hopeful we can get people posting more Fan Posts and Fan Shots, especially if you're heading to camp. Also, subjects like My Favorite Game or posts were you articulate your thoughts on players, schemes, coaches, and teams are always great. MasterRWayne did that nice piece on Cover 2, and is penning his Cover 3 (aka the Bob Sanders Beatdown Defense) article. I don't have any plans to write about offensive schemes. So, if I see a Fan Post pop up with a good write-up explaining how the Colts base offense works compared to, say, Jon Gruden's crappy West Coast-hybrid offense, I'd be very tempted to recommended it.
These are just some ideas to spark some more Fan Posts and Fan Shots. I know some of you are here because of the horrible screw job the Indy Star did with the message boards. I hope you like it here, but please don't think of this as just a "blog" or a "pseudo-message board." This is a community tool, and the richness of its content is only as good as you make it. I (and the other writers) are merely parts in this machine which is driven by you.
Ok, end of speech.
This weekend I'll break with tradition a bit and post a Dark Knight film review. I will likely have spoilers, but I'll white them so that the only way you can read them is to highlight the text. Oh, and we have a Dwight Freeney update. It's pretty much what we all thought it would be:
In other Colts injury news, defensive end Dwight Freeney reports he has experienced no setbacks in his comeback from Lisfranc surgery on his left foot that forced him to miss the final eight games of the 2007 season.
“I’m doing everything I used to do: spinning and twisting and pushing, all of that,’’ Freeney said Wednesday.
“I’m getting work on all of that. I’m right on time.’’
Freeney expects to open training camp on the physically unable to perform list as the Colts take a cautious approach with his rehabilitation.
As for the regular-season opener, he added: “I’ll be ready to go without a doubt."