Thanks Dave.
How many people do we have downloading the ARRL Audio News via iTunes?
What is the cost for the RSS Audio feed from Fathom?
How many members are asking for this feature?
I appreciate your help.
- Bill
From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ [mailto:dsumner@arrl.org]
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 5:22 PM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: RE: Web project status report
Bill, yes, of course Chris was looking at the legal aspect.
Your members might not recognize “audio RSS feed” but at least some of them would recognize “ARRL Audio News via iTunes” which is one application.
Dave
From: Bill Edgar [mailto:n3llr@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 7:30 PM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: RE: Web project status report
Dave,
I’m assuming that the vetting by Chris was for legal issues and not for overall approval of concept.
I’m really concerned we’re spending more money with Fathom especially since the original project is not finished.
I’m equally concerned that we are spending money for an audio RSS feed for the website. An overwhelming majority of members that I’ve talked to in my division don’t even know what it is, let alone feel it is worth spending additional money on.
We’ve got members who are upset with the website. Below is a sample email from one member Tim Duffy K3LR, a loyal ARRL member and Maxim society member, whose subject title was: Trying to buy at ARRL.org – website still a train wreck.
Hi Bill:
I bought 5 books. It took 32 minutes. I have a 20 MB connection – doing a trace route to the ARRL server – looking at how slow things are – reminded me of dial up connections.
The ARRL website is slow and clunky – to say the least.
I got the Proxy error 5 times during the transaction. If it was any other web site – I would have quit. CQ’s web site is 10 times faster.
32 minutes to buy 5 books – just terrible. Wonder how many people give up – and never come back – this is a sad representation of the ARRL
Back to my original question. When will the web site be fixed? Or is this the way it is?
Did the BOD approve payment (paid the invoice) to the company that produced the current website? If so, double shame. Once for allowing a Purchase Order to an incompetent supplier with no supervision/oversight, then again for paying an invoice for something the ARRL (and its dues paying membership) are still waiting to receive – a usable web site.
73,
Tim K3LR
Your answer to Tim that we would be adding capacity as part of next year’s budget was appreciated and accepted for now, but I’ll bet if you asked the majority of our members, they’d say to use the money requested for the audio RSS feed to pay for additional capacity now. Because Tim is outspoken, we found out that he had a problem with ordering from the website. How many lost sales did we have because other people found the same results with our website being slow and bailed out – and not to come back again?
Please understand that I appreciate the project has new management and it may take a little more time to get it finished AND we’ve seen some good successes, but I’d rather see the website finished than add new features that most member probably won’t use.
- Bill
From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ [mailto:dsumner@arrl.org]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 8:49 AM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: RE: Web project status report
Bill, I explained this in my December 1 report:
The A&F Committee also reviewed a draft contract with Fathom that had been vetted by Chris Imlay. The contract is for two enhancements: the report generator “Widget” mentioned earlier and an audio RSS feed. While our bias is strongly in the direction of doing things ourselves from this point forward, we believe these two projects are within Fathom’s capabilities and that they are better able to deliver them than our own staff will be in a reasonable time frame. I forwarded the proposed contract to Kim Mitola at Fathom just before Thanksgiving; she has acknowledged but needs to confirm their ability to meet the proposed completion schedule in light of the upcoming holidays and other commitments.
Dave
From: Bill Edgar [mailto:n3llr@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 10:01 PM
To: arrl-odv
Subject: RE: Web project status report
Dave,
What are the two enhancements for the website that we need Fathom to do work for us?
Thanks.
- Bill N3LLR