Our latest State of the Hall is available after the jump.
Today’s State of the Hall will be different than those we’ve published in the past.
Before we get to the news, we’d like to quickly recap our last 12 months. Thanks to your loyalty, generosity and willingness to recommend us to others, our traffic and readership continued to grow substantially and our coverage expanded last season to include several road games. It all culminated last March when we traveled to Portland and Atlanta and brought you the most extensive coverage of the NCAA Tournament.
It’s an exciting time to be a fan of Indiana basketball with Hoosier Hysteria right around the corner and the Hoosiers expected to open the season as the No. 1 team in the land.
Shortly after the end of last season, the staff joined together to brainstorm potential ideas to improve the site and bring you even more IU basketball coverage. Our survey last spring validated our belief that the community being built here was receptive to our proposal of a premium content forum.
Today, we’re announcing the Inside the Hall Premium Forum.
Before we go any further, it’s important to note that the site as it’s currently constructed will continue to operate as it has now for over five years. What we’ve offered for free will continue to be free. The forum is being launched as an addition to what we’re already doing.
The new premium forum, which launches immediately, will have several features we’re excited about:
· Ability to interact with other members and start your own topics: The ability to start your own topics for discussion is no longer a constraint as members will now be able to do so with the freedom of the forum.
· Ability to ask the ITH staff questions and get an answer: All of us will be actively participating in the forum and we’ll be around to answer questions and give insight.
· Weekly live chats with the staff. We’ll gather to discuss topics relevant to recruiting or upcoming games.
· New content exclusive to the forum. As discussed in the survey, this content will range from more detailed scouting of upcoming opponents to film sessions of upcoming opponents to a weekly recruiting roundup exclusive to the forum.
· Advance notice of blog content: We’ll post quick updates to recruiting interviews or other news items that take place in the forum as soon as possible following the interview. In most cases, this will be before a full update goes live on the site.
· Instant reactions to media availabilities including a brief summary with any notable news or updates.
The cost of the premium forum will be $34.95 annually, which is less than $3.00 a month or .10 per day. All membership payments will be processed through PayPal and with the addition of the forum, donations will no longer be accepted. Many of you have donated to the site previously and we hope that you’ll enjoy the addition of the forum as an added value for supporting the site moving forward.
We look forward to your continued readership of Inside the Hall and look forward to interacting with all of you in the new premium forum. Step-by-step signup instructions are available below.
1. Proceed to http://forum.insidethehall.
2. Enter your date of birth and click proceed.
3. Enter a username you would like to use, a password, a valid email address and enter the characters in the image verification screen. The additional information section below is optional. Then read the rules of the forum, click the box that acknowledges you have read and hit complete registration.
4. You will be taken to a message that reads: “Thank you for registering for the Inside the Hall Premium Forum. In order to begin posting and complete your registration, please proceed to the payments page.” Click on payments page.
5. Select the “1 year” option from the dropdown box and click order. You will see a confirmation of what you’re ordering and an option to continue to PayPal.
6. Enter the applicable payment information as directed by PayPal. If you’re already a PayPal member, you can log-in by clicking the button that reads, “I already have a Paypal account.” Once you have completed payment, you will receive two emails. One that verifies payment and the other that shows you have set up a recurring payment (annually) to us. Note: Your subscription will automatically renew each year unless canceled through the “My Profile –> My preapproved payments” option in PayPal.
7. Return back to the forum and begin posting.
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