As a football fan I recently visited a new website called F8ballNews, I was delighted to see the site has fully embraced the concept of Web 2.0 by providing a social network for global football fans. The site combines an up to date news facility from football clubs around the world, the site also includes an interactive, user-friendly chat interface. The concept of Web 2.0 was initially born from a meeting between Tim O? Reilly and MediaLive International, the results of this meeting were visionary. Their interpretation was, that far from the internet ?crashing? when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, it was in fact flourishing with new websites and applications appearing on a regular basis. The results of this meeting turned out to be true, however at the time they were scorned.



The introduction of social networking sites is a major aspect of Web 2.0, you will no doubt have heard of the major players in this industry, such as; Stumbleupon, MySpace and Facebook. These sites are growing at such an alarming rate that is it forecast they could well be bigger than Google by the year 2015.

F8ballNews have recently launched their own brand of Web 2.0 by delivering a social networking that focuses on delivering up to date football news and gossip. I have longed to find a website like this, generally I have to visit around 5 sites to find out what's going on in the football world. Now I simply visit the F8ballNews website where I am able to find out all I need to know. It is nice and refreshing to see F8ballNews pushing the boundaries by combining the ethos of web 2.0 with a sporting network, I personally believe social networking sites will form the corner stone of the Internet for many years to come. They are certainly user friendly, fun to use and they are a great medium for interaction and making new friends.

The interactive chat facility contained in the website is an interesting concept, I like the idea of exchanging my views on football with people from different environments and cultures. Football is truly a passionate sport followed by children and adults alike, it is strange that when my favourite team win on a Saturday afternoon it lifts my mood for the whole weekend. Unfortunately the reverse is also true, I remember even threatening to cancel my forthcoming wedding because my intended was laughing when my favourite team lost.

I certainly feel F8ballNews have been first to the market with their football based social networking site. I am sure the site will be well subscribed to by global football fans and webmasters alike. Currently F8ballNews are offering free membership to all of their subscribers. I imagine this is just taster for what we are to see in the future, in a few years time I imagine all sports will be covered by a social network.

If you would like to visit their website and have a look around for yourself, the address is www.f8ballNews.com