The statistics of this new site evolving around wheather forecasts for wintersport are shooting up. The site has more than 1000 unique visitors a day,more than 2000 visits and over 6000 unique visitors overall. Everyday there are dozens of comments in the wintersport blog. Many fans from the last seasons at other sites,are following Hajo to his new spot. Hajo’s goal is to get back to a level of 10.000 visits per day and 100.000 unique visitors overall with this season.
Sports journalist Thijs Zonneveld wants to build a 2000m high mountain in The Netherlands. The professional brainstorm session turned this thing into a big PR stunt making headlines worldwide. It seams Zonneveld is a true believer. When he mentioned paragliding I was hooked as well. But soon I saw that there are two main flaws in his reasoning:
One can really have lots of fun on the small hills we already have –both natural and manmade. The Dutch mountainbike single trails top much of what’s on offer in the Alps;dune soaring is amazing;indoor climbing is a hit;with temperatures going down in the next decades more and more winters will allow for fun outdoor skiing and snowboarding in hilly places like Schoorl,Spaarnewoude Valkenburg,Vaals.
The big Dutch mountain lacks what people look for:exclusivity. That’s why we drive or fly to the Alps or Scandinavia. The get a distance from the crowd and meet like-minded people. How on earth would anyone like to be on such a crowded mountain –needs to be to have any ROI –when the Alps are only 8 hours drive or 1 hour flight away? It is so close!
Until I saw this video I was convinced speedflying with a small paraglider was the hottest thing. Now I know that the wingsuit has become a mature sport! For years I only thought some Red Bull freaks were doing this,but now I see that it is adding a whole new dimension to BASE jumping,which as a paraglider seems rather boring to me…afteer seeing this video I know that this is what I’d like to be doing when my kids are settled grown-ups! I’ll be 70 then
It is sad to see how poorly Twitter is protected against spam. It is one thing that marketeers use tools like tweetadder to start following followers of competing businesses…. but to be spammed on a daily basis by computer generated travel,tech and what have you twitter streams that seem to make money by endlessly following people just to gain a few clicks. Is a growing nuisance. Has the stage already been reached where Twitter isn’t the “small pond”anymore where smart enterpreneurs like Vaynerchuck can fish authentic customer relations?
The new website wintersportweerman.nl (winter sports weatherman) will be built along the guidelines that emanate from the above part of Seth Godin’s marketing lecture at Google HQ.
Thanks to a lenghty interview by Olaf Tempelman in the book section of de Volkskrant saturday 2nd of july I can now boast that I know about the great Internet sceptic Evgeny Morozov,who twitters here. Acquaint yourself with this guys toughts!
There is something underway. I’m not going to make it public just yet. It will be the next big thing in wintersports weather. A little patience please!
Maarten Terpstra gave me Vaynerchuck’s famous quote:“Content is king,centext is God”. Wow! Something to consider. Got me reading his book as well. Great stuff. Boils down to:“How to get back to common sense politeness”. Made me think that for a site like bergfex social media can do more to please and retain advertisers than visitors.
Bergfex has granted me an exiting role:adding the French Alps to the biggest wintersports and mountain holiday website in Europe. I enter the resorts in the backoffice and then call the OT’s (offices du tourisme) and enthuse them to start presenting their stuff there. You can track my progress via this link.
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