koptalk.com

I was a member of this site for about 18 months, but left in December 2006. The site started off as a vibrant place with lots of good, knowledgeable Liverpool fans on it. There also seemed to be inside info on there, with news before it was available elsewhere. I can understand therefore why there are some old very positive reviews of this site.

Unfortunately this is not the case any more. The site has gone down hill rapidly , as it became abundantly clear that all they did was get info from other web sites and pass it off as their own, or when not doing that they would make it up. Most decent posters have left as well as any true Insiders. Anyone who says anything remotely negative about the site is booted out. It's become a tragic, hollow web site, where the guy running it tries to appear the magnanimous hero type - but to me (and most others) is clearly an egotistical liar content to rip off Liverpool fans; I apologise if this offends anyone but most people with knowledge of this site would concur with this assesment. There are much better fan sites out there, with proper footy chat and discussion FREE. Don't give this guy any of your money please.

The sites decline was a sad one as many of the basic things were, and are still there. So in the interest of providing a thorough review I'll add a bit more detail.

The site has a number of sections which are easy to navigate and personally I would not fault it too much on structure; although regular changes did make navigation a bit more of challenge. There are sections with news on the club - mainstream news reports, specific Koptalk news, comments from the manager and other members of the club, pretty comprehensive stuff. There is then the section for member discussion, with a central area for club discussions, additional folders for the next game and hot topics (for example the Investment in the club, and when Stevie G was dabbling with Chelski he had his own discussion area). There was also an additional sections for non-footy chat, although I think that it is now part of the main footy chat now that post numbers have fallen off a cliff.

The site ran well, and I certianly did not have any problems with the speed. Content was always promptly updated too.

The main thing you want with any fans site, is of course a good number of fans; who are like-minded and like to discuss and share views and opinions. This was very much the case originally. New threads would pop up all the time and discussion was wide ranging and intersting. As noted above though it is something of a ghost town now. The staff on the site now start most threads in a desperate effort to make the place still look busy, after all they are still taking on new members by posting extravagant headlines to suck people in.

Finally, the cost. They used to have three areas. One was free, one was for "Insider" members, which was somethign like £15 per annum, then there gold members which was more. They then did away with the free site and created one main site, with a standard membership of £30 per annum. A lot to some, not to others.

The key is does it represent value of money? As I am sure will be abundantly clear from everything above, the answer is a resounding no. I would have had no problem paying that amount had the site delivered everything it promised, although I accept a lot of others might have found it too expensive. Personally I think the site will either disappear shortly, but you never know - happy surfing :-)