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.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
New Stuff
Well, we uploaded several new pages using two new templates and two new css files. Do I love it? No. I'm already tired of the "new look." But, it is definitely more organized. Today, we added back some photos. The zen of pure code was taking over the joy of the visual experience. So, we added back in the pictures. Then we looked at the code. Yuck. It really junked up my nice clean structure. But, oh, I forgot... we are trying to sell river trips...
Speaking of clean code... learning script has been interesting... especially the Linden script for Second Life. It's getting easier and easier to look at script and filter out the junk and actually see the commands and action. Fun stuff. Now if I can apply this to real life script, I might be able to do something cool on the raftwet site.
A colleague of mine is a master programmer. He works on real life scripts. I'm scared of him. He has told me how scarey script can get, and I now know what he's talking about. It is scarey... the power of the action and commands that can "tell" something to do something that seems quite magical. I'm totally intrigued... lots of late night learning to do next.
Speaking of clean code... learning script has been interesting... especially the Linden script for Second Life. It's getting easier and easier to look at script and filter out the junk and actually see the commands and action. Fun stuff. Now if I can apply this to real life script, I might be able to do something cool on the raftwet site.
A colleague of mine is a master programmer. He works on real life scripts. I'm scared of him. He has told me how scarey script can get, and I now know what he's talking about. It is scarey... the power of the action and commands that can "tell" something to do something that seems quite magical. I'm totally intrigued... lots of late night learning to do next.
Friday, May 25, 2007
New Stuff & Marketing
We've posted some new pages on the site using new templates and css files. Nothing to shout about, but definitely more organized. We've broken down our categories to simplify navigation. The site is so darn big now, that we've kind of forgotten some of our old pages... and maybe, they will die quietly? Or maybe we'll take some time to freshen them up, too.
Our friend Pat, over at raftinfo.com, has just launched another new look to his rafting directory. It is sweeeeet! Clean and easy to navigate, the directory includes many outfitters throughout the country. We really need someone like that to take over our dinosaur...
One of the things that I've noticed since we started revising our website, is the obsession of clean code. I get it. I really do. There is a perverse joy in seeing the code simplified without a bunch of junk coding and html.
The obsession is creating a sort of backlash against graphics and pictures, though, as we try to keep each page as clean as possible. It's become sort of a game of trying to get away from templates and authoring programs and focusing on pure code. And this from a non-programmer!
I think most of us who "play" with the web are always looking for a game-like response to each new change on the internet. First it was just learning simple HTML, then the SEO game, then the organic search mantra, then the bid strategy for PPC, then CSS simplification, then clean code advocates, social networking and now, just organizing the sites (back to square one?).
Everything is cyclic as we see each internet giant buy into the "old media" giants housed in New York on Madison Avenue... back to plain ol' advertising... with a twist, of course. What will we be facing next? More advertising placed on every single thing that you do on the internet. That is the future. Because Tivo ruined the onslaught of advertising on TV, everything moves to the web.
Our friend Pat, over at raftinfo.com, has just launched another new look to his rafting directory. It is sweeeeet! Clean and easy to navigate, the directory includes many outfitters throughout the country. We really need someone like that to take over our dinosaur...
One of the things that I've noticed since we started revising our website, is the obsession of clean code. I get it. I really do. There is a perverse joy in seeing the code simplified without a bunch of junk coding and html.
The obsession is creating a sort of backlash against graphics and pictures, though, as we try to keep each page as clean as possible. It's become sort of a game of trying to get away from templates and authoring programs and focusing on pure code. And this from a non-programmer!
I think most of us who "play" with the web are always looking for a game-like response to each new change on the internet. First it was just learning simple HTML, then the SEO game, then the organic search mantra, then the bid strategy for PPC, then CSS simplification, then clean code advocates, social networking and now, just organizing the sites (back to square one?).
Everything is cyclic as we see each internet giant buy into the "old media" giants housed in New York on Madison Avenue... back to plain ol' advertising... with a twist, of course. What will we be facing next? More advertising placed on every single thing that you do on the internet. That is the future. Because Tivo ruined the onslaught of advertising on TV, everything moves to the web.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Griefers
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.
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.
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.
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