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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Sep 21, 2012 - 12:29pm PT
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Gaming is a stupid waste of time.
It's inherent.
It's a Republican plot to enrich the already rich Richard Dan Rich.
Or it's a communist plot.
Pretty ambiguous in any event.
We do not pretend to like outside agitation.
We do not cotton to trolling.
WE can look after ourSELVES just fine, Peersucker Suit Boy.
Get the "message?"
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neversummer
Trad climber
30 mins. from suicide USA
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Sep 21, 2012 - 12:49pm PT
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OP = ASSHAT
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adikted
Boulder climber
Tahooooeeeee
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Sep 21, 2012 - 01:02pm PT
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Reaches for popcorn!!!
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kendallc81
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2012 - 02:22pm PT
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@ mountainlion
There are no ads. At all. The only thing commercial you will ever see is the objects you asked to be associated with. Companies can not promote themselves in any way. Manufacturers literally have no means to provide us with money, directly or indirectly. And resellers only pay us through us referring sales to them after we have sent the sale. We push nothing on to anyone in any way.
We also do not sell users data in any way or ever access their data else in any way. We are a hermetically sealed container on a deserted island, informationally or big data speaking.
We promise these two things to our user in a way no one else ever has, by legally binding ourselves (and any future company who could acquire us) to these promises with our own legal documentation to the point that if we were ever to break either of these promises our company would be fined so heavily by the FTC that it would go under the next day. We have spoken with the FTC in person about this. With our net we have made for ourselves to prove our honesty, the fines are 5000 dollars a day a user PER infraction. You can do the math.
I am not revealing our identity so that it is obvious we are simply not trying to lift a couple of people or boost our SEO. By obscuring it I can understand that it seems I am attempting to boost interest, but that is not my intent. If anything it annoys people rather than intrigues them, so it would be a bad strategy if that was my goal.
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kendallc81
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2012 - 02:27pm PT
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@J.Haze
Please see my comment to mountainlion above concerning data mining and ads.
I agree with you that random photos are food are pointless. That is why we made a platform that gets more interesting photos and videos and shows them to the people most interested in them. We do make money, but we make it honestly by earning it through sales, not by selling people's data without their knowledge or throwing ads in their faces.
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kendallc81
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2012 - 02:30pm PT
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@ Jon Beck
I don't hide that we are approaching many forums at once. We want to see which communities are responsive and which are not. I say that in my OP. When you expect dishonesty from everyone you will see it everywhere even if it is not there.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Sep 21, 2012 - 02:44pm PT
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is this on the death to spammers list yet?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Sep 21, 2012 - 02:49pm PT
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"Interesting?"
Interesting...
Speedily I turned and ran away, f*#k that Niagara Falls bit!!!
This is not amusing any longer. This guy thinks he's John McClane and that is just unacceptable!!! He's my hero!!!
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kendallc81
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2012 - 02:53pm PT
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@mouse from merced
Oh if only I were John McClane I would simply run away slowly and everything would blow up behind me the day would be saved.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Sep 21, 2012 - 02:56pm PT
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Sounds to me like a me-too Facebook play, about half a decade too late, and not enough money to launch horizontally across the planet to compete even if being late wasn't an issue.
So you're taking some notes from "Crossing the Chasm," attempting to identify some "bowling pin" niche markets to dominate vertically, and somehow milk that into a chain of niches from which you can eventually launch more horizontally, to thrive after you saturate the "early adopter/enthusiast" market segments. Main street still looks pretty far away.
You're looking for a beach head market, but you blew the landing on this one (and most other ones). My alarm bells went off in the first sentence, and then it got worse when you have the generic cut/paste "hobbyist" message to shotgun across all forums. It shows you have no vested interest in this particular niche market, which severely undermines your credibility or likelihood of gaining a following in this market.
All is not lost, however. If you persevere past the initial hazing, and demonstrate some attention beyond what would be prudent for your business, then it might just work out to get some loyal followers. Maybe folks here will chime in with things they want that they don't get through Supertopo or Facebook.
On the bright side, I think it is a nice idea to find folks by common interest rather than existing friendship. But between Supertopo and Facebook groups, that part is pretty covered here. If I were you, I wouldn't mortgage the house on this idea!
I almost deleted this after writing it, but I thought the brutal honesty is worth more to save your future than you would suffer from a few moments of having the bubble of hope popped. And if this feedback causes you to suffer in any way, you're not ready to run a small business. It's easy for people to tell you how great something is, but it's a different matter for them to commit to using it or even pay for it.
Man, I think I missed my dose of Metamucil today. Gonna go look for it and see if I can get that stick out while I'm at it.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Sep 21, 2012 - 03:01pm PT
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Whatever happened with Ihateplastic's similar deal?
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Sep 21, 2012 - 03:06pm PT
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Social media is going through the same phase that online shopping went through. Plenty of kids, as in teenagers, set up grocery shopping websites. There were many sites to buy cars from. They are all gone. There are some things people do not want to turnover control of to the internet, and grocery shopping and car buying were a couple of them. Facebook sucks, and I predict it will go the way of myspace, geocities, juno, and aol.
I can not talk to facebook people without going through Facebook, it is ridiculous. I signed up now I am in Facebook hell, why would I do that to my climbing life.
CMac worked hard to build what I consider to be the best climbing forum on the internet. I doubt he wants to get lumped in with Guitars.com and ATVers.com. I just looked at rockclimbing.com, it is a ghost town. Leave well enough alone, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Hey STers, make sure to spend time clicking banner ads and gear reviews, it helps Chris and takes away some incentive to sell the user list to the highest bidder
Kendall, you should attend Facelift, it is free, you will meet loads of ST members, and find out what this "hobby" is all about. There is one hobbyist you just have to meet, his name is Alex, he will be there.
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Vegasclimber
Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
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Sep 21, 2012 - 03:08pm PT
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What a surprise, it's Off Topic Marmot!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Sep 21, 2012 - 03:13pm PT
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A gentleman's bet some jerk posts this diatribe (excellent choice of word--TY--like) to FB to show how on top he is, or she is, or hip (like, like, like, stop liking this), or something of that
Nature, hold it right f*#king there, you creep!!!(unlike)
Not enough gentlemen here, right, ladies?
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kendallc81
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2012 - 03:31pm PT
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@nutjob (funny, if feels weird calling you that and saying anything nicely afterwards)
No, I appreciate the observation and criticism. When it comes to criticism, if it isn't brutal it isn't helpful. Even non-constructive criticism can be a source of gold.
There is still room for growth within innovations of social networking. Pinterest is the fastest growing website in the history of the internet and all without taking a single member from Facebook.
We (like Pinterest) are trying to do something that something like Facebook is not even doing. Most social networking is not actually social networking. You simply connect with people you already know and hardly communicate with more than a few of them.
We looked at how some CEO billionaire who owns a Harley motorcycle can meet some guy on the street who is borderline homeless (but who owns a Harley) and the two can have hours of subjects to talk about. The same CEO runs into his college roommate and they have nothing to discuss because of the lack of KNOWN similar interests.
The forum is great for this, but the bottleneck of the extremely non-user-friendly interface has made it to where forums have almost reached their peak percentage they will ever reach. And it is extremely low percentage even the forums out there represent every interest anyone could possible have. In other words, they should have the entire market, but they have less than 4 percent.
We have found a way to combine all of someone's nuanced interests, activities and passions into one place in a user friendly way that will open up the gates that the traditional forum normally closes in less patient and tech savvy people's faces.
We have raised nearly a million in seed funding which is about 5 times more than seed ever reaches and this is because our idea has merit. The site is built, the user response has been largely positive and now we are ready to get our next bit of users. But we need to know how to spend our budget first. This is what this effort is to decipher. Forums are the perfect ad space for us. If someone is using an Apple 2E and enjoying it, think of how much they would like it if you handing them an iPhone.
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J.Haze
Sport climber
Ohio
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Sep 21, 2012 - 04:09pm PT
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warning! rant below:
The problem I still face with this whole premise is that you are claiming to be witholding the company name and site address in order to make your "intensions" more clear? I'm afraid that just makes your whole story murky. At the same time you post a link to a picture that could have been made using half the media programs I have on my computer, could probably make it in MS word. How do you expect to advertise a product successfuly with such a lack of coherent information? All you state is that you have this great new idea for a social network desgin for the "hobbiest". Well why is it so great, what features are you offering that make it unique compared to the other networking garbage on the web, wtf is it even called?
I guess the post bothers me to the Nth degree because I have a background in advertising and marketing. You don't even supply the most basic spec's for the functionality of said product, or even how it will work for the user in connection to this forum to make our user "experiance" better. How can anyone tell you they would be interested in such a product if they have zero real information to base a decision on. Yeah, yeah you will probably say we are looking to propose this to the forum owner so the post is vague for that reason, well look at the response you got from the users of ST, doesnt look so great and if the owner reads these threads he will see the skepticism. Frankly if your the head of advertising for this company the other partners should be worried cause you are clueless, I could advertise and sell a plastic pickle better than you are doing for this social network.
[edited as you posted while I was writing]
Even the most recent post tells me nothing, a million in seed money and a positive feedback from users and still we have yet to see a name for said website to at the very least verify your claims. Give me some proof, give me anything to go on besides we have a great idea.
[edited to add more lol]
FYI. you're premise for a site that nobody is doing is actually already made - it's call Meetup and it does a great job doing exactly what you are proposing, you have no fresh idea.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Sep 21, 2012 - 04:19pm PT
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What's in it for me?? A lot of the ST "charm" has to do with its 90s interface. People have a love/hate relationship with the UI and the content. I suspect many of the remaining forums are the same??
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Sep 21, 2012 - 04:23pm PT
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A lot of the ST "charm" has to do with its 90s interface.
Good point
The most popular website in the world has the crudest interface possible.
Craigslist, people love it. Except the politics section, you would have to be deranged to enjoy that.
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John M
climber
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Sep 21, 2012 - 04:25pm PT
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Whatever happened with Ihateplastic's similar deal?
I was wondering the same thing.
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SuperTopo on the Web
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