Itinerant Air-Cooled

Amskeptic wrote: Don't get flip, boy. This is NOT hand-wringing. It is what the CEOs should have done at American Motors, Pontiac, Kodak, Netscape, Sears, Borders, take a long view and ask questions.

Sit back, relax and let the forum be what it is. The best VW forum out there. Me thinks you're stressing too much about the number of "clicks" this site receives. Deep breath. And don't let it out until you get to Maupin

Amskeptic wrote: If this were your baby, what would you do to help maintain relevancy through the changing demographics of this hobby? 50 pts

From a commercial/putting food on the table/ roof over your head perspective/ I'd do a little marketing...don't see a banner ad for IAC on the Samba.

Is there a big enough market to support another thriving A/C V dub community? I think so...is your target market declining...yup...esp. as the values go up on the Bays. And I do salute you for not going the RabyPorche route.

I would suggest targeting owners of other A/C models. Yes, we know you enjoy helping owners of other A/C VW's, but do you actively court them? Do you actively post in other forums of the Samba?

Or ghast...branch out to other brands/models that have the same je ne sais quoi as the Bus. 5 series BMW's maybe? I frequent a couple of BMW boards and there a lot of folks with newbie skills that would be willing to pay for your services.

Food for thought.

I guess I need clarification ... are you concerned about the reduction in traffic / posting / members / visits on this site ... or financial gain resulting from this site? I was thinking this thread was about the former ... now I'm wondering if it's the latter ... if so, read the post preceding mine

deschutestrout wrote: I guess I need clarification ... are you concerned about the reduction in traffic / posting / members / visits on this site ... or financial gain resulting from this site? I was thinking this thread was about the former ... now I'm wondering if it's the latter ... if so, read the post preceding mine

I think it's both .... eliminate the bit about BMW's, and the owners of other A/C V Dubs would enrich the site and assist Colin with his lively hood and passion. It will be interesting to see what Colin sez....

TrollFromDownBelow wrote: I would suggest targeting owners of other A/C models.

BMW's maybe? I frequent a couple of BMW boards and there a lot of folks with newbie skills that would be willing to pay for your services.

* Good reminder.

* I need ambassadors to other air-cooled VWs in the world and on other sites. Shawnhigh and I had a solid day of fuel injection on his Squareback that made for a happy customer and car!
Colin

hambone wrote:What the hell can you do? You already gave birth to this thing, and now it's free to seek its fortune like those 3 damned pigs. And if you do DO something then it loses it's immediacy and becomes a constructed "thing". Your gifts are technical/spiritual, not to mention that Book you are creating. That is the real heart of this forum, and will always evolve naturally as you do. (When the book takes off I sure hope you don't turn into a Malibu asshole with a collection of 21 Windows.)

This forum is alive because of writing, and tone always changes with a writer(s) current state of mind. I have always appreciated and respected your "hands off" approach FWIW. Otherwise, this would be like Cuba. Is reality malleable? There is no way to see the paths not taken to know the answer...I'll bet it is though, gooey plastic that blobs all over the place. Maybe we can butterfly good vibrations all over the whole internet via this experiment and experience.
Will ACVWs prosper much longer? What crazy advice did you give me a few years ago about Niagra Barrel Concern LTD LLC? The future is a scary black hole no matter how you slice it. I don't think I'll get an easy break as a codger, I'll work until my hands fall off by gum. Some people just can't sit still.

Very good points . . . . . . . I am too far ruined to ever be a Malibu asshole.
Colin

It seems the IAC site does a good job of living up to the original mission statement (viewtopic.php?f=41&t=7508). Unless the mission has changed/is changing, I would stay on the same course. We could all probably work on marketing and ambassadorship.

Tim

Colin in the NW busted!!!!!

vistacruzer wrote:Colin in the NW busted!!!!!

Me no understand .....

Amskeptic wrote:

Xelmon wrote: So cheer up man, decreased post count isn't the end of the world. :)

Don't get flip, boy. This is NOT hand-wringing. It is what the CEOs should have done at American Motors, Pontiac, Kodak, Netscape, Sears, Borders, take a long view and ask questions.

If this were your baby, what would you do to help maintain relevancy through the changing demographics of this hobby? 50 pts

I had to look up the expression "Don't get flip" and "hand-wringing", took me a while to get to it.

Ach, my bad.

Golden question's answer;
I'm not sure how to answer that in an honest way. On one hand I want to say "Adapt to the trends" on the other "Keep it AC, let it rumble!"

After reading through the mission statement the only changing trend is conversions. I know that a few have done it in the past, and that was that.
These days though with a bit of elbow grease it is almost the best way to go keep the rigs on the road. I say almost because I remember how awesome it was to drive that 2.0L, and how sweet of a sound it had. It also keeps reoccuring costs down for guys that are super short on cash.

Does it dilute the AC VW message, or the VW message? No, I don't think so.
Does endanger the AC part of our IAC? In the PDX circles, yeah, I think so.
That's why I'm glad that mental and vista are still going AC.

And then there is me with the ultimate heresy, my Chevy Van...

Shawn High lives in Camas WA. He told me he was having Colin over to work on his Square Back. And Colin said he spent a day working on it

Amskeptic wrote:If this were your baby, what would you do to help maintain relevancy through the changing demographics of this hobby? 50 pts

stick with your regular postings on TS and/or increase that level back to what it was when this site was growing at a rate that felt acceptable to you.

It took me a while to stumble upon this site, and now I value the feedback and data here over anywhere I had previously gone for it.

To me, this place is what TS should be, but became too crowded with crappy advice and posthappy pointlessness, where it's a pain in the butt to find useful data anymore.
I hung onto the type2.com mailing list for a good long while for the same reason - the value of the responses were much greater there. Less and less true guru's in this scene are posting anywhere these days and I was thrilled when I realized Colin was here - on a separate board, with a much smaller group of dedicated owners.

I did get the vibe, initially upon joining, that there was an already well established group of friends that were calling this place home - and if you didn't live in Portland/Seattle/area that you were missing out on a large portion of the discussions. This isn't to say it isn't friendly around here, quite the contrary, I can just see where a new user might not feel as 'at home' as others here do and end up only trolling for information without actually participating. The massive number of posts in the non-VW related threads may have also contributed to this over the years, as when you come in and go to 'view new posts' - you would sometimes get nothing but non-VW related content. It's gotten a LOT better in recent history, which I think is awesome for a VW board. We absolutely need them for this to feel like a community, but we all need to work on balancing that out with fresh VW content.

Plus let's face it - a lot of folks spend so much time on Facebook these days that message boards are starting to take a back seat. There IS an Itinerant Facebook page and it wouldn't hurt to promote it with content from time to time to capture that new audience. (and drive that traffic back where it should be - here!) Our local VW club has a Facebook group page and it works surprisingly well. In no way is it a replacement for this and never will be with the way it's formatted, but when people already spend so much time there - it's a valuable place to pick up traffic.

vistacruzer wrote:Shawn High lives in Camas WA. He told me he was having Colin over to work on his Square Back. And Colin said he spent a day working on it

THIS visit . . .
Aug 03 Done! shawnhigh .................................. Camas WA

airkooledchris wrote: Plus let's face it - a lot of folks spend so much time on Facebook these days that message boards are starting to take a back seat.

I have seen a couple of Facebook pages, and can't even understand how community communicates there?

These walls, and friending/unfriending, where is the public square where everyone can see what everyone else has said?
I am not a Facebook subscriber . . . . how's our page look?

deschutestrout wrote:

vistacruzer wrote:Colin in the NW busted!!!!!

Me no understand .....

That's OK, I don't understand him half the time either .. even before he's gotten a beer into him.