Jul3rd

Now That I Think About It…

By Adam McFarland | Posted at 10:19 pm | Filed Under Site News, Price Guide

I’m all in. Time to take a shot at really changing things.

I haven’t posted in the past few weeks because I’ve been thinking a lot about my last post about how I think blogs will save the card industry. I read the comments, got a few emails, talked to my partners, and then spent some time really thinking about the opportunity at hand and how I/we could leverage the SportsLizard brand to make (more of) an impact. As most of you know by now, my partners and I have our hands full with our e-commerce sites. But we’re always open to interesting opportunities, and the state of the card industry definitely presents one.

So here’s what I’m thinking:

A truly free version of the Price Guide, meaning no log in required and unlimited price searches for everyone. I’m also considering renaming it to the SportsLizard Pricing Tool to disassociate it with price guides and better describe what it really does. I want to make it very very obvious to people that the tool is just one piece in the puzzle so I’ll probably display something similar to the process that I use to price a card on the pricing tool page.
An aggregated online sports collectible magazine (any ideas for names?). This is the “big idea”. If I think there are a ton of great bloggers out there, wouldn’t it reason to create a place where all of their content is available? This would be automated, so essentially it would go out and grab the best posts of independent collectibles bloggers and put them all in one place. You could sign up for a daily, weekly, or monthly newsletter, or read and comment directly on the site. Essentially - challenge the content of Beckett.com with something far better: content by the collectors, for the collectors. Now, this will require the permission of each participant. I will make a list of the best of the best and then contact anyone who I think fits the bill. The benefits are obvious for both parties: SportsLizard gets great content for this “magazine” and the blogger gets more publicity for themselves and their site.
A revamped design focusing on #1 and #2 (and on the marketplace). Other aspects of the site - the customs section, the announcer reviews, etc - will still be available, but just won’t be at the forefront of what we’re trying to do.

Target release date: 9/1 (got a project or two to finish before I can really hammer this hard).

Man I’m pumped. I’ll probably continue to post sparingly about collectibles until that time, using this blog mostly for progress updates until the launch date. There’s only one way this has a chance of working: buy in from you, the collector. We’re a small company and the only way we can take on a giant is with the help of the collectors who are visiting shows and interacting on forums. Hopefully what we come up with will “wow” people enough to make the idea spread like wildfire naturally.

Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions? I’m all ears.

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Comments

9 Responses to “Now That I Think About It…”

db on July 5th, 2008 12:34 pm

when i got on my FREE ocount today it said i used all of my searches but i never used any of them.
Adam McFarland on July 5th, 2008 12:50 pm

Hi DB - I apologize for the inconvenience. Drop me an email at support [at] sportslizard [dot] com and I’ll take care of it. I tried looking for an account under the email you just commented under but I don’t see one in the system.
NTXCoog on July 9th, 2008 5:22 pm

Although I enjoy the price aspect of price guides, my primary usage of them is to find out what cards are available. I have a group of players I collect and it’s next to impossible to go through every new product checklist to find my players.

That’s the biggest item on my wishlist.
Adam McFarland on July 10th, 2008 8:29 am

NTXCoog - great point. I will research the feasibility of building a massive checklist of available cards. It would be cool to type in “Barry Bonds” and see every Bonds card ever made…or 1988 Topps and see every card from that year…good idea!
Brandon Cacek on July 10th, 2008 11:36 am

Just wanted to let you, and your readers know that our new website (set to give live on the 21st) will have this search function. Type in a player, and you will have a listing, and pictures of every card out there.

Good luck, and keep up the good work.
Sex vs. Changing the World - Adam McFarland on July 11th, 2008 3:42 pm

[…] To me that’s more important than any dollar amount in my pocket. That’s why I continue to try to change the collectibles industry with SportsLizard even if it accounts for (and probably will always account for) a tiny percentage of our revenues. […]
tomd989 on July 20th, 2008 12:32 pm

I have recently just started collecting baseball cards with my son, and a free price guide is exactly what I’ve been searching for… As a newcomer, there’s no way I’m going to shell out money for an online monthly subscription when I can just buy a Beckett book for the year (which I’ve done, but it doesn’t show everything as you know).

Long story short - a free price guide will keep me coming back (a free registration is no problem at all), and in my opinion only draw in other new people to the hobby as well.
Adam McFarland on July 21st, 2008 4:13 pm

Thanks Tom. Free, accurate, and transparent is what I’m shooting for
Productive Output Update - Adam McFarland on July 24th, 2008 7:56 pm

[…] the itch to use that free time to tackle some of the “secondary” projects like the revamp of SportsLizard or a totally new site (crazy idea) that I’ve been working on. I call these projects […]

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