Now, when it comes to who signed with who, that is news. In response to Daniel’s question, my opinion of real news is album releases, information about special Southern Gospel events, group turnover, SG people being interviewed by secular media, awards, and so forth. My complaint is with “silly” posts such as who had a concert rained out, or who visited a little radio station in MS, and so on and so forth.

Susan, I don’t want you to feel as though I’m attacking your website. I have the same disagreements with many other Southern Gospel sites. I happened to mention yours by name because I was responding to Chris’s observation. Your organization has done a great job of creating a cyber SG community and I commend you for it. And, I appreciate your fair coverage of regional and professional groups. SGN was the first media group to highlight the Collingsworths, if I remember correctly. In fact, it was about that time that I started consistently visiting the site. Obviously, you don’t write the press releases, you just post them. My difference in opinion has to do with what merits a post. When I get brave and committed enough to run my own site (or SG blog for that matter), I’ll let you guys dog me for my methods. Thanks for your interaction.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time here talking about what is not news. What is news?

More to the point, what types of stories would you like to see covered on this blog and on other websites?

You are probably right. You know one of the things about message boards is that they get real redundant. (highest, lowest, favorite, ect) SN boards try to combat that by having one giant thread for a specific group but then most people don’t want to wade through it looking for new posts.

I do think the content of your site is greatly improved. It is one of the only places to get an honest review of a cd as well.

You are a fan, no doubt, but once you pursued a career, whether professional/full-time or semi-professional/part-time your perspective changed.

You might think the fans that want to read about who signed where or with whom are few and far between, but you are incorrect in that thought. It is actually the other way around. And remember that just because you didn’t find the Gardner’s Press Release of interest didn’t mean that their “1000 fans” felt the same way. In this industry there are as many regional groups with almost as large of a fan base as many of the pros.

I remember when people where saying, “Who is the Collingsworth Family? I’ve never heard of them.” i remember Deon making the statement that they (Collingsworth) sold more product than most well-known pro groups; and people scoffing – no way! We are fans of an industry that doesn’t operate like the rest of music-dom. We really are mostly an Indie Industry.

Good question. Posting is down, but traffic isn’t. Doesn’t seem to make sense, but those are the facts.

I follow several different message boards on the net including several message boards geared towards message board administrators and message board posting is down currently all over. It seems that the trends have shifted to be more “community minded.” Blogs and social networks are the current trends and that is fine because SGN’s goal has always been to be more of a community and not just a message board.

Most likely trends will switch and message boards will again re-surface as the “hot” thing. Either way we haven’t seen it affect us in a negative way. Our stats have continued to grow and we are happy. Of course we are always looking for ways to improve and we welcome input and suggestions.

Thank you for asking what we thought, I appreciate it. There are many times I wish we could do a round table discussion with our readers. it would be fun and helpful.

Susan, is this the case and why? Have people lost interest. There is so much else to read on the site maybe that is priority now. I think it is a great site BTW.

Out of curiosity, how do you figure out what news fans are going to be interested in? Do you have a way outside of the comments to gauge the popularity of a news item? It would be interesting to see what trends develop there.

And, by the way, I was rightly corrected by you. Your particular site does have a lot more than a news section. However, I first started visiting your site to get the latest in Southern Gospel news. It’s the minor stuff that has turned me off. I agree with your assessment that 95% of the info is not newsworthy (and, full disclosure, I’m sure my group has released a statement or two that would fit in that category). Your artist spotlights and your guest commentaries are strong points in addition to what I see as your greatest service to the “normal” fan: the SGN messageboard.

I go back to my earlier observation that “an easy and free publicity ploy is a news release to any of the SG blogs and fan sites. It’s going to happen.” If I want to read it I will. If not, I’ll just ignore it and go on my way.

I’ve enjoyed the debate. Daniel, you hit a hot button!