boatshare.co.uk


boatshare.co.uk - a totally free to use web site for all those interested in saving money by sharing boats. Got a question or a view? Get posting!!

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boatshare.co.uk
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New message board (actually posted by philip with permission)

Philip

it seems that the web using boat sharing world is very much centered
around OS. See the disaster with SIBUG which also indicates that the
number of users of the website is probably rather small. And for me
looking up both boards and finding at the best of times 30% of the OS
messages posted twice with very little "own" content on your website got
simply boring (rest assured, I still did to the very end).

So despite the very good idea and very good website as such and the fact
that you are a known figure to 75% or more of all OS members it did not
work. With 1000+ sharers at OS alone and an estimated (up to) 500
elsewhere this is sad, and I would love to have a "neutral" board, but at
the end of the day if I want to discuss something I get responses on the
OS boar d, and part of them (and from the same people) on the other board.

So unless you get the mail addresses of all unspeakable, canaltime and
whateverelsefloatsby owners there seems little chance to get past OS and
it is equally obvious that on the OS board non-OSers seem to be lurking
only. I often wondered how many people had their e-mail registered with
you (and I for instance got accidentally listed with both my web.de and
yahoo address....) - what percentage of the above assumed up to 1500
potential was it?

Hopefully you come up with an idea - also I shall not post or go onto your
interim Bravenet advertising board due to recent bad experiences when one
of our owners had a boat website hosted by them.

Best regards

Chris

My response

Firstly I would estimate I have a mailing list of around 300, where about
100 are O/S, very few I feel from other schemes and a lot of "interested
thinkers" - er, I think!

I have to tell you that whilst I agree 100% with what you say I do have
some plans to develop the site, where some of the work in doing this will
start towards the end of the year. It really is a shame that a neutral
board with traffic does not exist, but, of course, from my side of the
fence whilst I welcome ALL traffic it is the sales side of the site I want
to work on, where that will, hopefully lead to more interest, and there I
have a cunning plan.........

It also has to be said that the "12 volt tv" side of the site does OK, so
the site will be around for some time to come I suspect.

May I post your message to the board please (removing the "Bravenet slur"
if I may, I had problems with them once with an advertiser trying to
install a dialer on my PC and when I wrote to them about it they could not
be more helpful (and annoyed!)? The O/S board is a Bravenet board, once in
the paid mode they seem OK.

Thanks for your interest in my site

Philip J Duerden
boatshare

Chris's response

I'm happy for you to post my mail, indeed I had first thought I do that but then thought that may be my comments could be read as offensive or so, and that was not the intention. And I shall even agree to the censoering, also the Bravenet unpaid site had annoyed me a great deal with a self installing programm thing where even if you clicked No or the close button it went on. However, this is a battle I need not fight, I just ignore there unpaid services (easy to do here on the continent).


Look forward to further development of your site, it is something I really enjoy having available. The 300 addresses I think is a good number, but there are probably 150 ordinary boat owners or newcomers. The whole scene intrigues me - as an operator competing with OS I would have looked to cooperate with you and at your terms from the start, since even just neutrality would help me over the dominance. (I'm splitminded here - I truly believe OS is - at least for us - the best, but am normally on the side of the underdog, now what?)


Anyway, best of Britis/Irish...
Chris

Any comments

So does anyone have any comments

Re: Any comments

I can live with the banner ads. The ones I hate are those that appear in front of what you are trying to read. They somehow seem to ba able to circumvent popup blockers.

Andy B

Re: Re: Any comments

Best of British / Irish ? I thought Chris was / is German? I don't care. I want somewhere to visit between boating trips. The kind of thread that appears on Ownerships message board could just as easily appear here and enjoy a wider readership. Very few Ownerships threads are Ownerships specific. I don't see it happening though unless the Ownerships board closes down.