Stadium Tech Report’s main “news feed” — our chronological list of published posts — will now include submissions from our sponsor partners, starting today. There are several reasons behind this innovation, but believe me when I say it’s all being done mainly for the benefit of our readers.
Yes, it’s also a business decision. But I would like to take this moment to remind all our readers that while it takes resources to report, write, edit and produce all our content — stories, profiles, columns, podcasts — we have never asked our readers for a dime. Plus, we still absolutely refuse to sell our email list or any other reader information we collect. So when it comes to footing the production bill, our readers remain our valued guests.
Thanks to the support of our sponsorship partners, we are able to keep doing what we do best, which is to cover as much of the stadium technology marketplace as we possibly can, in a fully objective and non-paid-for way. We have never done paid-for content under the STR name, and we never will. That’s not changing.
But starting today, we will also no longer turn a blind eye to the beneficial information that is being produced on a daily basis by many companies, especially by vendors and service providers who are directly in our coverage space. With clear marking and identification as vendor contributions, some of those posts will now be part of our “news feed” flow, making it a sort-of “business social network” with multiple contributors.
Since part of the daily business life for most of us now contains some time spent perusing offerings on various social media platforms, we are all aware that for many companies, speaking directly to potential customers has become a preferred method of communication. In between the I’ve-started-a-new-job posts and pictures of team dinners, there are some very good offerings directly from companies that contain news and information that isn’t being “published” anywhere else.
As a longtime journalist I can tell you that the days of companies putting out press releases and waiting and hoping for a story are mostly over. Yes, there are still stories produced via media outreach but for many companies, especially smaller startup firms, product news or details of customer deployments begins and ends with social media posts.
Instead of fighting that trend, we’re embracing it and inviting our sponsor partners to add their informative content pieces into our flow. We already have our first submission from our newest sponsor, Wicket, which provides statistics and details of Wicket’s multi-purpose deployments with the Cleveland Browns. Look for more sponsor contributions to post soon.
To the potential sponsors in our marketplace, I would say that your marketing plans might find great benefit to be part of a tightly focused business version of a social network, where your information is not competing with divergent messages from other industries and individuals. Come help us build a business-info network for our industry with your content and your sponsorship support.
And to our readers, my hope is that the sponsor posts will not be a distraction but instead will be an easier way for you to find news and information coming directly from the vendors and service providers who may ultimately become part of your own technology mix. I’m aware that not all of the posts will resonate with all of the readers, but like with any shared-contributor network by now we have all learned our own methods of sifting through the feeds to find the things that most interest each of us. You can continue those same practices here.
To make that job easier we will not be like some other publications, which try to mask and disguise “sponsor content” as staff editorial. All our sponsor posts will be very clearly marked, labeled and colored to ensure you know when you’re reading a sponsor post and when you’re reading something directly from the STR editorial team.
Our goal is to build a network that reflects the focus of our mission, which is to be the go-to publication for the stadium technology professional community. By adding this opportunity for sponsors to bring their best information to the table we think we’re expanding that vision by not thinking that we can produce every piece of information that might be interesting to our readers.
Will it work? Your page views and responses will be part of the answer. Any thoughts, suggestions, comments or criticisms? Like Coach Prime, “I ain’t hard 2 find” so feel free to let me know what you think.
-paul
