Purple Pain Move

Hi everyone,

What does a great Vikings internet community look like to you?

I'd be interested in hearing what members of Purple Pain think that would look like. It's a question I wrestle with daily because I've found myself helping lead a Twins internet community called TwinsDaily.com that has become more real than anything I had dreamed.

Purple Pain has that kind of potential too. In just a couple of months, Melanie, Maestro/Reignman, and many more have worked to build something that is increasingly rare on the internet - a respectful, thoughtful and fun community that isn't afraid to connect with one another and share its passion.

That might sound a little high and mighty for a place with a thread called "Tedrian Pondwater," but I'll argue that it's important for us to embrace our passions. The world doesn't reward caring. Caring is risky. Finding a community that supports that caring - even if it's caring about the numbskull decision to not call an onside kick with two minutes left in the Packers game, EMPOWERS us. I actually get angry when I hear a talking head mock internet forums or blogs. It's so easy to find stuff you don't like. It's easy to not care about things. Caring takes personal courage. What kind of ding-a-ling wants to discourage that?

Anyway, I think Purple Pain has become an example of the positive impact a forum can have and a good example off a caring connected community. And I reached out to Melanie because I wanted to see what her vision was of a great internet community.

My own vision is still developing. Our Twins community started two years ago and came from a very different direction. Several bloggers and I had been hollering into the void for as long as a decade and decided it was time to join forces. We did – and overnight we went from a couple of thousand page views to 20,000. In less than three years we've racked up 25 million page views from one million unique visitors. The forums have grown to 500+ registered users. We publish hundreds of blog posts from new writers who have found their voice and audience through the site.

That has fueled a lot that we didn't plan. Such as writers creating hundred page pdfs that break down the upcoming offseason for our members. And events that fill large restaurants downtown – in the middle of the offseason. And coverage of spring training by our writers with their expenses covered by ads on the site. And local companies who do things like offer hundreds of free pizzas to our community members for participating in the forums or on twitter. And partnerships with the Twins, Star-Tribune, Pioneer Press, KFAN and ESPN who end up talking about our members topics. It's been unbelievable.

I'd like to visit a similar community when autumn rolls around and Purple Pain seems like a great core to build around. We've worked on a site that has the same functionality as Twins Daily. We've partnered with four great writers to provide daily in-depth coverage of the Vikings: KFAN's AJ Mansour, ESPN 1500's Bo Mitchell, Vikings Territory's Arif Hasan and Joe Oberle from the Associate Press. We went live with what we had in August and have had 100,000 unique visitors stop by since then. We called it Vikings Journal.

 
But the final piece that we've been looking for is a solid community to play in our sandbox. I think I found that when I stumbled across Purple Pain a few weeks ago. That's what I wanted to talk to Melanie about Sunday morning before the Packers game - porting Purple Pain from the proboards platform to our platform so we can all see whether we can grow this community beyond the message board.

There may be those who can't see beyond the cosmetic and wonder if this means the end of Purple Pain. I hope you know enough about me by now to know that destroying a community would make me personally ill. It is my belief that the platform is just a superficial shell around a community, albeit one to which we can become attached. But the community goes much deeper. By moving to a different platform, we would empower the community to become more, in the same way the community empowers its members to become more.

 
The vibe, the connections, the control, the ownership and even the name would come with Purple Pain. But the move would add…

1. Even more ability to customize the forums. We know our look-and-feel and functionality won’t be exactly the same right away. But we’ll work towards it immediately by opening up a thread on the board where members can spell out changes they would like to see. And I’m not talking about just changing colors or adding widgets. I'm taking about functionality and behind-the-scenes programming.

 
2. Access to tens of thousands of unique users that stop by to read stories at Vikings Journal every month. And those stories are integrated with the forum threads, so a comment on the thread appears with the story and vice/versa. Imagine the discussion that can spring from that much interaction.

 
3. Members can have their own blog and their stories can be promoted to the front page to run along Vikings Journal’s writers where it’s read by media and Vikings employees that stop by the site regularly.

 
4. Interesting forum threads and stories can be tweeted out to tens of thousands of Vikings fans who have signed up to follow our Twitter accounts.

5. In-season and offseason events similar to Twins Daily’s Winter Meltdown, which drew 250+ people and featured talks by Twins President Dave St. Peter and retired Twins pitcher Scott Erickson.

6. Corporate sponsorships like Papa John’s, who donated hundreds of pizzas to members last year.

7. Ties to KFAN, Star-Tribune, Pioneer Press and ESPN through Vikings Journal and affiliated sites.

8. Registering at Vikings Journal will also grant membership for our Twins and Wild (and soon, Wolves) sites which have their own resources that we can leverage.