[Walddk]

As you all very well know the first 3 first months of the year have been extremely busy as far as vugraph presentations are concerned. It has more or less become an everyday occurrence.

We just started another 11 day sequence of consecutive broadcasts: from USA, Netherlands, Australia, Iceland, Finland, and Brazil, and I can assure you that April will be no better, or just as good if you prefer. Estonia, Italy, Sweden, England (twice), China, Hungary and Portugal is the provisional schedule.

I am sure that the majority enjoys these broadcasts, but since we often have them almost around the clock due to time differences, the question is if we spoil it for too many. I am referring to tourneys, not least pay tourneys, that may not get the attendance they otherwise would have got if there had been no broadcast.

It may also be disturbing for members who prefer to play in the MBC, not least because the public announcements become more frequent. Many are not interested one bit I know for a fact (impolite private chat messages).

There is every reason to believe that vugraph broadcasts will keep increasing in numbers. Organisers all over the world have realised how good this is for their members, as well as a way of promoting bridge in general terms.

Can we get enough? Can we get too much? Should we make restrictions? We are open to suggestions obviously. Fred and I have regular chats about our vugraph policy. We are going to have another chat soon. Input will therefore be much appreciated.

Roland

[joker_gib]

Roland,

As you already know, I'm a big fan of vu-graph and I try to be there everytime it is possible (unfortunately I have also to sleep a little bit )

So, for me, you can program as many broadcast as possible and it would never be a problem.

It is very good for bridge in general and it is quite fantastic to be able to kibbitz all the greatest players being miles away from them !

BBO is a fantastic site and vu-graph is definitively a great feature !!

See you tonight for the Vanderbilt !

Alain

[nikos59]

Well, I am afraid I am not impartial concerning
Vugraph, but I would not think that more Vugraph
would be too much of a good thing. In other words,
I would vote strongly against any idea of restricting
transmissions.

In my opinion, if BBO decides to transmit
the Ruritanian Open Teams Championship,
tourneys are not going to lose any customers;
only Vugraph aficionados will watch, plus
a lot of Ruritanians, many of them newcomers
to BBO -who might even become tourney
customers in due course. On the other
hand, big events may affect the participation
in tourneys, but big events would be
transmitted regardless (I hope).

[inquiry]

A broadcast whenever a vugraph starts (or restarts) is fine. The vugraph attracts hundreds and in many cases, more than 1000 viewers (not necessarily all at one table). That much interest clearly dictates that a heads up that it is starting is appropriate.

I guess where complaints might come is those times when a vugraph starts then stops then starts then stops due to some technical glitch...then there maybe "too many" broadcast... but even here I understand... the typical sitaution is the broadcast stops... and someone (you usually) send out a message that something went wrong and it will start again soon (no doubt because otherwise you are flooded with questions on what happened). Then it restarts, you annoucne that, and then it stops again, and you announce that... then you announce that it will hopefully start again, then you announce when it starts again. Finally, if there is a short break, an announcement is made to the everywhere that there is a break and vugraph will start again in XX minutes.

I suspect it is these cases, where many, many broadcast messages are made that leads to the most complaints. I would recommend,

1) Announcing the start, at the start is appropriate
2) Broadcastign to the entire BBO that the vugraph is over and will start again is xx minutes is probalby not ok. Better to have the commentators to announce before last hand is played to people in the room, and then just go to item 1 above when it starts again.
3) The repeated it is dwon, it is up, it is down, it is up, probably needs some thought. I respect the many messages you get if you don't announce it is down and will be back, but I guess that could bug those not interested. Most people, like me, when vugraph ends accidently, sit in the vugraph theater and wait for the green bar to come back.
4) It might be very nice to have a chat to vugraph theater option. So you could make announcement of start time for next round (or how long a break will be). Also useful in case of a crash, you could announce there that the problem will be resolved shortly, wtihout disturbing others on the BBO. I could have used such a feature last night after a BBO crash and I was the first yellow who got back on, and need to ungag all the commentators, but I was unsure of who all were commenting... the ability to call all tables as fro commentator to contact me would have been very helpful.

Keep up the good work.

Ben

[hrothgar]

Here are a few thoughts:

1. It can be argued that the health and vitality of the Main Bridge Club is a function of the number of people present who are looking for a game of bridge. As you've already noted, the presence of Online Vugraph's has the potential to fragment the membership base into "bridge players" and "spectators". In turn, this could impact the ability of players to find partners and opponents for games. If I were doing a "formal" competitive analysis, I'd want to focus on two critical issues:

(A) The impact of the Vugraph;'s need to be considered in totality. Vugraph's might decrease the pool of bridge players while they are running, however, when a vugraph ends, you suddenly have an artificially high pool of players available. I have no idea how many "spectators" can be converted into "bridge players" at the close of a Vugraph event. Its entirely possible that the spectators are all burned out. However, I think that its important to understand all aspects of this relationship.

( The argument that the "attractiveness" of BBO is a function of the size of the pool of bridge players is based on so-called "network effects". At the end of the day, these models assume that players will gravitate to whichever playing environment offers the best potential to find opponents, which, in turn, is assumed to be a function of the pool of bridge players. Note the following: Even if the presence of a Vugraph decreases the pool of available bridge players, its entirely possible that the residual pool is still significantly larger that the next largest site. In this eventually, there really isn't much of a downside. Equally significant, if BBO is seriously concerned about network effects and other such issues, than Vugraph is a perculiar place to start an analysis. From my own perspective, one of BBO's main weaknesses is the difficultly in "matching" players with potential opponents. Implementing a better mathcing system would allow the organization to make much more effective use of whatever sized membership pool that it it had at a given point in time.

2. As a more long term issue, I still strongly believe that major bridge events like the Bermuda Bowl will inevitably transition to an electronic playing environment. I recocognize that there is inevitably going to be social resistence to this type of change. There are lots of people who hate to learn anything new. Equally significant, there are any number of players how will not want to lose the advantages that they acrue by capitalizing on the opponentn's "tells". with this said and done, if the major bridge organizations are reocngizing that broadcasting Vugraph's is a powerful tool, than they may "see the light" regarding adopting computer terminals for major tournaments.

3. Many of the problems associated with broadcast traffic can be assuaged by implementing multiple channels. The Organizers of BBO might wish to consider registering for a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) such as World of Warcraft. These games need to support many of the same features/fucntions as BBO however, their membership base is orders of magnitude larger. Much of the ifrastrcuture used in these games (guilds, channel, auction houses) is clearly parallels issues that BBO is facing.

[Walddk]

inquiry, on Mar 18 2005, 08:52 AM, said:

Finally, if there is a short break, an announcement is made to the everywhere that there is a break and vugraph will start again in XX minutes.

2)Broadcastign to the entire BBO that the vugraph is over and will start again is xx minutes is probalby not ok. Better to have the commentators to announce before last hand is played to people in the room

4) It might be very nice to have a chat to vugraph theater option. So you could make announcement of start time for next round (or how long a break will be). Also useful in case of a crash, you could announce there that the problem will be resolved shortly, wtihout disturbing others on the BBO. I could have used such a feature last night after a BBO crash and I was the first yellow who got back on, and need to ungag all the commentators, but I was unsure of who all were commenting... the ability to call all tables as fro commentator to contact me would have been very helpful.

Ben

We do exactly that when a segment is about to finish: Tell the audience when the next session is due. I do not make public announcements about that ever. When our broadcast is about to restart, I make a public announcement.

Sorry to hear about the crash. Must have been after I went to bed (around 4:30 am in Europe, 10:30 pm in New York). I thought I did what I could when I, before the Vanderbilt started, sent an e-mail to Uday and macaw with a list of commentators assigned for the various segments.

None of them was online at the time of the crash or shortly afterwards I suspect. Maybe I should send a copy to more yellows. You for one will a good person to cc. I will remember for the future.

Thanks for the input Ben!

Roland

[Brandal]

Walddk, on Mar 18 2005, 08:02 AM, said:

As you all very well know the first 3 first months of the year have been extremely busy as far as vugraph presentations are concerned. It has more or less become an everyday occurrence.

We just started another 11 day sequence of consecutive broadcasts: from USA, Netherlands, Australia, Iceland, Finland, and Brazil, and I can assure you that April will be no better, or just as good if you prefer. Estonia, Italy, Sweden, England (twice), China, Hungary and Portugal is the provisional schedule.

I am sure that the majority enjoys these broadcasts, but since we often have them almost around the clock due to time differences, the question is if we spoil it for too many. I am referring to tourneys, not least pay tourneys, that may not get the attendance they otherwise would have got if there had been no broadcast.

It may also be disturbing for members who prefer to play in the MBC, not least because the public announcements become more frequent. Many are not interested one bit I know for a fact (impolite private chat messages).

There is every reason to believe that vugraph broadcasts will keep increasing in numbers. Organisers all over the world have realised how good this is for their members, as well as a way of promoting bridge in general terms.

Can we get enough? Can we get too much? Should we make restrictions? We are open to suggestions obviously. Fred and I have regular chats about our vugraph policy. We are going to have another chat soon. Input will therefore be much appreciated.

Roland

Vugraph rocks!

I've never been bothered with the broadcast to
lobby,you Roland and everyone else involved are
doing a magnificent job.

It is virtually impossible to please everyone,some
will always complain,and if you change ONE thing,
you will please some,and others who were happy
before will maybe complain about the change

Keep up the good work friends



Frode

[joker_gib]

Brandal, on Mar 18 2005, 09:43 AM, said:

It is virtually impossible to please everyone,some
will always complain,and if you change ONE thing,
you will please some,and others who were happy
before will maybe complain about the change

You are unfortunalely totally right !!

Personnaly, this is the same for me : I've never been annoyed by broadcast messages !

I just ignore them if I'm not concerned

Alain

PS : maybe it should be good to have a special "channel" (that could be turned off in each profile) for vu-graph announcements ? What do you think ? Woul it be easy to implement ?

[hotShot]

There are pay tourneys and free tourney running at the same time, sooner or later, we will have pay tourney that run at the same time. There is the MBC running al the time and sometimes there is vugraph.

If there where only a few players online, i could understand the concern, but when a big vugraph event is online, we see 6000 people online now.
I think before this year is over we will see a the 7000 player border or even the 8000 player border taken.

It is the vugraph that attracts the people and it's the whole community that benefits if people come back.

Some things could be done to improve the situation. The vugraph theatre should have a transmission/table list, simular to the tourney list, with a shedule of whats coming up. Perhaps people can "subscribe" and are taken to the vugraph when the transmission starts. If a transmission is interrupted, the system should ask if they want to quit or be "reseated" when the transmission restarts. This way a chat message to subscribers of a event could be send.
Something like this will come (sooner or later) because one day there might be "payed vugraph" events.

[joker_gib]

hotShot, on Mar 18 2005, 10:04 AM, said:

Something like this will come (sooner or later) because one day there might be "payed vugraph" events.

I really hope that this will never happen !

[uday]

No reason to think paid vug events are on the horizon.

Currently, vugraphs need the following resources

Operators and Equipment (one PC per operator)
Commentators (3+ per room)

Almost always, the sponsoring organization bears the expense of operators and equipment, and BBO, thru Roland/Heni/etc schedules the commentators, and the commentators donate their time.

Sometimes the sponsoring organization puts some money aside for expenses and BBO finds, thru its volunteer pool, operators who are willing to travel and do the work.

Very occasionally, BBO pays as well for the vugraph expenses. I usually discourage this strongly. The last time we did this was in Malmo, IIRC.

So far, vugraphs have been a communal effort, with no one making a profit.

Could this change? We have no plans. Should we allow commentators to charge for the privilege of subscribing to their channels? Maybe, but we have no plans.

Will we charge for access to vugraphs? We have no plans to do so. As long as we're around and can afford it, vug. will be free. There is no reason to think we wont be able to afford it for the forseeable future.



ui

[epeeist]

I actually appreciate the broadcasts about when a vugraph is restarting. I sometimes log in, or what have you, between sessions, or am not aware of the exact time, etc. and the broadcast helps me start watching at the start of a set of boards. I'm not always watching vugraph when one session happens to end, and I'm sure many others aren't either.

As for those who are disturbed by broadcasts, it's a couple of messages at most every few hours, if people can't handle those brief broadcast announcements how do they handle the beeps etc. when a card is played? I also don't mind tournament announcement broadcasts, but if something had to be eliminated, keep the vugraph and get rid of those other broadcasts.

I agree more vugraph is better (subject to cost/server problems). If it "competes" with tournaments, so what? I doubt it does, but tournaments already can compete with each other, one can have free tournaments competing with pay, the opportunity to kibitz someone "competes" with entering a pay tourney, etc.

As for vugraph, not that I WANT to pay, but if e.g. a 5 cent fee per spectator were charged, money raised covering costs/honoraria for commentators/vugraph operators/whatever, I don't think I'd mind unduly -- but I also wouldn't watch vugraph as often. And some people are in circumstances where arranging for online payment is a problem.

Perhaps a compromise might be to request (voluntary) payment of some fee (5 or 10 cents?) for watching vugraph, all those who choose to pay can enter a special tournament with small prize for the winner or alternatively for a randomly chosen entrant (vis-a-vis BIL "Aces" tournament)? (BBO$, partnering a star in a future tournament, something like that) No idea how easy or hard that would be to implement (voluntary payment and maintaining custom list of such people for tournament). Or a private club for those paying, with an expert discussing/dissecting some of the most interesting deals of the session after each vugraph session was over?

[keylime]

I'll make this easy, a la Ramones: Gimme gimme more VuGraph!!

[sceptic]

Simple Answer is NO, as for reducing the pool of available playes, I have tried 6 sites now and there is no shortage of available players here, try the EBU site if you want to see what a shortage of players is like.

BB0 is the best there is at the moment, with the managements attitude it will be the best for some time to come, but evolution comes to us all and if there are system or programme restrictions that have to be considered, then you will have to do what is best for this site or best for yourselves or as your attitude would reflect "what is best for us collectively" and that is why BBO is so succesful.

I personally think that team games and tournements take more people away from the main lobby than is taken away via Vu Graph (though that may not be true at the finals of the Vanderbilt), so maybe split the tourney room up into pay and free tourneys,

Or develop a team game lobby, I find team games are the hardest to join in, but that is personally where I would like to play more, I would like to see somewhere a team of 4 can advertise for games at certain times, may be something like a bulletin board for adverts ??

A negative comment for Vu Graph is to many tourists in there (I actually have no idea if that is true, but I am sure you have the demographics to challenge that statement), I wonder if they all play here or they just come to see the matches they want, if that is the case then, may be charge for Vu Graph

[Rebound]

I think the suggested donation scheme, if practicable, might be a good idea. You could even use some of it to tip volunteers with BBO$.

I'm all for more vugraph.

[mr1303]

I suppose I wouldn't mind unduly paying to watch the really big events, but for most Vugraph sessions when I haven't heard of the players I wouldn't be interested. I'd imagine a lot of people would have a similar attitude.

[the hog]

Vuegraph is fantastic. The more the better please.

[FrancesHinden]

Quote

A negative comment for Vu Graph is to many tourists in there (I actually have no idea if that is true, but I am sure you have the demographics to challenge that statement), I wonder if they all play here or they just come to see the matches they want, if that is the case then, may be charge for Vu Graph

I'm not sure I understand your point.
Neither my husband nor I play on BBO, but we both watch the vugraph sometimes (usually only for the really big events). I guess that makes us tourists. But why should we pay? Playing on BBO is also free, why do you somehow deserve free vugraph because you play bridge on the site? Surely people who only watch vugraph are just as likely to buy Fred's software, or volunteer to help with vugraph broadcasts or whatever else contributes to keeping BBO vugraph in existence?

[joker_gib]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 24 2005, 10:01 AM, said:

Quote

A negative comment for Vu Graph is to many tourists in there (I actually have no idea if that is true, but I am sure you have the demographics to challenge that statement), I wonder if they all play here or they just come to see the matches they want, if that is the case then, may be charge for Vu Graph

I'm not sure I understand your point.
Neither my husband nor I play on BBO, but we both watch the vugraph sometimes (usually only for the really big events). I guess that makes us tourists. But why should we pay? Playing on BBO is also free, why do you somehow deserve free vugraph because you play bridge on the site? Surely people who only watch vugraph are just as likely to buy Fred's software, or volunteer to help with vugraph broadcasts or whatever else contributes to keeping BBO vugraph in existence?

I'm with you Frances !

And I'm afraid I'm also a tourist

Alain

[sceptic]

I never said I DESERVE free Vu Graph, I am probably in a minority here, but I would be happy to pay to join BBO in a similar way that other sites work, I play acbl tourneys which are pay, as I have no use of master points, it is stupid of me to play them and not the free ones, I dont actually enjoy Pay tourneys any more than free tourneys, I play them as fred is trying to keep BBO free and I am happy to contribute via that method of using BBO $ I also brought some software, from fred rather than Amazon, I am happy to put money in their pockets rather than Amazon's. it does not cost me much and I am a great believer in trying to give something back.

my point is with people that only come here to watch is, what do they give in return?, fred and uday have an issue with volumes and the structure of BBO, they want opinions, I like giving opinions and ideas , some I believe are good opinions and some are just food for thought and not well thought out, but I find good ideas are generated by discussions and no idea or opinion is a bad one (except one that you disagree with)

and one of your statements is at the end

Quote

Surely people who only watch vugraph are just as likely to buy Fred's software, or volunteer to help with vugraph broadcasts or whatever else contributes to keeping BBO vugraph in existence?

well I do not disagree with that, but it does not change my opinion that may be they should charge for Vu Graph,