Our Second Life property is a work in progress as we practice building waterfalls, flowing streams and rock formations. We've been working on scripting the prims to do some cool stuff, too. Each time we're there, we play with the prims and create different items for our inventory. My favorite prim is the torus. It seems that you can do so many cool things with it. I discovered that I could make these really neat objects and then attach the whole thing to my avatar. Dancing with the "thing" looks so cool when you're at the festival or at another dance site.
I was there one day engrossed with the playing of prims. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, another avatar was standing on the property next to ours. She (you never really know the gender, as role playing is rampant) was building some neat stuff, too. I sent a chat over and said, "Hi." She didn't respond so I just went about my building. She might not have seen the chat because I know I've missed greetings before while taking a break in the bathroom or just being so involved in whatever project I was attempting. So there was no offense taken.
I kept working when she dragged a very large item right to the property line in front of my bridge. The property next door has nothing on it except for a couple of scripted small items that the owner is storing there. Many people purchase properties just to gain more numbers of prims for their main estates. I wasn't sure if the avatar was the property owner or maybe a friend of theirs.
Then she disappeared, leaving this huge thing looming right on the property line and blocking my bridge. It was kind of weird. So, I felt a little bit of sorrow as I realized that it was done on purpose. Solution? I placed a transparent wall there to soften the obstruction and proceeded to change the configuration of my property. You got to live with your neighbors. Just like in real life.
The item disappeared soon after. Each time, we keep refining and changing stuff on the land. It's become an obsession as we keep practicing what we've learned. Yesterday, someone left three giant neon green pulsating items looming over our site again. Geesh. I clicked on to it and sure enough, it was for sale.
Okey, I get it now. Someone was trying to force me to purchase their stuff so that I could delete it. It was just some ugly thing that someone left just to annoy me. Sigh, just like in real life, when a neighbor puts up an ugly fence or wall. Perceptions are everything. Sometimes, you just have to live with the neighbor or the people who hang there.
In Second Life there are islands and properties that have covenants where this type of behavior is restricted. It's like living in a gated community with a neighborhood association. Ick. That's the last place I want to hang. At least this interaction has been annoying, amusing and actually kind of interesting. The blandness of a gated community leads me to want to hang where I am and maybe make a new friend.
Griefers in Second Life can be looked at as just another annoying source on the internet. At least here, it's just a game.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Friday, May 4, 2007
Links
We've got a lot of links on our site. Most of them got there because the site owner asked, and we saw that their website had valuable information for our rafting clients. When you love something like rafting and whitewater, you want to share that passion with other people.
My brother-in-law's nephew was in town from Ohio a couple of weeks ago. We sent him on a bunch of trips on the American River. He even did a 2-day wilderness trip on the South Fork. He was hooked. He called his uncle and told him that it was the highlight of his California tour. He said that while he was lying on the ground in his sleeping bag in the Lotus Coloma Valley, he saw a night filled with stars like he had never seen before. He said, arms outstretched, "... here..., I am... me, under this universe of stars." The joy in his voice was contagious.
That's why we link. We link to other rafting companies across the country and throughout California and the west because we really love rafting. We know that once you're hooked, you will come back to us or to another company. You will talk it up and bring that same contagious enthusiasm to your friends, your family. Then you'll bring your kids when they are old enough because you love it so much. Pretty simple concept, heh?
We still get the spammy emails asking for links. We usually just ignore it. The links we do give are usually to smaller outfitters that bring an intimacy and love to their river trips. Most of these rafting companies are like us, they do it because they love rafting. Otherwise, what's the point?
My brother-in-law's nephew was in town from Ohio a couple of weeks ago. We sent him on a bunch of trips on the American River. He even did a 2-day wilderness trip on the South Fork. He was hooked. He called his uncle and told him that it was the highlight of his California tour. He said that while he was lying on the ground in his sleeping bag in the Lotus Coloma Valley, he saw a night filled with stars like he had never seen before. He said, arms outstretched, "... here..., I am... me, under this universe of stars." The joy in his voice was contagious.
That's why we link. We link to other rafting companies across the country and throughout California and the west because we really love rafting. We know that once you're hooked, you will come back to us or to another company. You will talk it up and bring that same contagious enthusiasm to your friends, your family. Then you'll bring your kids when they are old enough because you love it so much. Pretty simple concept, heh?
We still get the spammy emails asking for links. We usually just ignore it. The links we do give are usually to smaller outfitters that bring an intimacy and love to their river trips. Most of these rafting companies are like us, they do it because they love rafting. Otherwise, what's the point?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Rankings - SEO
Rankings are dropping... geesh, I wonder why... I can't seem to concentrate on SEO anymore. I haven't optimized or cleaned up pages in a while. Haven't even updated some of the '06 stuff... I'm bored. The challenge of keeping the site fresh is daunting. Daunting because the site is just too big, now. I do admit that I am slowly cleaning up the code on our more important pages, but it is really, really boring. Several templates have been designed in anticipation of re-doing the entire site. But honestly, blogging just seems so much easier. The content is always fresh. The information is always timely. Some of our rankings in keywords are still high on the search engines, but, it seems that the whole search thing for me doesn't seem quite as important as it was a few years ago.
This is a good year to step back and re-evaluate where we would like the rafting website to go. There are a lot of ideas in my head. Some are "old-school" marketing techniques that can be applied to the internet and others are very contemporary and new.
There are a lot of resources on the net providing businesses with templates for their websites. But even after customizing them, they all look the same. And the designers that create fabulous looking websites don't care about SEO at all. They just care about the beauty and the bells and whistles. As a creative person, my tendencies are to look towards an artful way of presenting our information. The only problem is that the code prevents the ranking. So, W.E.T. just keeps plugging along... we're trying to balance both.
Our team bloggers have taken over the main California rafting blog, while I seem to write more about the business itself. It's what currently dominates my thoughts.
This is a good year to step back and re-evaluate where we would like the rafting website to go. There are a lot of ideas in my head. Some are "old-school" marketing techniques that can be applied to the internet and others are very contemporary and new.
There are a lot of resources on the net providing businesses with templates for their websites. But even after customizing them, they all look the same. And the designers that create fabulous looking websites don't care about SEO at all. They just care about the beauty and the bells and whistles. As a creative person, my tendencies are to look towards an artful way of presenting our information. The only problem is that the code prevents the ranking. So, W.E.T. just keeps plugging along... we're trying to balance both.
Our team bloggers have taken over the main California rafting blog, while I seem to write more about the business itself. It's what currently dominates my thoughts.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
RAFTWET's Second Life
Social networking is booming on the internet... or so they say. When we first jumped online in 1995, our first "website" was with Geocities, a social network of free websites that linked all of us together as a community. We published all of our funny river rafting stories and other commentaries about rafting trips. Most of these were about private trips, strange customers and funny stories about the guides. Never did we think that it would be a marketing tool. It was just a place to store the stories and to vent and rage on about stuff.
Most businesses left and so did we, though our site still exists and still draws quite a bit of traffic. Small businesses all started "real" websites. In other words, we paid to have it hosted. For us, there were lots of authoring programs that allowed us to create the site with minimal HTML knowledge. We just dropped and dragged text boxes and photos on to the page and then uploaded the document to the servers. Pretty simple.
Linking to other websites became a different social network of like-minded webmasters who were creating content that complimented each other. We were all "bro'in'" down with each other as we sent internet traffic to friends and each other.
And here we are, in 2007 and the buzz word is "social networking" again. Okey. So what's new? Myspace, YouTube, Blogger, Facebook, etc all provide more ways to communicate with your personal network... your friends. Of course, Myspace, YouTube are kings of them all. And Blogger is one of my favorites for journaling everything. But it still seems to be the same way of communicating, just more sophisticated.
A couple of years ago, I heard about a different type of communication tool. More buzz was coming from the gamers about this social network. At first, it sounded like the Sims, but I tried Sims and I got bored with it. The newer concept was Second Life, a virtual world from Linden Labs. They created "land" and people bought it... just like in the real world. Builders were constructionists who had 3-D knowledge and made buildings, trees, boats, cars... you name it with "prims." Prims are building blocks. A cube, a sphere, a pyramid, a cylinder... and then you manipulate it. The basic building blocks of life. Programmers created script to make things move and do something. A river flows. A carousel spins. A door closes automatically. A person can fly and become a fire-breathing dragon. I loved it. So fun. And so much time lost in a virtual world.
It didn't take a rocket science to realize the marketing potential of having a storefront or a billboard or an event hyping your product. And yes, the spammers are there as well as pornographers, gambling casinos and con artists. Just like in the real world. Even the obnoxious stereotypical dude that you hate at every party is there.
W.E.T. River Trips has land on Mauve, a popular land mass with a great sandbox (sandbox definition: a free place to practice building). We've met lots of great builders and programmers. The mind-blowing world invites awe, as beautiful properties unfold before your eyes. Oceanfront property, magical forests, free-flowing rivers and forbidden lands all entice you to explore. Those who attempt to build are surprised by their own accomplishments as an array of international members and residents are so willing to advise and help.
A recent post by Steve Rubel outlines the reasons for being there. It is the future of marketing. Even if Second Life fails, that future has been assured. Though, tech-heads are ruling that virtual world now, the execution will become simpler and simpler for the everyday business world.
For now, you have to have quite a powerful computer to operate in it. I envision Second Life to be a browser based application on Firefox so that anyone can participate. A world mirroring our own reality is waiting for any creative internet marketer. In the meantime, I'm having a blast.
Most businesses left and so did we, though our site still exists and still draws quite a bit of traffic. Small businesses all started "real" websites. In other words, we paid to have it hosted. For us, there were lots of authoring programs that allowed us to create the site with minimal HTML knowledge. We just dropped and dragged text boxes and photos on to the page and then uploaded the document to the servers. Pretty simple.
Linking to other websites became a different social network of like-minded webmasters who were creating content that complimented each other. We were all "bro'in'" down with each other as we sent internet traffic to friends and each other.
And here we are, in 2007 and the buzz word is "social networking" again. Okey. So what's new? Myspace, YouTube, Blogger, Facebook, etc all provide more ways to communicate with your personal network... your friends. Of course, Myspace, YouTube are kings of them all. And Blogger is one of my favorites for journaling everything. But it still seems to be the same way of communicating, just more sophisticated.
A couple of years ago, I heard about a different type of communication tool. More buzz was coming from the gamers about this social network. At first, it sounded like the Sims, but I tried Sims and I got bored with it. The newer concept was Second Life, a virtual world from Linden Labs. They created "land" and people bought it... just like in the real world. Builders were constructionists who had 3-D knowledge and made buildings, trees, boats, cars... you name it with "prims." Prims are building blocks. A cube, a sphere, a pyramid, a cylinder... and then you manipulate it. The basic building blocks of life. Programmers created script to make things move and do something. A river flows. A carousel spins. A door closes automatically. A person can fly and become a fire-breathing dragon. I loved it. So fun. And so much time lost in a virtual world.
It didn't take a rocket science to realize the marketing potential of having a storefront or a billboard or an event hyping your product. And yes, the spammers are there as well as pornographers, gambling casinos and con artists. Just like in the real world. Even the obnoxious stereotypical dude that you hate at every party is there.
W.E.T. River Trips has land on Mauve, a popular land mass with a great sandbox (sandbox definition: a free place to practice building). We've met lots of great builders and programmers. The mind-blowing world invites awe, as beautiful properties unfold before your eyes. Oceanfront property, magical forests, free-flowing rivers and forbidden lands all entice you to explore. Those who attempt to build are surprised by their own accomplishments as an array of international members and residents are so willing to advise and help.
A recent post by Steve Rubel outlines the reasons for being there. It is the future of marketing. Even if Second Life fails, that future has been assured. Though, tech-heads are ruling that virtual world now, the execution will become simpler and simpler for the everyday business world.
For now, you have to have quite a powerful computer to operate in it. I envision Second Life to be a browser based application on Firefox so that anyone can participate. A world mirroring our own reality is waiting for any creative internet marketer. In the meantime, I'm having a blast.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Resource Developer Passes Away
The email missives came regularly, updating our staff about Ms. C's condition. She was diagnosed a couple of years ago with leukemia. Her sister, a good friend of mine had taken charge of the kaleidescope of medical procedures that require almost a medical degree to navigate. Persistent, my friend with no background in medicine, became an authority on every drug and treatment that her sister was facing. She took Ms. C along with her only child, back to her own home to care for her beloved sister.
Ms. C who owned her own business raised her son by herself after her brief marriage. I met her through my friend. A take-charge kind of woman, she was single, running a successful business, raising her son and owning her own home. An American dream... just not with a spouse.
Last year, during a remission, she moved back to her own home again to try to create some normalcy after many series of treatments. She felt good. Her need for independence after relying on so many, had taken a toll. We hired her to develop areas of our website. She thought it was cool to be able to surf the net and get paid for it.
Her work was thorough and complete. She learned very quickly. She relieved a burden on our staff. And as many of you know, how difficult it is to keep good researchers on task.
Then one day, her emails stopped. I knew she was struggling again. The work came to a grinding halt as we knew it wasn't any of the regular email excuses that we've all used about sending and receiving messages. I talked to my friend and she told me that Ms. C had relapsed, and the cancer was back.
This week, we received the email that we were dreading. Ms. C had talked to the family and her doctors asking for no more treatments and to be released from the hospital. She was ready, and wanted to go home. She was peaceful in this decision. And when the time came, her entire family, along with her priest, was there to bid her farewell. She died yesterday afternoon on a beautiful, sunny day in spring. We send our prayers to her son and her extended family.
Ms. C who owned her own business raised her son by herself after her brief marriage. I met her through my friend. A take-charge kind of woman, she was single, running a successful business, raising her son and owning her own home. An American dream... just not with a spouse.
Last year, during a remission, she moved back to her own home again to try to create some normalcy after many series of treatments. She felt good. Her need for independence after relying on so many, had taken a toll. We hired her to develop areas of our website. She thought it was cool to be able to surf the net and get paid for it.
Her work was thorough and complete. She learned very quickly. She relieved a burden on our staff. And as many of you know, how difficult it is to keep good researchers on task.
Then one day, her emails stopped. I knew she was struggling again. The work came to a grinding halt as we knew it wasn't any of the regular email excuses that we've all used about sending and receiving messages. I talked to my friend and she told me that Ms. C had relapsed, and the cancer was back.
This week, we received the email that we were dreading. Ms. C had talked to the family and her doctors asking for no more treatments and to be released from the hospital. She was ready, and wanted to go home. She was peaceful in this decision. And when the time came, her entire family, along with her priest, was there to bid her farewell. She died yesterday afternoon on a beautiful, sunny day in spring. We send our prayers to her son and her extended family.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Website Makeover
Oh, the agony of a novice that is trying to figure out PHP and Mysql. I'm not a programmer and I didn't go to school to learn computer languages. I'm like most web design learners. I just want the site to look good and navigate well. And that ain't happening. The myriad of templates and tutorials is making my head spin. I can't believe how many templates and CSS files I've created. I just can't make up my mind and pick one to work with and redo the entire website. Maybe I should use all the templates and all the CSS files since the site has so many different places to go.
One of our colleagues who does websites very well is Matterhorn Marketing. He has created a ton of sites for Eastern rafting companies. His sites all look good and navigate easily. Why can't I just let him take over our site? I know he'd do a great job and I know I could finally relax a bit over here. He could take over our internet marketing and I could go on vacation for the first time in years... wha' up wit dat? Why not?
The thing about letting anyone else do your website is mixed up in a realm of ego and control. Will the site be hosted on their servers? Will the files be part of my website or hosted somewhere else? Will I get the template files, the header files, the CSS files, the PHP files, the graphics, the footers, the blah blah blah blah and on and on... and what hidden scripts will be lurking in those mysterious places that only a webmaster knows? Sigh... I'm telling you, this has been the toughest decision ever.
And yet, while the other rafting companies' webmasters are busy optimizing, we're sitting here procrastinating. And guess what, we still haven't made a decision on which way to go, and our first rafting trip is in two weeks.
One of our colleagues who does websites very well is Matterhorn Marketing. He has created a ton of sites for Eastern rafting companies. His sites all look good and navigate easily. Why can't I just let him take over our site? I know he'd do a great job and I know I could finally relax a bit over here. He could take over our internet marketing and I could go on vacation for the first time in years... wha' up wit dat? Why not?
The thing about letting anyone else do your website is mixed up in a realm of ego and control. Will the site be hosted on their servers? Will the files be part of my website or hosted somewhere else? Will I get the template files, the header files, the CSS files, the PHP files, the graphics, the footers, the blah blah blah blah and on and on... and what hidden scripts will be lurking in those mysterious places that only a webmaster knows? Sigh... I'm telling you, this has been the toughest decision ever.
And yet, while the other rafting companies' webmasters are busy optimizing, we're sitting here procrastinating. And guess what, we still haven't made a decision on which way to go, and our first rafting trip is in two weeks.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Server Down
My goodness! Is there anything that can't go wrong? The past 3 days was spent troubleshooting the RAFTWET site as we watched the site download to a crawl... and then to that unsavory window that states, "The site could not be found or the server may be too busy. Please try again." Or something to that effect. Blah blah as the saying goes, but essentially the IP host was having serious problems that essentially took down the entire network. Sorry, they said.
Here we are in the middle of our booking season with several number one Google positions for our rafting keywords and then boom! No site. Nothing comes up but the spinning rotating cursor. So we spent hours talking with tech people and trying to stay calm and cool. What the heck? If it's not going to get fixed within 24 hours, why stress? So, I took off for the day and spent it with friends near the river. Not a bad solution to a problem, I say.
More grist for the blog, I guess... and hey, the site is back up again! Yeh!
Here we are in the middle of our booking season with several number one Google positions for our rafting keywords and then boom! No site. Nothing comes up but the spinning rotating cursor. So we spent hours talking with tech people and trying to stay calm and cool. What the heck? If it's not going to get fixed within 24 hours, why stress? So, I took off for the day and spent it with friends near the river. Not a bad solution to a problem, I say.
More grist for the blog, I guess... and hey, the site is back up again! Yeh!
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