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I'm always brewing up ways to bring better information to the community, and lately I've been bit by the travel bug. See, it's one thing to sit at my desk late at night pouring over emails, Twitter @replies, price trends, and the like. It's another thing entirely to be doing the reporting from the front lines. Interviewing dealers, traders, players, listening to the right people and writing the right things.
That sort of up-to-date info can only come from someone who is on-site at the events. I am interested in seeing how my readers would like this sort of thing. The main snag is, ironically enough, the finances of the issue. I don't have the bankroll allocated for copious amounts of world travel. My goal is to get enough people behind this idea that a major site would pick it up and sponsor my travels.
The benefit to this idea is exclusive up-to-date content, and given the time-sensitive nature of financial news, it could prove very valuable to dealers and players alike. I firmly believe that this is the next evolution of QS and what it stands for. Many people are used to getting great content for free, which I believe is good and right. It costs me a negligible amount of money to run this site. All it takes is my time, which, although valuable, is best used in service to the MTG community. An undertaking like this requires more overhead than I can earmark from QS right now, thus why I am attempting to partner with a larger site or dealer. To that end, I want to know if this is the kind of content and service that you would pay for. I'd love to do it for free, and I'm sure everyone would love to read it for free, but unless the folks at American Airlines want to sponsor me, I'm afraid plane tickets still cost money.
I'm going to put an "Other" option on the poll. If you vote "Other", please leave a comment with what you think something like this ought to cost and your ideas. Leave your ideas one way or the other! I hope people don't think this is KBR trying to sell out 🙂 Mainly, I want to provide great coverage and experience the community as deeply as I can, and being at events is the only way to do so. Your feedback, as always, is welcome!
Need the poll here.
Depends on the event. Timely and plentiful info from the PT (particularly Standard and worlds) would be useful. I'm not sure how much value there is in live reporting the other events.
I'd actually want to focus on domestic Grand Prix events, since they have huge turn-outs and are still part of the Pro circuit. Remember when Jund broke at GP Seattle, and Sygg went from a 50 cent rare to a $5 staple? Or the Mystic/Collar package at the last PT? That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about!
TBH, I'm not sure what value a live report would garner over and above just watching the official reportage. It may be of marginal value for folks who live near enough to a single stocking store to immediately drive down there and hoover up the bargains. For the rest of us who rely on the internet and trading at FNM it would just be a game of roulette as to who can fire in their order the fastest to one of the handful of reputable major online outfits who honour these kind of card buys.
Sometimes there is two events on one weekend. I should be the other field agent 😉 LOL
There's also Ebay, which I imagine many of us use and where it's easiest to profit from immediate coverage.
There are a LOT of stores online that people don't know about, and many have no qualms with selling out their stock to one buyer. Ebay is also great for this, as the above poster mentioned.The point is, the best-informed people make the most money on these big swings, and for small (or no) cost, you can ensure you're the best-informed.Again, this is not about money for me. I won't see any actual $$ from this project unless someone decides to hire me to do it full time (yes please!) I want to break some new ground in the coverage area, and this seems to be a good way to do this.I know at least one online store has expressed some interest in this, paid or not, so any support for the project will help solidify any possible leads. Again, if stores/sponsors think people will WATCH this (or read, or listen), they will be more inclined to sponsor it.Keep voting 🙂
Just pointing out we'd all have Sovereigns of Lost Alara playsets for like $2 ($15 now) if Kelly had been sponsored to travel to Atlanta.
Didn't we talk about this forever ago, and you're just now getting around to it!? 🙂
But I do agree that real-time financial coverage will be a huge benefit to the community. Especially if you're including Q&A's with vendors and people on the floor, seeing what's huge and what's not. I quite love the idea and hope to see it implemented in the near future.