Comments on: the astrophysicist story

By: Barry Dorrans

Barry Dorrans — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 21:21:37 +0000

Ric,
Because putting an XSD at the top of your XHTML page wouldn’t be valid?

By: Brooks Moses

Brooks Moses — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 09:59:55 +0000

Forums not worth the trouble? You might want to talk to Tom Carter over at Hobby Heaven (modelcarkits.com).
While you’re visiting his site, click on the “Message Boards” link. Have a look at the dates on the messages. Count the traffic. (If you were active in the hobby, I’d say “count the nationally-known luminaries who post there”, too; a good number of them do.) That’s at least several hundred people visiting his site near-daily, talking about model kits. Including Tom — generally a direct business-related question on the board gets a personal reply.
I don’t honestly know how much business Tom does, but I do know that he is personally a significant fraction of the market for the US model-kit manufacturers.
Not a business model that works for all markets, certainly, but as a business model for products related to a hobby in which people do a lot of sitting around and talking — yeah, it works pretty well.
Incidentally, while you’re researching, if you can find anything on Polar Lights, you might find that interesting too. They were a small independent model kit manufacturer (which recently got bought out by a Big Nameless Company, so a lot of the evidence is already fading) which seemed to get quite a lot of value out of sponsoring a corporate forum and having one of their PR people be responsible for moderating it.

By: Gourmets of Wine

Gourmets of Wine — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 02:13:58 +0000

the astrophysicist story

[Source: gapingvoid] quoted: But the fact is, for pennies (and I do mean PENNIES) on the dollar compared to standard advertising campaigns, we’re getting astrophysicists talking openly and intellegently about a bottle of $10 plonk.

By: Ric

Ric — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 23:42:31 +0000

What’s wrong with being a shameless, pimping blog whore anyway? I’ve been called worse …
and Barry — why are you usings DTDs when XSDs are SO much better?

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 16:39:35 +0000

Putting my money where my word-of-mouth is?
Something like that.

By: charlie

charlie — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:36:43 +0000

you’re not shameless.
you’re putting your mouth where your word-of-mouth is (or is it the other way around?).
you know what i mean.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 05:02:34 +0000

hugh, my business is elsewhere. I am just wondering if you maybe overhype this all a bit, so you get mentioned into the conventional media.
And boy, I really do hope mass media will die! I just got the nagging feeling they won’t do me the favour.

By: Greg Smyth

Greg Smyth — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 03:39:13 +0000

I’m a physicist too. You must really be chasing that elusive Physics Dollar…

By: Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line

Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 02:01:32 +0000

New bottle (or, “Free” as in “Free Wine”) Thanks to the fine blog-reading folks at Orbital Wines, the owners of Stormhoek Wine in South Africa, the sad story of my missing wine was noticed -- and the bottle has been replaced! (Alas, without a cool personalized label, but I think I deserve some...

By: Jim Turner

Jim Turner — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 01:10:11 +0000

Too late Hugh my personal blog has already been deemed the definition of a blog whore. Still waiting to be on the list for the American shipment!

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 00:15:49 +0000

Forums (Fora?) tend to be asshole and troll magnets. Not worth the trouble.
Anyway, since when is not building a forum denying the customer a voice? What’s stopping them building their own blog with Technorati links?

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 23:50:48 +0000

They’re welcome to try, Sam

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 23:33:26 +0000

Don’t you think maybe the success of your idea is because it is new, and as soon as a few dozen or more pr companies start blogging, too, it will get old very fast?

By: Bill Seitz

Bill Seitz — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:44:13 +0000

A meta-question about this “conversation” process: Why not run a full discussion-forum server, so that the customers really have their own voice?

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 22:23:37 +0000

I’m happy to send you another bottle, James.
Because they were all packed by hand, some of the samples would not have been as fresh they could be. It happens occasionally. I’m willing to wager your was one of them.
I don’t know if it will be the chardonnay or not, but I’ll do my best.
Give me a day or two and I’ll see one gets in the mail.