GLOBOsapiens intern talk group posting on GLOBOsapiens

Getting the high end members back to GLOBO

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andreas Joined: May 02 Points: 8309 Posts: 808 Posted: 2004-10-01 21:27:00    There is a mysterium on GLOBO. The page has the abiltiy to fascinate people and to glue them to the site for a long time. Some people login at least once a day. Upload loads of content and spent hours in creating awesome articles. Problem though is, that the critical mass is not reached yet. Means, that those active members change every 2 months. I saw great people like dave (undeed) or wojtekd beeing here a long time, then others come. How great would it be if we could have all the active members now all togehter?! I fear that some leave, since they think that there is not enough going on at globo and that there are other communities out there, where they have more audience. At the moment there are 5 people "online" where are all the others? On dating communities you see sometimes thousands of people online. I would be happy to crack the 3 digit number in the future! Any ideas? Andy Reply    Reply with quote    Contact andreas   britman Premium account Joined: Apr 04 Points: 17984 Posts: 83 Posted: 2004-10-02 11:46:00    I really think that the most important GLOBO members are those that have been here the longest and have contributed the most. I mean by that most of the original top twenty members and Hall of Fame entrants, such as VK, Kerry, Wojtek, Dave Undedd, Marianne, Whereisliz and Willow - (apologies to those who I have not named). All these people are still inspirational to all of us. It is so important that all these members know how significant their contributions have been and that they do still provide the motivation and encouragement to all new GLOBO’s who see their pictures and read their work. Of course we try and emulate their high standards and fine examples ourselves. My sincere thanks go to all you guys, but remember, we still need to read and see your new stuff to keep us all motivated! Of course I recognise that most of us only have a limited amount of stuff to upload to GLOBOsapiens. Everyone except the travel professionals (tour guides/operators/writers/photographers) have only had chance to make so many trips in their lifetime. Most of us “oldies” over 50 can only barely remember past detail of trips made 5+ years ago. As time goes by we certainly do not remember or retain sufficient detail of those pioneering trips to write a detailed informative report. Also old information is negative information when provided in a travel report. I am very lucky and have travelled a lot more than most and of course am older than most GLOBO’s. Nevertheless, my life has gone through phases of taking (never again watched) video instead of stills or for many years not bothering with a camera at all, because it was too much hassle to lug around. It is only in my “autumnal years” that I have had the time, equipment and money to invest in more travelling and pursue my hobbies of travel, writing and photography further. I also recognise that digital photography and smaller cameras and computers make photography so much easier today. Many younger members only get motivated to tell all after making that once in a lifetime gap year trip. Others are forced to cram in a week or two’s travel during their busy working year and they frequently need to crash out just to recharge their batteries before returning back to work for another hammering! So in summary there is only a certain amount of material available. Finally again thanks Andy – you made this possible for all of us!! Cheers, Brit --- Cheers! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact britman   christianj. Premium account Joined: Oct 02 Points: 6482 Posts: 69 Posted: 2004-10-02 16:33:00    I agree with Brit: 'There is only a certain amount of material available'. So, what is the next step if everything is written, all pictures are uploaded and all informations are found? I think, personal contact among the members should be the key. But how many members are interested in such a contact? (And, excuse me, how many are really able to communicate outside of their personal environment). Beside the forum and our guestbooks, the chat is the main tool for our communication, but up to now it is not really crowded. Maybe it's getting better when the improvements I read about are installed. I think, at the end, only the number of really interested, committed members will bring Globo forward. And this group is rising...! Maybe also the lost high-scores will notice that... And Andy, it is important not to stop your fantastic work - but I'm afraid you also need to exercise further patience... Thank you for everything, Christian --- Just SMILE - and the world smiles with you!! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact christianj.   mortimer Premium account Joined: Jun 04 Points: 15075 Posts: 528 Posted: 2004-10-02 16:40:00    Hi Andy I stay with brit on this. Once you posted all your old stuff, which can be pretty fast (even faster when you are on a premium membership) you have to hit the road before being able to post new stuff. You can go along and post some stuff about your home region, and encourage people to come there but there also, at one point of the time you're through all your material. And just to take a day trip to get new material from your region for GLOBOsapiens seams a bit far fetched for me. The high end members might not even now what is going on, on the site because they haven't logged in for a long time. What if there would be the possiblity to create a weekly digest of the things happening here like the topic replay emails. Enclosed in the weekly digest could be links to the top 30 rated pictures that have been posted in the last week and perhaps the top 3 pictures, some cuttings from a top report and links to the reports, and some Headers from the forum just to get their attention to check back. There should be the possibilty to enable/disable such a digest with a checkbox in your profile (As seen on yahoo groups). Or it could just be a monthly thing with the contest winners. And there are members like christian who I met some days ago in the chat who goes on a trip for a year.... He might no be able to post a lot of content when travelling but sure will be active later with a lot new stuff to add. I didn't see many members use their travel log properly. What about following suggestion: http://www.globosapiens.net/topic-photo-theme-contest-suggestion_29_1061_0000.html This could be something to encourage more and better posts. Martin [ This Message was edited by: mortimer on 2004-10-02 17:10 ] --- Today is the first day of the rest of your life, enjoy it! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact mortimer   inzaghi Joined: Jun 02 Points: 3862 Posts: 87 Posted: 2004-10-02 17:26:00    IMHO, in short, it mostly boils down to the "ROI" - or the returns on investment. I know of at least 2, perhaps 3, other excellent competing travel/travel writing/travel community sites and at least 1 of them offers some fantastic rewards to members for their contribution. And guess what? That particular site is growing at an astronomical rate, winning high end awards quite frequently too (Andy, you know which one it is!). Not many people, save the super-avid, would work hard at excellent reports for nothing more than recognition. Of course it is hard for us at Globo to compete with those giants since Globo is owned and managed by a single man. Other sites have teams of people with access to higher income and investment courses. But if Globo some day decides to add carrots to the rewards scheme, I bet you will see the numbers, and the faithful, increase. Just my C$0.02 --- Lover of just five things - travelling, photography, thick crust pizzas, the xy-chromosomes, the Italians and the Dutch. Well, I can't count, so? Reply    Reply with quote    Contact inzaghi   andreas Joined: May 02 Points: 8309 Posts: 808 Posted: 2004-10-02 17:39:00    Hello inzaghi, I dont share that opinion. I know what site you are talking about. They have enourmous trouble with plagarism. Please do also read my post which I replied to boris on that topic: http://www.globosapiens.net/topic-heading-for-10.000-members---whats-your-globo-strory_29_1054_0010.html I am also aware of that they won a prestigious award this year. GLOBO has not even made it through the first step. But this might have other reasons. This companies are venture funded, plus they are winning awards on their home ground. At the end it all boils down to money and "acquintences". Lets see if we get nominated this year. I know loads of great sites on the net and can judge good work as well. So if GLOBO does not even make a first step in this award next year, there must be something strange going on. They just called for entries to this award. So cross fingers :-) andy oh.. and there is a fantastic site for photography started by a german guy like me !!2 years back!! in Bonn. Just to illustrate quality: http://www.fotocommunity.com/ Reply    Reply with quote    Contact andreas   mortimer Premium account Joined: Jun 04 Points: 15075 Posts: 528 Posted: 2004-10-04 08:34:00    Hi Andy / Inzaghi I stay with Andy on this. Well I for myself am not attracted by a cheap flight somewhere or a 100$ gift certificate. It would have to be much more to make me post a lot more. But there is still the old ting about not having enough stuff once you are thourgh all your paper picture albums. I only have a limited amount of time a year (about 4 weeks) for travel the rest of the time I'm stuck to a small range where I live as I'm working on 6 days a week. So higher rewards would not help me post more. The point system is very good easy to understand and controllable. We could use them more by giving more possibilities for more points. What can a member earn once he got 5000, 10000, 15000, 20000 points as I pointed out in another post. We got that system now it is good and we should stay with it just always refine it a little bit. At the moment the only thing that can be earned is better picture quality by building up more points. That can be done quite quickly or there is the way around by buying the premium membership. The other reward for more points is where you are on the members list, but thats everything. Could there be the possibility of a free weekend trip to the GLOBOsapiens main office and a free beer with andy to a member with 50000 Points earned sponsered by all the newbies... ;-) hehehe Martin [ This Message was edited by: mortimer on 2004-10-04 08:38 ] --- Today is the first day of the rest of your life, enjoy it! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact mortimer   britman Premium account Joined: Apr 04 Points: 17984 Posts: 83 Posted: 2004-10-04 10:21:00    I am aware of the other travel site(s) referred to which are generally big, brassy and unfeeling. GLOBO is like a boutique hotel – classy, selective and caring – it is as Andy created it – a true community! Let me say that I am not tempted to join the mass of “holidaymakers” on the “other travel sites” to win glitzy prizes. As a traveller I have the choice where to upload my pictures and reports and choose GLOBO not for any monetary reward. The kudos on GLOBOsapiens is to have your work appraised and rated by your peers – fellow travellers not just packaged holidaymakers or Gappies! Once recognition happens, the normal average person strives to improve their work, status and standing within the Community. You soon learn on GLOBOsapiens what the requisite standards are – just look how Rangutan was at first slapped down in September and within that month was producing commendable reports and photo’s that gained him acclaim from all of us. So in short; - fancy glitzy prizes would I feel attract the wrong kind of member. However, there can be no getting away from the fact that this site does need commercial financial assistance to develop further and gain a bigger and better membership. It is a chicken and egg situation, for without members you will not get advertisers and, without advertisers you will only develop and increase membership numbers slowly. I feel confident that active member’s activity on all membership sites is around 5%. The same applies to any Club in real life 95% of the work is done by just 5% of the members! Potential advertisers do look at just one thing – numbers – how many people will take up the link and buy their product(s) if they invest in that link? So having said all that I have said we should be aware of promoting or discussing inactivity anywhere that would deter potential advertisers or sponsors. In the meantime revenue is I assume needed to enable GLOBO to expand and develop quicker (Andy will no doubt correct me if I am wrong). I feel that the advantages of Premium membership should be promoted and improved even further in an attempt to attract more paying members. Premium Membership does demonstrate a personal commitment to the Community. It would also provide the finance for short term development and promotion costs and prove to advertisers that we have a committed membership who is prepared to put real money where their mouths are. The current rate charged for Premium Membership is reasonable and affordable to any committed traveller. It would above all identify those who are actually committed to GLOBO’s philosophy development and future! If you haven’t already done so - Upgrade today!! Brit --- Cheers! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact britman   mortimer Premium account Joined: Jun 04 Points: 15075 Posts: 528 Posted: 2004-10-04 10:45:00    Hi Brit I agree with you that we should all upgrade to Premium! At the moment there are something like 15 Premium members => 225 € for Andy what a big sum to invest ;-) 10505 X 15 = 157575 € thats the way it should be! Come on you Premiums spread the word! Nag nag nag as you did with me! Could there be more Benefits for being a Premium member? (Just to make it more attractive) Perhaps Andy could sell diskspace so that when we are on travel can save pictures here and edit them later at home. I know you just bought a 1 GB card that did cost you at least 100€ how much would Andy charge you for such an amount of disk space... You could save that money and get your disk space for a certain amount of time, as long as needed when on your travels, on a monthly basis. There could be some further revenue for Andy. Martin --- Today is the first day of the rest of your life, enjoy it! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact mortimer   mortimer Premium account Joined: Jun 04 Points: 15075 Posts: 528 Posted: 2004-10-05 10:09:00    Hi Andy I was just thinking again about your question. Getting the high end members back to GLOBO? That means they don't come to the site anymore, the only way to get them back means contact them by email. I found in my member profile there is the newsletter function that can be disabled, im now a member for several months and haven't received any newsletter so far. Aparently you got everything prepared in the system you don't do it at the moment. As I said earlier just email the months winners and the word is spread. Martin --- Today is the first day of the rest of your life, enjoy it! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact mortimer   Page: 1 2