[N4C5S]

We only have 161 cars in the registry.

What do we do? There are 5000(?) cars out there, how can we find these members?

Some of the proceeds of this site will go to advertise in one of the Vette mags, so that will help, but what else can we do?

JC

 

[fcalmes]

JC,

I tell everyone...email everyone..doing what I can. If you place a small add, I would consider Corvette Quarterly because they go out to almost all new Vette owners.

Frank

 

[Felkebg]

I got here when someone noticed that I owned a Z06 by my post on another corvette forum and invited me here. I have never gone anywhere else since. Perhaps some screening of members at other popular sites would work best since we know they are on the computer too. A private email will not raise any ire on the part of the hosting forum but a little salting of comments about this forum in the context of a broader post would get the word out. You can see the general C5 section in this site is not getting hammered so I think we would mostly pull in more Z06 people.

 

[Zippy]

JC:

Good question. Like Frank, I pass word around via word of mouth, emails on other forums, and anything else I can think of.
I will post another reminder on the C5 registry net page, and will spread the word at the C5 Registry Birthday Bash in Bowling Green the weekend of April 19-22.
Another thought: Have you tried talking to the two Vet mags about doing an article about us?

 

[N4C5S]

Zip,
I have, but I want to wait until we get some content under our belt.

JC

 

[Felkebg]

I just did a web search and there are over 400 sites that provide links on corvettes. Many have an "add a link" feature and others have a top 100 mechanism for voting. JC what if we tried the Viral marketing method of just blitzing the Web on say a Sunday night using member/volunteers who would sit on live chat here and we can multitask by posting our activities for about an hour and then we could see whether we get an ROI. I would be willing to do it once and see if it worked and maybe others would too?????

 

[fcalmes]

Count me in, Bill.

JC, I think its time to design a business card. A lot of Vette shows are coming up with the break in the weather. We could pass the cards around.

 

[C5David]

Call up dealers, and tell sales people that they have a new tool in order to sell people on Z06's - this web site. For anyone that's not sure, this site should push them over the edge.

 

[Nelson]

I'm not saying that this place is "BAD"... just letting you know what I did...

I used to come here all day long, and would NOT go back to that "other" forum... I even took the time to figure out how to get a picture of the car in the sig... This place was VERY new (I was like the 100th to sign up)... it looked great, and had lots of room to grow.... The video section I figured was a great idea, and I could not wait untill I went to road america to upload my run from there....

Then things changed....

The forum went from a nice layout with options, to a nice layout that is "harder" to use....

UBB does not work in a sig (which I found most forums use) the buttons that made life so easy, to make text bold, insert a picture, insert a smile with a click of a button, and you did not have to remember all the code's and the biggest problem...

right now I can not see what I'm replying to, without clicking the "Topic Review"...

Again, I'm not saying that its "bad" but I do find it harder to use, not as clean, etc... the "old" message board, or 1st message board was like using Microsoft Word...

Plus I get this little "Junior member" next to my name... because I do not post garbage like...

"I hear ya!"

as a reply... I only speak up when I know what is going on... a star system or something, who cares... I guess it's the word "Junior" and might also be personal to myself... I'm "Only" 25...

Nothing would make me happier to see www.zo6vette.com to be bigger and better than www.zr1.net I only say that for if we do get better, then that means that the founder's of this place did it!... and good for them. which means someone like me only has to goto one place to get the information about the car they are looking for.

we need a "How to" section...

How to prep your Z06 for roadracing

How to jack up your Z06 (Might seem easy to you, but I had to rig something just to get my jack to FIT under the front of the car)

How to change your oil..... etc etc etc

Many of us have Digital Camera's of some sort, and could make this place awesome...

I took the time to take pictures of a trunk lid that I put in my trunk... I did not like how it fit, I took it out, I took pictures of the gap's it left, how it fell apart when I did take it out etc etc... I did not do that for fun, I did that for this place... to try and do my part...

the big turn around for me was when the mod posted a thread that pointed to the "new" message board... there was 20 reply's that said "Looks good" or "I like it" I posted a reply asking what happened to the neat little buttons that made life easy, and let me do things here that I can't do "Over there" (that is HUGE, something I can do here, but NOT there!!!)... never got a answer, and next time I came here... it looked like this.

This is the 1st time I have been here in about 1 week...

again - this is NOT a slam of any sort.. I think what they are trying to do is GREAT... both for us, and them... its a win / win situation...

I do however feel that it is very important to express ourself and what is good / bad to a better degree that "I like it"

hope that I did not offend anyone, it was not the intent.

 

[fcalmes]

Nelson,

JC is waiting for the new version of the phpBB to come out and then you will have the buttons and a lot of other bells and whistles that make things easier. /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

 

[Nelson]

FC - Whooo hooo... I think the layout / and ease of use are a big holdback for you right now...

after looking around a little I did notice that I was not the only one that was having problems... which makes me feel a little better... But I'm glad to hear that it will be changing "back" if you will...

in the "upcomming" event section gpflepsen posted a message about Road America... I was saddened to see that only a few people replied here while on another forum there is a large list of people going...

FC - Thanks again for taking the time to listen to some ramblings.

 

[N4C5S]

Ok, here goes.

Without getting too technical you must consider what we have to go through to get this forum in shape for major use.

We were using UBB. Maybe it had a few more features (all of the ones you mentioned are not standard. I hacked those in after about a month og having the normal UBB).

HOWEVER, UBB is crap from a technical point of view. It is very clunky and cumbersome and does nothing but eat up server resources.
Plus, in the event of a server crash, all users that are logged in must be restored after this because of the file locking routines used by cgi. CRAP, TOTAL CRAP.

Now, this system. Runs on a SQL database platform, easily portable to SQLserver or Oracle. MUCH easier for me to back up board now, plus, my bandwidth has decreased by over HALF! Though this is offset by the increasing number of folks we have here.

Pages are generated much faster (look at the bottom of the pages, this is the time it took to generate the page. In 99% of cases, under .5 sec. Try this with UBB, lucky if its under 10 seconds. This means MUCH faster results for you, the user. It's not perfect, but neither was our first set up. People hung in while we added those features, they didn't bitch and complain about it.

Porting over to a DB structure was a critical juncture in Z06vette.com's growth, one which caused me (and probably Frank while he pointed out MANY bugs) many nights of lost sleep.

I won't apologize for anything, I think it's amazing what we've accomplished on a less than shoestring budget, and as everyone on this forum knows, if I can make it better, I tend to do so sooner rather than later.

I do kind of resent that post because of the way it was worded. It could have been a constructive wish-list, instead it turned into a slam on the body of work which we have all (members and admins) worked so hard on.....

By the way, I have not received any articles, how to's, or pictures/video from you, so I don't think you have any room to complain about lack of content.

Hell, Frank took it upon himself to get out and beat the street for the upcoming Katech article.

JC

 

[Nelson]

JC -
I won't apologize for anything, I think it's amazing what we've accomplished on a less than shoestring budget, and as everyone on this forum knows, if I can make it better, I tend to do so sooner rather than later.
**********************

I was not China talking to Bush... I was in NO way looking for someone to step up to the plate to take "Blame" for what I was talking about... and I agree, what you are doing is great, as I said before, its a win / win situation... but I have learned myself, that when it comes to the type of situation you got yourself into, you are either the top 5% of places to go for ZO6 information, or you might as well pack up and go home.

JC -
I do kind of resent that post because of the way it was worded. It could have been a constructive wish-list, instead it turned into a slam on the body of work which we have all (members and admins) worked so hard on.....

*********************
Which is why I ended my post with "hope that I did not offend anyone, it was not the intent."

it again was not a slam on anyone / anything... it was me telling my story of why I have stopped comming here to take part. End of list. I figured if I was honest in how I felt, it might make you better equipped to handle this situation. I think what I did is much better than when someone says "It sucks" that does not help you any... that post was why I no longer felt motivated to help out. If you don't get the person like me in the middle once and a while, you never know what to look at... It was in no way a "slam" tward lack of content by any means... I was comparing it to a VERY successfull site www.zr1.net which is the same basis as your's, just has been around long enough to have the content.


Actually JC, I looked back at my post, and I said in 4 diffrent area's that it was not a "slam" or "Bad" or anything of that matter... It was trying to be Constructive... which is why I said "We" need this or that... because I know that having a place such as this takes other people to help out (like my trunk liner, if you did not get that trunk liner, how could you post pictures of why you did not like it) It was not directed at you, so again I say Sorry.

 

[fcalmes]

Nelson,

No biggy!! /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cool.gif JC and I are under a lot of pressure to get this site up to speed so that we can make it the #1 Z06 Forum on the net. We'll get the bugs worked out. Hang in there Bro!! /phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

Frank

 

[N4C5S]

Fair enough. That raises the question in my mind on what makes zr1.net so successful?

We're talking a totally different league here, while that site is incredibly useful for zr1 info, it has about 1/1000th of the posts we get here, which require extensive backend calls. Take for instance the vendor section. What users actually see is about 1/10th of what is there. We have a complete online administration tool and "mini-mall", all database driven and scalable. This was a major undertaking, all written from scratch...

All I am saying is, lets compare apples to apples when we discuss site mechanics.

We've built a stable and reliable platform here that will serve us for the forseeable future (PDA and text pager support in the works) and that is the first step to success.

We actually have agreements with other sites (we're also first on the SHORT list of sites Kerbeck is considering supporting (they currently don't advertise)) to offer content on this site as well as exclusive content arrangements from some active members and moderators.

I also received a nice email from Vette magazine the other day about the site. Word is getting out, but for us, there are limited hours in a day and we do what we can.

I'd be happy to spotlight any tips and tricks you may have, the more the better.

In closing, I wish to again thank all of our members that supported us through the rough times of building the site, then reworking the backend, it was a pain in the ass for everyone, but rest assured, we are now on the road to success with no technical barriers to hold us back any more.....Stay tuned, it only gets better from here.

JC

 

[fcalmes]

/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cool.gif