When I came up with the idea of covering events LIVE on this blog, the sport I expected to be featuring the most was cricket - especially Twenty20 cricket. Afterall, this is where 80% of my profits come from and where I feel my knowledge of the markets and the sport itself is at it's best.
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With this in mind you'll have to forgive me for feeling a little deflated after I covered the T20 game between Pakistan and England last Friday - it just didn't work!
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Don't get me wrong, thanks to the 29 of you who did attend, but it would seem that I hadn't realised how much thought and effort went into my decisions. With it also being quite a speedy game, trying to trade and type just didn't mix and in the end I gave neither 100%. If I'm honest, I probably missed a host of opportunities as I was too busy concentrating on adding a capital letter to a noun or correcting a spelling mistake!
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So, I have a dilemma. The cricket season is about to kick-off big style with the IPL, the T20 World Cup and the all new, singing and dancing Friends Provident T20 tournament on the horizon. I want to keep the coverage going but I also don't want to jeopardise my profits.
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What do I do? Answers on a postcard....
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12 comments:
Focus on trading! There's a time and a place for being sociable, but I find that it isn't during the heat of battle in a fast moving sporting event. Would you rather react to something by being the first to post a comment about it, (big deal!) or by being the first to actually act on it and make a little cash? Anyway - good luck.
Hi Mark.
It seems that a lot of time would have been taken up with moderating comments and correcting spelling and grammar.
Would it not be better to have Cover It Live open but unmoderated and use it as a spring board for brief comments and thoughts to discuss the events.
I often find that discussing events in play can help hugely to gain another viewpoint, but clearly you should run this second to your trading.
Just my thoughts.
TRM
Hi, use Skype's conference facility. Everyone can dial in and you can chat through what you are doing. You can mute everyone so there are no interruptions. Being able to avoid typing should solve the problem. Andy
Why should you tell others what you are doing. Focus on your own trading, not others.
Hi Mark.
Just a thought I had when I was on for the Cricket last week. Why not take off the moderation? Comments I was posting weren't appearing for a while by which time some weren't relevant. I am sure you have the facility to bar anyone taking things too far but to be honest I don't think it would happen.
It would also free you up to trade rather tha worry about what people are posting. I think the concept is a great idea to be honest, much better than a standard boring blog, but obviously I wouldn't let it affect your Trading.
I've noticed some poeple just want to follow your trades which I think is not what you are looking for, just some ideas/information sharing.
With moderation off others could share ideas when maybe you have seen an opprtunity to trade, freeing you to do just that.
Good Luck whatever you decide.
SP
Echo what others have said, unmod the comments and stick to the trading during play, maybe after the first innings have some detailed analysis of the state of the game, or if we have a 10min 10 over break in the IPL like last year do the same but keep it for when there is no cricket actually being played
Thanks everyone - alot of food for thought there.
Cassini - I always place my trades before typing but agree that it can be an unneccessary distraction (e.g. feeling the need to post a comment etc.)
Anonymous (1) - Skype is an interesting idea but there maybe long periods of silence or even worse, the missus shouting at me from the other room! :-)
Anonymous (2) - I guess I like the community idea - trading can be lonely and it's nice to bounce ideas off each other. The NFL match we covered on the blog was a great example of this as it worked really well.
Craig, SP & Anonymous (3) - The unmoderated comments suggestion is a great idea but I think it would be abused if i left it open to anyone. I'm a fussy bugger and like to keep a certain control on the content but what if there was a 'members only' section to the site where people would need to register first etc.? Not sure what the uptake would be but it may put off those who are not serious about trading. Only my initial thoughts and I woudl be keen to know what you think.
All the best,
Mark
Re Skype. Are periods of silence a problem? Same as periods with no typed comments really
I don't think so anonymous....with typed comments you can leave your computer - with spoken comments you leave and you can miss something.
I'd have to agree with Cassini. Trading is difficult enough without additional distractions.
However, if it is still something you wish to pursue, then the idea of providing commentary to save typing at your end. The suggestion to use Skype is the obvious one, but it requires your visitors to have a Skype account.
If you're interested, you might want to look at the chat room I have hosted on my site. It has a voice broadcast facility allowing you to speak to everyone who wants to listen, but they can't talk back.
You could host the room on your site and users wouldn't need anything other than Java installed on their PC, which they've probably already got.
Being a chat room, everyone would still be able to type messages.
Feel free to pop in and have a look.
Alistair
Hi Alistair,
Many thanks for leaving a comment.
I've had a good hard think about voice broadcasting but have come to the conclusion that it's not for me. Got a feeling that they'd be quite boring and there wouldn't be a history of what I'd done to look back on in the future (I like looking at events that I've covered in the past quite a bit).
So, it's back to the drawing board and I'm still scratching my head to tell the truth.
All the best mate.
Mark
Hi Mark,
I think this is a great idea and even looking back and reading it, it seemed like a good experience for all.
I'm not sure anything's been invented yet that'd let you do this the way you'd want really to. ;) I'm imaging a live video link up with shared screen views and VOIP chat... well maybe not.
Typing and trading at the same time is difficult - just takes your eye off the ball. I once did a similar session with matt over at Punt.com and both of us were on Googlechat (I think). That worked great for us whilst we both watched a tennis match. Maybe because there was just two of us.
I guess it depends what you're trying to achieve. If it's to share strategies and tips then maybe you need to consider acronyms or abbreviations to make for quicker typing. It's just a bit of chat to make the game more enjoyable then I think you're almost there.
Whatever, I think you should keep on at it. Rome wasn't built in a day.
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