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Re: [jt512] Hi--I'm the new RockClimbing.com owner--ask me anything :
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happiegrrrl
Nov 4, 2013, 12:23 AM
Views: 12602
Registered: Mar 25, 2004
Posts: 4660
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Responding to JT512's post: Interesting -I wouldn't have said that was the prime reasons the site traffic dropped. In the early days, there was not a lot of competition for the traffic. YouTube didn't exist, and neither did Facebook. Discussion forums, in and of themselves, were enough to interest people. Climbers who had put up major FA's and pushed the grades posted here as part of the community. RC has always had a bit of a gumby flair, at least as far back as I can recall. But because there were enough people who walked the walk and didn't feel the need to be shitty, combined with the advent of socializing via the net and limited other options, the place had a healthy number and variety of users. When other sites came available, people naturally began moving to those, but RC still had a decent share. Remember when the servers were so sluggish and bogged down that it was nearly futile to navigate the site, and often it was down completely? To me, that was the first obvious move away in numbers, and that was before DDT and Sangiro bought the site. When DDT came on, the repair on servers was appreciated, but momentum had been lost. At first the new owners were excited about the project and users were happy with the improvements, Yes - the blandness of the look was an issue, but I don't really think it was anything like a deal-breaker for most. Regarding advertising - I wouldn't know, since I have blocked ads for years. But I don't think they were seriously courting specific climbing-related companies - rather, using Google ads, which would have served up what this audience cued them towards. I don't recall any big enough objection to advertising or a push towards monetizing this site that would have been a genuine influence on the departure. It seemed that DDT pretty early realized that he didn't have the resources/desire to guide the website's evolution and also(I believe) that the return on investment wasn't what he had anticipated. He tended to be hands-off, and perhaps when some of the buffoonery that was entertaining a subset of the community actually drove numbers, he accepted it simply because it was driving traffic in the short run. When NameMedia bought the site, it WAS seen as a negative by users, because the stable of websites NameMedia owned was pretty embarrassing and obviously commercially oriented. JUNG was hired to do some managing and he was GREAT. And then they realized that the site was bleeding money(I assume) and didn't want to have the expense. They terminated a widely liked and respected user of this site and that was really a decision that had an impact of the way users viewed the owners of the site. Then, there seemed to be nobody minding the door, and things began to devolve. There came a time when it became sport to be as rude as possible to some people, and the monkey-piling on others was disgusting, The same people also found it entertaining to hack into parts of the site and wreak general havok. Some of it was funny, but many people found it tiring. Any requests, made even in a general way, to stop being suck dicks(edit: oh, that was a typo! Should have been "such" dicks) resulted in those people being attacked. A few of the mods were among the assholes. Those few enabled the rank behavior and provided the assholes with information they had insider access to. The diaspora continued, and in the process it acted as a filter, homogenizing the neighborhood. People who weren't interested in a combatitive sort of interaction simply stopped posting. Some remained on the site, but were silent. The interesting thing is that there ARE still a number of users who have been on the site for years, and that the climbers on other sites WILL talk about it if changes here become evident. Also, according to Alexa, nearly a quarter of unique visitors to the site come here from Google. So, as long as value can be brought back into the site, the domain is valuable, at least as far as climbing-related properties go.
(This post was edited by happiegrrrl on Nov 4, 2013, 12:29 AM)
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Post edited by happiegrrrl
() on Nov 4, 2013, 12:29 AM
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