Today, 11th October, 2005, esctoday.com celebrates its fifth anniversary! A word from your Chief Editor…
Amsterdam, 11th October, 2005,
Dear visitors,
While the Eurovision Song Contest is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary, esctoday.com celebrates its fifth! Every year, I take the opportunity to thank you all for another year of 'being part of it'. This year, I won't forget that! Hard working team members, friends, dedicated visitors, helpfull broadcasters, professional journalists, song contest participants and many, many other people all contributed to the success of this website, for which I am personally very thankful. So, from here to all of you: thanks!
The upcoming period will be an exciting one. First of all we are working on the 'finishing touch' of a brand new website. More efficient design and coding, new contents and some nice improvements will make a visit to esctoday.com more pleasant. We expect to launch the new website sometime in the upcoming days, so stay tuned! Suddenly it can be there!
Inside the team, we've been thinking a lot about how to improve the website. One of the main obstacles was, as ever, the financial implication of our ideas. To improve the website without bringing it into financial trouble (keeping a website like esctoday.com online is expensive and definitely not profitable, as some think), we consider to launch a premium membership, which includes an @escfan.com email address, interesting discounts on many Eurovision Song Contest related products, exclusive prize competitions, extra features on the website and whatever we may come up with in the near future. To keep things reasonable, we were thinking about an annual fee of 10 euros. Current features will remain free, of course! Those who would like to contribute something, can already do so through this page. Feedback about a premium membership is more than welcome!
With Congratulations in Copenhagen, the 2005 Junior Eurovision Song Contest in Hasselt and the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest in Athens ahead, the new season promises to be a busy and exciting one! New songs will enlight our lives, new winners will stand up, new countries will probably join the family and unexpected things will certainly come up. Whatever happens, esctoday.com will be there, covering all events from every corner of Europe ánd live from the scene! Along with more than 25 volunteers from more than 15 countries, we will do our very best to make you feel part of it again! Thank you!
Warmest regards,
Sietse Bakker
Founder & Chief Editor esctoday.com
