Revenues
Club's new official website (www.theshots.co.uk) provides fans secure
online shopping, e-ticketing convenience, and exclusive streaming audio and
video services, SMS alerts, and communications tools to interact online
with The Shots'' manager and players
November 28, 2005 - Aldershot Town Football Club ("The Shots") today
became the first Nationwide Conference club to leverage the outreach of
its official website and provide fans with possibly the most progressive
and intuitive set of streaming audio, video and SMS services and interactive
communications tools available on today''s market.
Today''s announcement follows the signing of a business agreement between
Aldershot Town FC and Spider Networks together with Spider business
partner, Digital Ink. The new online subscription extranet has been bolted
on seamlessly to Aldershot Town's official website (www.theshots.co.uk) at
no technology cost to the club. The club''s main website has also been
re-built by the Spider team to better reflect the growing strength of the
Aldershot Town FC brand, and to offer fans new online store and ticketing
facilities.
"Aldershot Town recognises that its footballing future is very much
dependent upon the sustained support of its loyal fans," says Karl
Prentice, Aldershot Town's chairman. "The new interactive site will help fans to better interact with the manager, players and between themselves, better
understand the forward direction of the club, and become more involved in
the daily affairs of the club."
Spider-powered interactive web sites are taking hold across Britain as
club directors begin to leverage the potential of their web sites and
generate new sources of revenue. Emulating football clubs such as Falkirk
and Raith Rovers, Aldershot's fans can now visit the club's new official website, log on to access webmail, participate in live chat forums with the club's managers and players, create fan groups to share images, and access the club's diary. Each subscribing fan also receives a personal, club-branded
email address for life - dave@theshots.co.uk, for example.
As part of the new services, fans can also subscribe for SMS alerts and
receive exclusive breaking club news on their mobiles. They can also
subscribe to The Shots new media centre and replay exclusive
behind-the-scenes footage whenever they want, and have unique audio
interviews with the team and club videos streamed direct to their
desktops.
Local and national businesses such as Charters Peugeot, Hi-Speed Services,
Southern Tyres and Glas-Tek have welcomed Aldershot Town''s new net
initiative, and are offering fans special online deals for goods and
services to auto-finance their subscriptions.
"Clearly, Spider and Digital Ink are delighted to team with Aldershot Town
FC to create the first interactive fan website for a Nationwide Conference
club," comments Jim Conroy, Spider Networks chief executive. "Grassroots
support is vital to any club in achieving its forward ambitions, and Spider's interactive communications tools will help fans to get fully behind Aldershot Town."
About Digital Ink
Digital Ink is a web development company that specialises in online
commerce. Since 1996, it has developed a number of major web sports sites
for professional football including Aldershot Town, Charlton Athletic and
Watford FC. Digital Ink is also a major web developer for premiership
rubgy clubs and has built sites for five of the twelve Zurich Premiership
clubs over the past 6 years. For further information, visit
http://www.digital-ink.co.uk.
About Spider Networks
Based in London, Spider Networks is the power behind interactive web
communications. From one integrated online environment, over 500,000 users in businesses, sports clubs, government, charities and education use
Spider's technology to create new revenue streams and to better
communicate and interact dynamically within an organisation and beyond
with customers, suppliers, channels, partners, members, donors, fans and sponsors. For further information on Spider Networks solutions, visit
www.spider-networks.net, or email enquiries@spider-networks.net.