The Junkyard

SWWWEEETTT!!!!

I think it is BS you have to be an annual subscriber to get this. If you pay your dues what difference does it make.

+1

so if we upgrade to annual and want to cancel our subcription 4 months into our membership, do you pro-rate a refund?

Here is Shannon's entire post on Alabama about text alerts. See the NEXT PHASE: 2.0 section and you'll see where some of your concerns are addressed specifically.

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BamaOnLine and 247Sports now offers text alerts to all annual subscribers.

Here's how you get started and begin receiving text alerts from 247Sports (665-55).

If you are an active ANNUAL subscriber to BamaOnLine, get text alerts by the following steps:
#1. Click on the "My Account" link located at the top right in your home site horizontal navigation strip.
#2. Enter your "username" and "password" to verify your account.
#3. Click on the "Alerts" link located in the horizontal nav under "Settings"
#4. Enter your active mobile number where you would like to receive the text alerts.
#5. Check the box indicating which specific alerts you wish to receive. Example: BamaOnLine, Alabama Football
#6. Click "Save"

If you are an active MONTHLY subscriber to BamaOnLine, get text alerts by the following steps:
#1. First, you will need to UPGRADE your monthly subscription to an ANNUAL subscription.
#2. Click the "Upgrade" link/tab located at the top right of the site. The upgrade box is marked in green.
#3. Upgrade your account.
#4. After completing the Upgrade process, you will need to sign up for text alerts.
#5. Click on the "Alerts" link located in the horizontal nav under "Settings" (Located in the "My Accounts" section: See above)
#6. Enter your active mobile number where you would like to receive text alerts.
#7. Check the box indicating which specific alerts you wish to receive. Example: BamaOnLine, Alabama Football
#8. Click "Save"

Remember, Text Alerts are available only to Annual subscribers to BamaOnLine and 247Sports.

NOTICE:

I will be sending out TEST ALERTS today at 11:00 AM CST, 1:00 PM CST, 3:00 PM CST and 8:00 PM CST.

NEXT PHASE: Text Alerts 2.0

Although Text Alerts are only available to ANNUAL members, in the near future BOL/247Sports members will be able to earn free text alert services through various methods. Users can get free text alerts by consecutive months of service (applicable to monthly members), user ratings and reputations, posting on the message boards and referring members to BOL. All of these services are expected to be added once our engineers complete the rewrite of the user management and reputations system which is expected during Q1 2013.

TEXT ALERT PROTOCOL: What to expect.

Major Breaking News

-Commitment
-Coaching Change
-Coaching Hire
-New Hire in athletics
-Injury
-New Starter Named
-Suspensions, Etc.
-Select recruiting news items (cancels visit, etc.)

Useful Information

-Gametime, TV announced
-Next game info (hoops, baseball tournaments)
-Bowl announcements
-Letter of Intents (signing day- every 4-5 confirmed)
-Site announcements (new staff member, etc.)

In-game

-Stats after every quarter (football)
-Score after every quarter (football)
-Stats at half (basketball)
-Score at half (basketball)
-Stats at end of game (basketball)
-Score at end of game (basketball

Links

-Because of mobile site, you can use links to articles to supplement news items or for a hot story. Use this selectively.
-Good to link things like VIP room, war room, etc.

I can afford to pay annually as well. But, I choose to pay monthly because its a better deal. If I can't get text alerts that is fine, because I rather check the site anyways and get the same amount of information for less the price. I'm sorry but this is not good business. A lot of us left rival sites because of numerous issues, I do not believe that this site should be messed with so people can be persuaded in paying more money. I believe in the phrase if its not broke, dont fix it.

I will not be upgrading and I'm sure a lot of people will not also.

Then why not make it program wide instead of just to the ones who fork over the most money through an annual payment? If it takes time, then start on a site by site basis till everyone is covered ?? I'm skeptical of anything that distinguishes the difference between people who fork over hard earned money in this economy.

Guys. Rusty asked me to stop by.

Here's my post on this subject on BOL from this afternoon.

*****

I totally agree with you guys. Here's some more color from my position.

First, it was almost second nature to make Text Alerts available to annual members only. That is what we did at Rivals more than a decade ago and it seemed to work perfectly. Therefore, we decided to do it again and build some additional value for the user down the road.

Secondly, text alerts are expensive to send and is a service that we do NOT pass the costs on to the user. Therefor, based on the data it is difficult to justify giving it to monthly members. However, I understand your point about a monthly that has consecutively billed with BOL.

As I noted this afternoon, we have immediate plans to make this available to monthly users. However, we can not do this from a technical standpoint at this time. I apologize that this is inconvenience, but it is a limitation based on our current user technology platform.

Here's my previous note:

NEXT PHASE: Text Alerts 2.0

Although Text Alerts are only available to ANNUAL members, in the near future BOL/247Sports members will be able to earn free text alert services through various methods. Users can get free text alerts by consecutive months of service (applicable to monthly members), user ratings and reputations, posting on the message boards and referring members to BOL. All of these services are expected to be added once our engineers complete the rewrite of the user management and reputations system which is expected during Q1 2013.

In closing, please understand that I am not hear to gouge the customer. In fact, we work overtime to provide more value for your dollar. I completely understand your position on being a consecutive month BOLer, but that is more a technology limitation on our part than a business decision. If you can't upgrade, I ask that you guys remain patient until we can get the user rewrite completed and get additional free time, upgrades and services.

Shannon

****

I hope this understands our current position.

Thanks for stopping by. I think that says a lot about you.

My question would be if TXT messages cost money (which we all know they do) and you do not pass the cost on to us, how could you not justify us not getting this service considering in reality we pay more money than an annual subscriber? I know you are going to say there are fees involved with us paying on a recurring basis but come on it doesn't cost what we end up paying in the difference.

I just think you are separating customers. In which some of those customers have been around longer than the ones benefiting from this.

Have a good day and we will see your team December 1st and discuss this over a brew.

Thanks for stopping by Shannon

For some that don't know Shannon is our CEO, You are getting this discussion straight from the top on this matter.