Category: nologam

  • Nologam eSports (AKA, NGM eSports)

    Over the past couple of years, I have started to get more and more interested in eSports and while I haven’t spoken much about it, I have watched streams and followed a couple of websites about eSports (CS:GO primarily)

    Last June, we had started a small CS:GO team that was just affiliated with us, they won a couple of games and quietly disbanded and nothing more was said.

    While they were playing their couple of games, we were getting a site ready for team news and that, but obviously it was not finished.

    So, now, we are going to go back to the drawing board and make Nologam eSports a thing, but not in the same capacity.

    We are going to have eSports news for League and probably CS initially but expanding later on.

    This is just a rough idea that I am putting down on the table and hopefully I can follow through with this plan coming into the summer of 2016 🙂

     

  • Music Bot for Nologam

    So, a couple of nights ago, I introduced a new bot into my TeamSpeak known as the ‘Nologam Music Bot’

    It sits in the channel and plays music…whether it is from a radio stream, a YouTube link or uploaded file, it can do it.

    At the moment, it is playing a old radio station from Belfast known as Energy 106 which I grew up with and still love the music that they air today!

    What type of music do you like? Send me some YouTube, Spotify links via Twitter: @PadraigFahy

  • Trying to think outside the box

    I am toying with the idea to put a landing page to invite more users to Nologam. As I have said before, it has been really difficult to come up with ideas that would work in this situation.

    Bounce rates are at like 40% which is not good (Should be under 30% if possible) and I feel that more people would be discouraged from the website if they have to do multiple clicks/taps on their computers/phones to access the main part of the site which is the forums.

    What is the best way to approach this?

    Please let me know via Twitter @PadraigFahy as I am very interested in how to increase A) Hits to the site and B) (and more importantly) User Retention!

    This is starting to sound like my previous post :/

  • 07/01/2016

    I don’t really have anything to talk or think about this evening.

    Mostly have played World of Warcraft, done a couple of Nologam bits and pieces, Final Fantasy XIV and watched some CES videos.

    So instead of dragging this out. I am going to end tonight with a music video!

     

  • Issues relating to promoting and advertising

    I have for the longest of time have not served ads on this site nor my community site, Nologam due to a couple of simple facts about advertising and promoting.

    1. Advertisements get blocked. What is point in trying to serve ads on a website if all they are doing is being removed thanks to people that use Adblock. I will admit, I am a offender of this myself since I use Adblock myself, but if you want me to turn it off, you gotta need to give me a good reason.
      1. Sidenote: Putting up a message to turn off AdBlock will not work. I would normally leave the site because of a message like that. Again, it’s depending on how the advert is being served.
    2.  “Sell Out”. “Promoting too much”.
      I don’t like to ‘shove’ the website down people’s throat. And maybe that statement is half the problem I have. I am trying to be fair by not advertising but at the same time, if I don’t promote the site, then I wont get the return that I am looking for.

    And that is where this blog post is really boiling down to.

    How do I promote my website, without ‘shoving’ down users’ throat nor having advertising on the website??

    How to marketers do it these days? I am just one guy trying to promote a gaming community that has a game servers, a appealing forum and even a voice server.

    It does seem to be really difficult.

     

  • PFN Update & Life Update!

    Hi everyone,

    It has been a long time since there has been a post on this blog…and that is for a couple of reasons which I will go through very quickly.
    1) I have been working a great deal and just haven’t had the chance to sit down and do a proper blog post.
    2) I have been working mostly on Nologam. We are growing a steady rate with newer people joining the server and the community every day. We are looking to get the rate of new members increased, but what is more important is activity.

    Over the past year, I have had a simple landing page for Gamers and Geeks with a simple ad about becoming a part of the network. Initially, my plan was to create a network where users from network members could discover new sites, communities and blogs and thus increase activity and exposure. I have had one email regarding that…and that went down the pan.

    For now, we are going to keep the name ‘Gamers and Geeks’ as a network name and use that for Nologam and then maybe change it if we get any new members into the network.

    As for this site, I closed it off a couple of weeks ago because Spam bots had got in and I was getting emails like crazy, but I have re-opened it with a new Spam filter thing called “CleanTalk”. If you use it, let me know how good it is. I am really interested because I may consider getting it for Nologam since there is a bit of a spam bot problem (but most of the staff seems to be dealing with them before I get to them which is awesome).

    For the future going forward, well, that is something that I haven’t decided on. There is a lot happening outside of the PFN to start something new. I feel that at the moment, I should stick and try to improve Nologam and get the results that I am ultimately looking for, rather than wasting my time, energy and money on something that isn’t going to be around for a long time.

    Now, onto my life stuff. Oh boy, what a up and down time we have had over the past 6 months of this year. My grandfather left us just a few days before his 80th birthday from Motor Neurone Disease and of course, it was a massive shock to me as it is the first family funeral that I have ever encountered. Even now, nearly 5 months on from his death, it is still surreal that he is no longer with us. The house is just not the same and it’s hard for me to go into the sitting room at times because I expect him to be there in his seat watching the TV. I explained this in the previous blog post, so there is no point in writing it out all again.

    My health…oh boy…
    Ever since I was born, I have had a Twisted Gut and thus have had problems with going to the loo. For the past few years, it has gotten so bad that the left side of my stomach (from my POV) was inflated like a balloon and it hurted. This wasn’t trapped air. This was my bowel full. I was in bed from the Saturday to a Wednesday and then I went to a doctor and he gave me a suppository and if that didn’t work, then I had to go to the hospital.

    After having this problem for so long, the suppository worked. And I started emptying my bowel. It took about 6 sleepless nights for me to empty my bowel. 6! Unbelievable. Since then I have been going at least once a day to make sure everything is right. That is ok, but as of a few days ago, I have seemed to miss a day and now, I can’t go (but I am working on resolving so…hopefully I will be ok)

    Anyway, that is enough from this long winded post and hopefully you haven’t been grossed out!

    Follow me on Twitter: @PadraigFahy