MyFootballWriter will celebrate its tenth birthday this summer.
It has been quite a journey. On and off the pitch.
But now I need a chat with Mr Branson. To get us to our 20th birthday.
And the chance to do that is here.
But to ‘Pitch to Rich’ this summer, I need you to vote. Here.
Hit the red button. Like it was BGT.
Why?
Because without Gary’s stewardship of the site over the last few years, we wouldn’t be getting the candles and party hats out this summer.
The fact that we can still attract some 18,000 of you to the site every month is testament to Gary’s commitment and craft – and that of his stable of writers who ‘get’ what MyFootballWriter is all about.
Simply delivering a good, entertaining read about everyone’s favourite football club.
And allowing people to add their own comments and opinions thereafter – safe in the knowledge that they won’t be ripped apart for begging to differ.
But as we start to plan for the next ten years of MFW’s life, I need this favour off you.
We need to move to mobile.
Where the vast majority of you now read the site. On your mobiles.
And we need to come up with a cunning plan to monetise that mobile site; to at least keep Gary and the team in a beer and a curry once a month.
To enable us to add new writers; fresh features. How we might do video, for example.
All of which will demand a funding round. Into our cunning plan. Something called Addiply. ‘For ads that add then multiply…’
It is where I have been for the last 4-5 years; working on a new model for mobile journalism – one that finally reunites local advertisers with local audiences in a mobile setting.
But doesn’t p*ss you off like every other intrusive and irrelevant mobile ad does; not when you can now all install ad blockers onto your mobile device.
We have to be more useful, more helpful and more relevant to your lives than ever before. We have, in short, to wholly re-imagine the business of advertising.
Which is what we have done.
Tried to make mobile advertising a force for good. Your good.
Get a ‘Message’ from the Coach & Horses that they have got an offer on – as you read a match preview en route to the ground on a new and free MFW mobile app.
Or an offer from the East of England Co-Op as you read the same preview pulling into Thorpe Station.
It could equally be a ‘Message’ from the police; an alert, rather than an ad – warning people of a RTA at Trowse as they head home.
The offer could be from the county council – to utilise the Park & Ride on match days; or even a prostate cancer warning from the local health authority to all our 50-something, male readers.
Useful, helpful, relevant.
Puts you, our community, first. But keeps MFW in beers and curry for the next ten years on a new mobile app platform.
Hence the favour.
To pitch this to Richard Branson. “Pitch to Rich”, as this summer’s VirginMedia Business ‘VOOM’ competition has it.
And as I said, to get that chance, we need votes. It’s our Britain’s Got Talent moment. When you all get on your red buttons at home.
Only our red button is *here*.
At the top of our ‘pitch’ to Branson and a Peter Kelly, the boss of Virgin Media.
Have a read; watch the ugly mug talk about what Addiply wants to do. In a wider context – not least in that London/TfL setting in the event of another Paris attack.
But it can all start here. With us. In Norwich and Norfolk.
On MyFootballWriter.
Keeping you lot safe and entertained for another ten years…