So the ASP have announced fairly radical changes to the structure of the ‘Dream Tour’, a single tier ranking system, and atlast, a few extra bucks for the boys. Great news! But for the 95% of us who watch contests on the net, I’m a little disappointed that there was no official announcement with regards to the next step of the webcast. But I’m not surprised.

Mick Fanning gave us a sniff of what’s on the horizon with a little slip of the tongue during his interview on insurfnews.com stating that “there will be one website for the 2010 tour”. Great news! Or is it?

ASP 2.0 Breakdown With Mick Fanning and Kieren Perrow from Andrew Oliver on Vimeo.

Stop Thinking Website, Starting Thinking Online Community.

It’s not that hard to create a website; and it’s even harder to make any money out of one. But an active online community where registered users actively engage with content, generate their own, share content, debate / bitch / complain in forums and create their online persona is addictive. And addiction = money. And we know if we want better broadcast options, stronger commentary teams, and professional surfers outside the top 10 actually making a decent living, there needs to be a wider revenue stream. This community starts with these top surfers, and works its way across to you and me. It doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be interactive and engaging.

Communities Exist Outside Facebook

Did you notice a few months ago the ASP pretty much converted half their website to a massive big Facebook widget? WTF? Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is in this day and age an essential tool in the communication process, but putting all your eggs in someone else’s basket? #fail. And look how big Hurley’s is compared to the ASP.

Does Size Matter?

Ofcourse it does. But let’s face it, surfing doesn’t attract the number of viewers that’s going to set any records. But its strength is an extremely strong global community. We know it’s there, we know they’re online, but it’s yet to be brought inhouse. If there was a central online community platform where we could interact, communicate and share, then that core community could fuel the fire to create something much stronger than the current system. Size does matter, but the motion of the ocean can be something much more powerful.

Bring In The Nerds

When I was a teenager, I was either at school, or surfing. Generally the later. Nothing else mattered. My younger brother sat in a dark room at home rebuilding his computer, hanging out in online forums, sharing tips, tricks and geeky content. He called himself ‘ViRaL’, 10 years before every brand who enters the digital space wanted to create one. I laughed at his name. Now he earns 4 times more than me, owns property, drives flash cars, and yeah, is pretty well known in his online communities.

I could go on, but to cut to the point, bring in the nerds. Proper ones. They could build this online community better, faster, stronger and smarter. And that’s not a dis to the current sponsors who have done a great job with the current system, but it’s time to take it to the next level.

Though the big question is, who’s going to pay for it?

…to be continued…

This post is tagged ASP, Interactive, Online Community, Webcast