Did you know that Scottishgames was originally started in 2005 as a Yahoo Group? That didn’t work. It required people to get involved and contribute. So in 2006, your editor took the decision to start a blog. At that time, TypePad was a decent choice and allowed sophisticated content like words and pictures to be mixed in a new way which the ascended masters referred to as ‘multimedia’.
There’s over three years of content and updates on the original Scottishgames.biz (since it was primarily an industry blog in them days). It provides a snapshot of a smaller and more console focused industry. It’s also the only record out there of the laughter, the tears, the events, the awards and the successes Scotland achieved in the world of games.
There was also, for a year, a Ning powered social network, which empowered every developer, every student and every participant in the whole interactive sector and allowed them to post their work, look for employment, post jobs, share news, find collaborators and link to their new games. It wasn’t a success. You want to be controlled editorially and told what’s important. We get it… We can’t link to it, since Ning has a policy of nuking any unpaid networks.
If you’re a researcher, student, journalist, politician, civil servant, event organiser, developer, publisher or fascinated observer, this is an invaluable resource, akin to the National Museum of Scotland (who we confidently predict would pay thousands for access to these ‘archives’).
Since then of course, the media empire has grown into the all new blog, a Facebook group, a Twitter account, Google+ group, fashion label, provides RSS feeds and of course a daily e-mail update, all in all reaching around several thousand people – important people, like YOU – per day. Scottishgames has THE definitive company directory of interactive companies in Scotland and is recognised in the halls of power as the ‘industry bible’.
Believe!