I'm an Old Avatar Now

A busy year in Second Life has brought some very exciting news. We have been successful in exposing the international needs of river and rafting sports and the need for river preservation. Many countries are creating river parks in their cities, environmentalists in foreign lands are flexing their muscle trying to save the rivers and waterways within their own communities and more people than ever are paddling or rafting California whitewater rivers with commercial outfitters.

But, I am now a full-fledged citizen of SL and there is a responsibility there being a landowner and a builder. Do we make 10 story malls next to beautiful oceanfront homes or do we raise them above 500 meters to lessen blight? Mainland properties have increased throughout the grid with residency rentals, vendor spaces and waterfalls and river parks. Water is a theme everywhere now. WET River Trips has two regions where I am building another project for them.

The best part is the social atmosphere of friends, partys, and events that seem to occur daily. I have joined forces with several groups and interests in creating a unified marketing strategy for traffic in world and out world internationally. We are having an awful lot of fun doing this!

Big changes are in the virtual landscape itself. More virtual worlds are being introduced though none have the economic base or sophistication of SL. I think soon, the entire virtual grid will be a standardized platform so that business can participate easily jumping from one landscape to another... business meetings, presentations, etc are already being utilized by several companies now.

The buzz is gone... it's not trendy anymore... just another business platform to help us promote our interests. And, that is the way it should be.

SEO Strategies

I'm looking out the window at another storm passing through California. The worrying about water, reservoirs and flows for rafting is disappearing as quickly as the dry grounds of the foothills. Looks like an awesome river rafting season for 2008.

I just got off the phone with a colleague that I have worked with for the last 5 years. We were discussing internet marketing strategies and the new landscape on the net. We both agreed that links are still important, but not the same linking strategy as before. No more, "Give me a link, and I'll link you" stuff. It's dead. I think we both agreed on that.

We also agreed that old strategies are out the window, too. Both of us had attended a conference discussing internet marketing. We both laughed at one presenter, not because of mis-information, but because of how old the strategies were. Marketing on the net changes extremely quickly. So quickly, that by the time a public speaker is addressing it, it's already old.

We optimize using alogorithms, logs, analysis and intuitive reasoning. We both belong to many SEO forums and groups. We both read everything and subscribe to all the heavy hitters including Matt Cutts' blog. It's almost my bible.

But it's the intuitive reasoning that is the most difficult. It's the art in SEO. Our team struggles everyday with this issue. Each RSS feed alert that comes into the desktop provides another method of SEO or internet marketing technique. Most we dismiss, and others we bookmark and send to each other.

Blogs are big. We know that. But when we started, we didn't know anything. We just journaled and blogged because it felt right. So we guessed, and we were right. Now, we are guessing again. And we are taking major gambles in doing so. If we succeed, it will be great for all of us; our white water rafting industry, our network partners and the consumer. If not, we go back to square one and try something else.

Meanwhile, I am forming a business relationship/partnership with a long-time colleague. He is one that I respect in this awful landscape of black hats, grey hats and every color in between. We both work to death and he is probably one of the few people that I can even discuss these issues without a blank face staring back at me.

The future is here and we at this domain RAFTWET.com are riding a wave like we've never rode before. We are psyched over here and crossing our fingers.

Website Updates

The new home page for W.E.T. River Trips was loaded recently using a 3-column template. It was hard to look at the new pages without missing the old one. So we put a link to the old page for people who might need the comfort of the old one.

The new format is divided into seasons; spring, summer, fall and winter. Yes, even winter. We find that many of our loyal client base loves to take a stab at winter boating. It's not for everyone definitely. It's cold and usually raining. But the river is deserted and spectacularly beautiful after a storm. Wildlife is usually roaming before the real cold sets in, so beavers and hawks and turtles roam the river corridor.

The seasons are unique in that each season specific rivers will run. Early spring, you have the incredible northern rivers running from spring melt and rainstorms. This is prime whitewater rafting season. Then in summer, dammed rivers kick in with controlled releases and great whitewater for the majority of the public. And fall, with most crowds tucked away, a time for wilderness rafting trips on multiple day excursions. Winter? Just for the whitewater paddling enthusiast... the junky of the paddling sport.

Drop us off a note if you have suggestions for the site. Trying to make this dinosaur of the oldest white water rafting site on the net has been quite a nightmare. We figured if we make changes and modifications to each of the old pages, we may be done by August 2008. Ha!

Raftwet Jewell Second Life Rafting Avatar

Hi all... as I usually say when I walk into a club to dance after building all day. The past few months have been an incredible journey of learning how to build, learning the Linden script and socializing with an international group of people, businesses and groups. I am officially a builder here. It's time to let you in the real world know a little more about W.E.T. River Trips focus here in Second Life.

Many of you who read the W.E.T. River Trips blogs, especially the California Whitewater Rafting Blog are usually reading about rivers, rafting, guides and California whitewater. The company started to write about lifestyles since extreme sports and whitewater rafting usually attracted certain types of people and markets. We in the SL world are focusing on promoting whitewater rafting.

The sims that have extreme sports are usually reflected in the groups that you might join here. There are skiing, snowboarding, sky diving, scuba diving, surfing, kite surfing, skateboarding, mountain biking, paddling, and on and on. Are they there to sell the activity? Probably not. All of us who own sims and land do this because we love the sports we love.

Second Life is just that. A secondary reality that usually reflects hopes, dreams and light and dark visions that a RL (real life) person may visualize. SL is not the answer for a lot of people. There are rites of passage while navigating this place. And some are not so nice.

I love being here. The support from this community has been unparalleled in any place I've ever been. I love my friends and especially those who love extreme sports. We thrive on living on the edge. Those who laugh and poke fun at us avis... they don't understand. And we don't expect them to understand.

My best friend here is a tech head in RL. He is also a builder and scripter in SL. Here is what he has said about the critics: "Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." (quote by Albert Einstein) And I can't argue with that.

Posted by Second Life Avatar: RAFTWET Jewell
Groups: rafting, whitewater, W.E.T. River Trips - join our groups in Second Life!

2008 Website Revamps

Back to work... it's that time again for all the rafting outfitters to evaluate their websites and figure out the latest SEO for their site rankings. With social networking being derigeur, the whole SEO ballgame goes out the window (or so they say...). Page views are no longer as important as they were before. With Ajax, stickiness becomes more difficult to measure. Is it the time the consumer spends? Or is it the ROI?

I'm a nuts and bolts kind of person. I want to see numerical results. So, when I see profit margins shrinking because of PPC and other strategies, I have to re-evaluate, even when the internet marketer is telling me otherwise. It's the bottom line that has the tendency to gather all my attention... especially after speaking with the accountant... ha!

For this year, we have decided to try, once again, to ratchet back the number of paddlers we accommodate in a given season. Last year, we pulled all marketing internet traffic around the beginning of August in a half-ass attempt to slow the sales down. By the first of August, we were sold out for the entire season. But, that left us with hardly anything to offer for the rest of the season.

Our staff, for an entire month, stayed busy by invention. Each time the phone rang, the entire staff just cringed. The phone was an enemy in which we only said, "... sorry, we're sold out this weekend..." Then the consumers were hitting the store online and showing up without reservations on the day of the trip. (Yes... we have a gazillion disclaimers on the store site... people still showed up on the day of the trip anyway...)

Our biggest concern for this upcoming season is how to control the internet traffic in such a way as to not overwhelm our small staff, and to have this traffic in a more reasonable flow... yeh, right... if we can do this, we will have accomplished a miracle.

The Rescue Plan

New players coming aboard to help with the new W.E.T. River Trips site are like Neo to the rescue. Part of our group is forming a partnership with another network in order to make things flow together. (Pun intended...) Hey, finally we're excited again.

So many changes are happening on the internet that it is making our heads spin. As page view stats start to disappear, everyone is going to see a much more familiar landscape on the net. It's called plain ol' advertising... marketing with an internet twist, of course. (Madison Ave is finally listening...)

The daily grind of the seo expert is currently changing with the wind. More on that later as we welcome new strategies and ways to our revamp. Some old stuff will remain as they have proven their worth while other strategies are going out the window. YJ, are you listening, dude... Aloha, from the beach...

RAFTWET -the Avatar

Second Life is becoming complicated for the avatar, Raftwet. She has evolved from a rudimentary avatar of warehouse freebies dressed in clumsy attire and non-scripted hair, to the alluring realness of a well-dressed woman. She has a form and shape that is to die for as she moves gracefully into the social world that exists there.

She is dancing at ballrooms and raves. She has been given social invitations to upscale events. She's traveled to Venice for a rooftop party in the square. She went to Barcelona to shop for beautiful clothing and shoes. And she's just been invited to tour Nantucket in a yacht with friends.

Recreation and activities are available on most of the islands. Rafee (new nickname) loves surfing on Japan Resort, raving at TJice, cruising through the Gardens at Apollo, dancing at the Moonlight Ballroom, swimming in the ocean and floating on the rivers. What's gotten complicated is the social aspect. Like the real world, there are liars, con men and thieves. Our naive avatar has made many multiple faux pas in this world, thinking it was a utopia instead of a possible dystopia.

Our Raftwet avatar has gotten involved with a man there. He is a handsome, polished character with many friends. He has professed his love for her. We think our avatar is in love. Yes, the avatars do fall in love. And with a declared love, comes the complication of love triangles, miscommunication and jealousy. The two characters have openly debated the need for more time as couples do in RL. But in doing so, this has opened the door for our avatar to meet others.

There's Ron, a gorgeous guy who is always dressed to the nines. A physical attraction has developed between the two friends. We can tell that they like each other. He has connections to many of the retailers in SL and has helped Rafee with her new look.

And there's Popo, her friend who is teaching her French. He is a gentleman in Paris who was one of her first dance partners. In RL, he lives in Paris and works for a technical firm. He has saved her from the hooligans and griefers on many occasion.

Anto, is an Italian friend, who has been a great support with introducing her to many places and people. He is also a fine ballroom dancer. He may be a woman or a man. It doesn't really matter in SL. He recently took her to Venice for a penthouse party in the square.

Another interesting character is Fernando from Argentina. He is a mad scripter and griefer. Our avatar has a bit of a crush on him as she seems to be attracted to the crazies and their brilliant minds. He has given her many scripted items. He took her for a ride on Pegasus. Then he gave her the flying script with the winged horse, and they both flew around the islands all afternoon. After that, she was his friend forever.

So where are the woman friends? There's CeCe, Emily, Notorious and others. The problem with women in SL, especially in the dancing or club scene, is just like in RL. Everyone is jealous of each other. On the dance floor, women will literally push you away from a guy. Or block you from dancing with a friend. Really! It's kind of odd, since you can always change your look to whatever you want. So jealousy in SL... does seem weird.

And finally, there's Lou. Her first real friend in SL. He has been there since day one. A good friend to dance with, to talk to, to hang out with. He is gorgeous, young and has lots of friends. The two avatars keep their lives separate as he is a punk and metal guitarist for a band and leads a different lifestyle in SL. He has helped warn her of the problems in SL and the social dynamics.

The avatars do fall in love. They get married, they get pregnant, they have children, homes, pets, property, jobs and love lives. The only difference is that problems and relationships can disappear quickly as easily as turning off the computer.

Raftwet - The Avatar

Rafee (nickname) went shopping with $10,000 Linden dollars last week. About $30+ in US currency. With that money, Rafee went to Barcelona for a shopping spree. Beautiful gowns and casual sets were purchased. She also went to some of the hottest retail properties in Second Life suggested by many other avatars. A new skin and shape helped to make the clothes look even better as our avatar evolved. Off to Gurl for the latest in hairstyles, and Rafee was set.

She had been invited to a dance party at both Virtual Party and Mediascape. She went to both. In RL, the members of the team were also having a party. So the weekend was spent raving on in RL and in SL. All the team had their laptops gaming their favorites while a lot of them spent their time in SL dancing with each other while we tweaked what we could.

Blurry eyed, lack of sleep, it was a 2-day event of no-sleep, gallons of caeffine, bad food, awesome music and dancing. They all met people in SL, danced with them, cuddled and danced some more. Our avatar finally hit the sack in RL around 4am on Monday morning.

The RL world remains the same, but SL moves faster than a griefer's scripted command.

RAFTWET

Cleaning a closet... that's the metaphor that appropriately describes what we're doing here. We're throwing away the junk. You know the old saying,"If you haven't used it in a year, then throw it away or donate it..."

Cleaning up the raftwet website is kind of like that. Much of our content over the years has been copied by other websites, so cleaning up means checking for dead links or links that have changed, adding new content and doing more research. Fixing code errors and trying to keep a uniform sense has been difficult because of my chronic ADD. I just keep getting distracted. While most websites stay with one template, one css file; I find that I want several looks within the site. There just seems to be so much info that needs to be organized and how can I pigeon-hole it into just one look?

I'm already missing the old website with it's crazy layout and even wilder navigation. It seemed so unrestrained and primitive reflecting the early days of the net and our marketing attempts. But, the public keeps demanding simplicity with lots of info and bells and whistles and interaction and novelty and media and on and on and on.

What I find though is most of us who surf the net for information want it quick. Sure, the site that has the cool flash intro is fun to look at, maybe once or twice, then it gets tedious and old rather quickly. In fact, most of us click off the flash intros to get to the meat of the info in the site. Because, the reality is that we are really too busy to waste time when we're trying to reserve rafting trips or family vacations. Sure, we'll spend hours doing research, but we want it quickly and to the point.

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?

Rafting Directories

Just a shout out to one of our long time web relationships: RaftInfo, the rafting directory for the United States. When W.E.T. River Trips established its company domain, RAFTWET, back in 1995, we were one of a very few California outfitters with a website. RaftInfo created a directory of rafting outfitters across the country right around the same time and included W.E.T. as a featured California rafting company. Now several rafting trips and outfitters are included along with international river trips.

Their recent remake of their website now includes several blogs from different regions. And the iBetty Network is an invited guest blogger on their site along with RAFTWET. For more information on rafting trips throughout the nation, check out their website. And the California whitewater rafting website has full river descriptions about rivers in California and a listing of California rafting companies.

RAFTWET.com

W.E.T. River Trips = RAFTWET.com

You can get to our main website using either domain:

• wetrivertrips.com


• raftwet.com

If you can't figure any of the internet domains out; just call toll free!
1.888.RAFTWET (888.723.8938)

And for all those websites out there who are using elements from our website, well we say, blah! If you really want to get WET, then go to this site to get to our main website:

• getwetrafting.com

It will also take you to our main website... ribbity ribbity ribbity and that's all folks!

See you on the river in 2007!
W.E.T. River Trips since 1978 founded in Sacramento, California on Planet Earth!