State of Play 3

I got my post this morning and there sat a copy of Moto GP 2006. I immediately sent the game off to one of the guys on the reviewing team to get the game played and reviewed. The review will then be published on BXB and the URL sent back to the publisher as proof of our coverage. This is what I call the "PR loop".

But Moto GP wasn't alone. I also had a bundle of four games which have been very kindly sent over to me by Digital Outlook who run Microsoft's Xbox Community Network. There's been a lot of focus on the role and ability of the XCN of late and I've chatted with a couple of Community Managers and PR types recently about their perception of the XCN and, sadly, many said they'd never heard of it.

One way to raise awareness of the XCN is to include itself in the "PR Loop". Some of the games sent by D.O. we're already sent to us from our publisher contacts and hence already covered on the site and the other games will follow the same path as Moto GP 2006 except with one vital difference.

URLs for both sets of already published reviews and reviews being written at the moment will be returned to the publisher via the XCN and hence help raise awareness. While the games I've received that BXB has already covered will be bundled up as a prize and given away to the winners of our Wimbledon 360 Tournament.

This simultaneously improves what we offer our users and what we return to the XCN as now they're involved in running what is turning out to be a great tournament. This in turn will impress publishers and increase the amount of support for the XCN. It's a self-replenishing process.

Sadly, this theory only works if D.O. supports the largest XCN sites first and the smaller ones second which would no doubt rub up the smaller sites as they perceive the larger XCN to not need the review copies. What these people need to realise that this self-replenishing process will help the XCN to grow and hence there will be more opportunities for growth of smaller sites.

I've had the criticism thrown at me recently that I'm only saying these things because it benefits BXB first and everyone else second, and to an extent that's true, I want the best for BXB but I also want to see the XCN grow and this method of getting D.O. into the "PR Loop" and encouraging the self-replenishing process is the best way for that to happen.