Soccerpulse

Soccerpulse.com was one of the most popular related websites on the internet. The site had more than 100,000 registered users, and had an alexa ranking of 11,130, as of 9 May 2008</cite> at its peak. The site draws the majority of its traffic from the United States and United Kingdom with 16.2% and 7.1% shares of the total traffic respectively, as of 9 May 2008, but also boasted a substantial popularity in a number of countries, especially in Europe but also including countries as varied as Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan and Malaysia, being within the top 3,000 visited internet sites in each of the aforementioned countries.
Soccerpulse In The Football Community
Soccerpulse had a long standing relationship with various sectors of the greater footballing community, often gaining in prominence within the media, twice being referenced in traditional print based media in the United Kingdom, showing its influence within the global football internet community. A post by a Soccerpulse moderator, BlitzR, was published in the February 2008 issue of Four Four Two in an article on fans response to a top 100 players list the magazine had compiled and later in 2008, another post from the forum, this time by member Barca4Life was published on the website of the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Star, this time in reference to a leaked list of English Premier League player's wages.
The site also played host to representatives of the boot manufacturers Hummel</cite> and Nomis in the past, with quality assurance exercises and question and answer sessions being participated in on the forums.
History
Soccerpulse was started in 2002 by student Chris Meisner and Matt Richards in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Initially intended as a personal site, the site soon became host to a wide variety of posters and content, mainly catering to the English Premier League, the sites' predominately North American user base creating a niche that was yet to be filled online, a place for North Americans to discuss European leagues, in contrast to rival forum BigSoccer's americentric approach.
The site had not been without struggle during its existence and in its history has endured one crash and one hard drive failure, both crippling the forum and the site's growth for many months after they occurred, in May 2004, and November 2007 respectively.
The exponential growth of the site, especially in recent years has led to attempts by competing websites to purchase the website.
In early October 2009, news emerged that the website's hosts were charging Meisner excessive fees for various reasons, fees which he admitted were simply too much for him to continue operating the site any further. On 6 October 2009, the site closed; however it was soon re-opened again in December 2009, under new ownership.
Soon after it's closure, a previous member of the site set up a similar website, under a different domain so that Soccerpulse's previous members could remain together after the original site's closure.
Forums and Community
The community used the following hierarchical structure: forum category (e.g. Soccer Europe), forum (e.g. English Soccer), and topic (e.g. Manchester United vs Chelsea), there were approximately 230 forums on the website, ranging from topics such as English Premier League, Australian A League to Music and Films.
Additionally, forums were organized for general discussions including international tournaments and many non-soccer related areas. The most popular football related forums on Soccerpulse are (in order) Soccer Video, English Soccer and Spanish Soccer, all of which feature numerous sub forums.
Moderation
Soccerpulse had 65 moderators and administrators, whose jobs were to keep the forums clear of spam and to keep arguments from getting out of hand. Moderators were selected from users who had contributed to discussions in a positive manner. Depending on their role, moderators were either responsible for just one team forum, or an entire region.
A senior level of moderators, called Global Moderators, could punish users who broke Soccerpulse's rules and Terms of Service with an escalating series of disciplinary actions, starting with a warning, then followed by a final warning, and ultimately outright banning for the good of the community.

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