My two cents.

[Kahuna]

Dear Folks,

I've been following the evolution of this forum since it began while at the same time feverishly working on the new Bikefanclub website. Now that it's online I must say something that's been on my mind...

Although I respect Ben's decision to move the forums, my own feeling is that it only fragments the user community further. The concept behind the bikefanclub forums evolved rather suddently but the more I think about it the better the model seems to work. Over time the BFC forums will grow to become one large powerful community through the synergy of it's many smaller micro-communities. Unfortunately Serotta is not part of this concept and in many ways it represents a missed opportunity.

I'd like to hear from people and find out what you think. Already a strong case could be made to pursuade Ben and Co. to move their forum to the bikefanclub. After all it's only been 2 weeks - just enough time for th BFC site to be built and go online.

One of the main problems the BFC forums would solve for Ben is to remove the problem he's been experiencing with his dealers. More than a few of them have questioned the usefulness of a Serotta-sponsored forum given the fact that many people use it to discuss and at times push other products - either intentionally or not. For example dbrk's recent in-depth review of his new Hampsten/Parlee custom frame. A very great review I might add but how does this review on a Serotta's own website help Serotta? OTOH, if this reveiw were posted on BFC, who would care? It would be perfectly appropriate. Let's say it were posted in a hypothetical Serotta forum on BFC, Ben would not have to answer to his dealers on why the subject review wan't moderated. He could say, look guys, that forum is outta my hands. It's run by an independant third party and we don't pay them.

I see this as a real opportunity for Serotta to move while the movins' good. Get on-board early because I think we have a really good thing going with the BFC concept and it would be a shame to not have the Serotta folks there with us. If anything, it means one less password for people to remember! Serotta can then concentrate on making bikes and not swizzling forum websites. I agreed with Ben's first letter posted on the defunct site that running forums in-house is not a cost effective way for a framebuilder to spend their time and resources. Why not leave the computer stuff to us real geeks?

Moving the General Discussion forum to the bikefanclub would provide the best of both worlds for Serotta. They can use the forum any way they feel (e.g. mantain a presence/voice if they wish) yet still provide their own forums here for specific purposes. For example, announcement-only forums such as Question of the Week, News, etc.

The bikefanclub needs the Serotta forum otherwise it's going to be much harder for this exciting new site - and all it's great features (and they're only going to get better) to become successful. That's just my feelings. What are yours?


Aloha,

-K

[eddief]

the gentlemen at roadbikerider put up their website. I get the impression they may have quite a following from thier web-based newsletter. Some collaboration here might be a good idea.

[Kevan]

I miss the ease we had in jumping fences, forum to forum. It used to be Calfee and Serotta were almost neck n' neck in postings, but when Serotta broke off the connection, the other forums were basically lost. Remember how easy it was to hop over to Spectrum and read from the man himself, share in his philosophies and experiences.

Anything that could bring back the cross-pollination of ideas from the different builders and bike owners is better in my book, though I have no doubt that this forum will forever remain the flagship.

Kahuna thanks.

Kevan

[Len J]

Kahuna:

I know you want this to work but..........

The Bikefanclub site to me is not worth my time....yet.

There is so little posting over there that it's not worth navigating through all the various sites.

Look at the difference in posts there vs here. I think that until it reaches some critical mass of users, it is going to lag.

Why would Ben take his traffic there? I can see where having this traffic in your forum would help you, but how would it help anyone else.

Not a shot, please don't take it that way. Just wondering.

Len

[Kahuna]

Len,

You're describing a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Like most message boards, it takes time to build a user community.

Before the Serotta forum was moved we (ie. when the forum was hosted on hydromedia, now known as bikefanclub.com) it had nearly 850 registered members and that was when registration was an option. While the new Serotta forum has amassed nearly 350 subscribers in the short time it's been online, the way I see it, we lost more than half the user community and perhaps more importantly, we lost the momentum that was there.

Between the Serotta, Spectrum, and Calfee forums, we had almost 1000 registered users and between 2000-3000 total visitors (both registered & unregistered) visting the site each month.

It's going to be tough trying to recapture this user community on bikefanlcub.com - especially without Serotta, but we're going to try.

Aloha,

K

Aloha,

K

[Kahuna]

Len,

I realize I didn't answer your question...

"I can see where having this traffic in your
forum would help you, but how would it
help anyone else."

The way I see it, fragmenting the community helps no one. By consoldating the forum into a broader community helps enrich everyone's online experience not just mine. I'm not "hoarding website traffic", that's not my goal, and I doubt that's Serotta's goal either. I like eddief's suggestion of some sort of collboration. I'm looking at this from a best of all worlds standpoint, and not some greedy endeavor to monopolize the market. There are already dozens of cycling forums out there. I'm not interested in reinventing the wheel, just trying to salvage what was lost earlier this month. I think the new website represents an improvement on an idea that has already demonstrated itself very effective.

Aloha,

K.

[Len J]

Kahuna:

Glad you took my comments in the spirit they were intended.

I visited all of the Hydromedia sites routinely but was only registered on one, Serotta. The main reason was that I didn't have the other bikes.

That being said, the only two forums with regular traffic seemed to be the Calfee & the Serotta. All others seemed to be intermittant. So it seems like the loss has been (more than half) the Calfee group. I'm not sure how much of that loss was from regular posters on both forums who migrated with the Serotta forum here.

The other observation I would make is that while there are 350 users here, a relativly small number of posters account for a significant number of posts. The top 20 postters account for almost 900 of the posts. It doesn't take many to create traffic. It just takes a few with personality & knowledge who post regularly. I suspect that one problem with your new board, is that you will need these 10 to 20 posters for each of the branded boards. It seems like you have fragmented into too many small boards (by brand). I could be wrong, but we will see.

I for one would love to have them all together, but I only have soo much time to spend on the boards & my priorities tend to run RBR, Serotta, and then occasionally Velonews, and your board. I reevaluate that based on traffic & types of information posted.

Just my observations. I wish you success. I hope some of this helps.

Len

I like the new site a lot. this forum is excellent as a source of general and specific information for what people like/don't like and some opinions not from a salesman, but the flame mentality is intimidating and frequently no fun. I look forward to the new forums growing and agree that moving this to there would be ideal.....ljp

[Smiley]

I wondered why Serotta did not use your expertise to develope his new site with. I am sure they (Serotta) have their reasons for this. We all would have liked the old system to stay the same but things do change , quill stems are dead and steel forks are dying too.
I wish you had not used DBRK's review of his Parlee frame as an example of what was not good about the old system or what Ben and company does not want to see happen here. I for one think that the interent as a whole is all about information and what dbrk and Dave N provide to us is this information, I would prefer hearing about a Parlee from them before Leonard Zinn or somebody at Bicycling. I saw nothing wrong with these types of reviews , I think the problem arose with the old phorum was when a new client to Serotta would chime in with a question about interest in a Serotta model and they would be steered into another brand. That depending on how it was done was blantant disregard for our host Serotta Bicycles, their employees and dealers.
I wish you all the luck with your new venture and will promise to drop in sometime soon. Yours Truly Captain Smiley

[dnovo]

I think there should be "A" solution, I am not sure that I am quite sure if you have "THE" solution. Let me be more specific:

I love the idea of having forums for a variety of brands. For example, I was quite happy to see Merckx and Look as distinct entities at the new site, as well as other more 'arcane' and 'common' lines. I would have felt quite odd posting photos of Colnago (which I have in both modern and vintage varities) at a 'Serotta' site.

But at the same time, I feel that the Serotta forum developed a 'flagship' persona which merging it into a hoard of other groups would soon submerge.

So part of me wants to say, let's stay apart, and another part says, we need some connection only if to help a group of forums that have a much broader base of interests survive on the 'shoulders', if you will, of this group and its more prolific and enthusiastic participants.

I don't have an answer as of yet, and perhaps, as I said above, there is no single answer. We do need to ensure the survial of what may be a marvelous chance to keep the Merckx, the Pegoretti, the Look, the Trek, et al forums alive. We need to think this through.

Anyone with some thoughts? Douglas? Keno? BBDave? Smiley? Etc? Dave N.

[Kahuna]

"But at the same time, I feel that the Serotta forum developed a 'flagship' persona which merging it into a hoard of other groups would soon submerge."

I don't think it would submerge at all. On the contrary there's every reason to think it would continue to grow - especially by attracting people from the other forums. The reason why the Serotta forum has developed a 'flagship' persona is not because of a lack of other forums. It's because of their fine product, their reputation, brand name awareness, and their knowlegable and computer literate owners!

Anyone who remembers the history of the Serotta message board knows that a large part of it's community was built when the forum sat alongside forums of other brands. To me it makes less sense to isolate the community when a great opportunity exists to let people interact and pull knowledge from adjacent communities. Like Kevan says, a cross-pollination of ideas is a very good thing. Again, I don't think moving the forum would hurt or damage the strength of the community in any way. I beleive it would prosper. It would stand alone at the top of the list based on the extraordiary participation by its members.

-K

[Kevin]

Kahuna,

I think that in order for a forum such as this one to prosper you need participants who are fanatics about what they ride. That fanaticism is one of the things that got the old forum into trouble. While I visited all of the old forums, the only forums that seemed to have heavy traffic and fanaticsm was Serotta and Calfee. As a result, they were the only two forums that I found entertaining and useful for obtaining information. Accordingly, they were the only two forums for which I registered. I am not sure how much traffic the other forums are going to generate.

In surfing those two sites it was clear that there was a considerable overlap in registered members. While not all of the registered members have yet arrived at this site, I believe that many will. You must remember that this site has only been up for 10 days and the holidays are around the corner. Once the holidays are behind us, I believe that the number of participants will increase.

I sympathize with your chicken and the egg problem with the new site. However, I think that the Serotta fanatics have already found a site at which to land. The only way for you to cause a full migration of the Serotta faithful to the new site is get Ben to move the entire forum. Not knowing the entire reason behind Ben's initial move, I do not know if he would be receptive to such an idea. Give him a call. Good luck. You deserve it for all of your hard work.

Kevin

[Kahuna]

"I wish you had not used DBRK's review of his Parlee frame as an example of what was not good about the old system or [..]"

The fact that you say that helps illustrate my point. What do you think Ben's dealers think about dbrk's Parlee review? Good for Serotta and their forum, or not good?

I didn't bring up dbrk because I like or don't like his review, just that it was a timely example to help emphasize why I think a better format exists at bikefanclub where folks like dbrk and dnovo et. al can wax praise on competing brands and do so without stepping on anybody's feet.

I meant no disrespect whatsoever to dbrk. I love what he has to say - he's one of the most literate and valuable contributors we've seen on these forums. I'm just worried that tighter controls (i.e actual moderation) is lurking around the corner especially if Ben's dealers start twisting the screws again.

Let's not hide our heads in the sand. We've all experienced a dramatic (and for some) traumatic change with these forums. Ben stated that one of the contributing factors for making the recent changes was lack of control when it came to discussions regarding the competition. By raising the issue, I'm not trying to create a problem were none exists, just pointing out the facts.

Aloha,

K.

[Serotta PETE]

I am sorry but I am at a loss to understand what is being asked here. What problem is being looked at to solve?

The old forum was easy to use and was informative. The problem arose when folks started on personal attacks and on "brand pumping" for non Serotta products (tearing down Serotta at the same time). Ben has never been afraid to match his product to that of any others, but in my opinion some of the comparison was not in good tast and quite often was at best an opinion not backed by fact.

The example of DBRK is not a good one. I feel that his comparisons, recommendations, and views were among the most factual, did not harm the Serotta brand, and supported cycling. THey were never at the expense of good manners (both business and personal). Additionally, his views in most instances increases the knowledge of current and new cyclist. Additionally, one with this knowledge, would lean toward Serotta as one of their top choices. David N is another example of where there was a wealth of knowledge for those listening. His views also made Serotta one of the top brands. (Yes, I will never be accused to not being a very biased Serotta person BUT- if one looks at the information provided, on the forum Serotta was always among the bikes that were liked and wanted. )

Issue came when others started "bashing" Serottas at the expense of other brands - they used little if any fact (except occasionally price). This was a Serotta forum,,,,if you did not like the product - I must really ask - "why did you participate on fourm" ? Human nature quie oftem defies logic. They were very able to do this because they had "no real identity" And this is a flaw and value of the internet.
__________________________________________________
This new forum requires an ID (but we know that there is a flaw in this and a "work around" if someone really wants to fool the system. (This is the same for any application on the WEB)

TO tie "our" forum to other bike forums is not necessary good or bad....Question is _ what is the purpose of doing so?

Question of value to cost. I do not know the "Business Model" or finanical arrangements for the current forum. By this I mean, who is paying for server, network bandwidth, storage space and WEB administration. The administration of WEB is, in my experience the largest expense.

QUESTION :" What is the purpose of Serotta Forum

ANSWER (in my narrow view)
- TO spread the knowledge and experience of Serotta owers
- Help others with questions and decision making in terms of equipment, frames, trips, experiences

TEAM:
- Build a group that shares common "Serotta" interest and and biking in general.
- Get togethers (social and bike riding)

Ben has been very gracious in social events, forums, and sharing information. I do not know any other builder/companies that do this.

The above are my reasons for forum - - -many are much more active in forum than I and their opinion is of tremendous value.

For me based of My "QUESTION' "ANSWER" and "TEAM" definition, I like a separate forum (but I am just one vote)

Question to all would be:

Purpose of Forum to YOU
Value YOU see from it
Format and ease of use you would like or prefer

To those who fund forum with $$s and time - question is "What was your purpose in developing forum??

FOR ME, I LIKE A SEPARATE SEROTTA FORUM THAT ACCEPTS PHOTOS AND DEAL WITH THOSE WHO OWN OR EANT TO PURCHASE A SEROTTA.


Sorry for the l-o-n-g note. WIshing all a happy holiday.

I am willing to donate time and $$s to a forum like we had, IT WAS GREAT!!!! Lets not let a few (^&)(%*&^ ruin it,

Thanks again to Kahuna for all the hard work and long hours in supporting it. PETE

[Smiley]

Most every dealer has competition, sometimes with brands within their own shop, sometimes with dealers down the road. The internet has changed the way the consumer shops for more than just bicycles, try boats , cars and even used rolex's. Why not embrace this fact and learn to do business with the understanding that the consumer needs knowledge to make better decisions.
I wish I had a simple answer to your questions as well as as the dealers. The fact that Serotta chose to keep up a forum tells me that they do see value in what traffic it steers towards its website and products. The second Open House was more of a reunion of people that had never met in person but thru the website phorum. That was worth a pile of business now and in the future. I know that you Kahuna had a BIG hand in starting the ball rolling. For this I really commend you. Your reward should have been to continue to host these Serotta forums. Serotta is building a valuable client base with registration, somebody will figure out a way to trancend these participants to more than a chat room group and into a true culture, its happening as we speak and I see a Serotta Open house one day being attended by 1000 client cyclists. Build it and they shall come.