Competing With Facebook!

[MarkFromSea]

I agree, this easily "searchable" encyclopedia of fishing knowledge is far superior to what's available at FB. I'm in no way implying that WALakes is inferior. I guess it's just the forum part of this site, it's slowed down quite a bit.. Maybe that's a good thing, not as many mundane, repetitive questions easily acquired from any reg book. LOL Let FB have those!

Thanks Mike and Aaron! I wasn't trying to be a pain in the arse, just being inquisitive or creating dialogue about FB and the recent surge in fishing pages there.

It is pretty fun to go back and read some of the old reports I wrote under other names here, wish I could remember them all! LOL

[Mike Carey]

Not a problem, it's a good discussion. Years ago this would have been about our site vrs other sites. Just shows how fb has changed the internet world.

I did forget to mention, a lot of the dialog on this site shifted to the report comments sections as well.

[MarkFromSea]

a lot of the dialog on this site shifted to the report comments sections as well.

I didn't realize that. Kinda funny, I used to only read, and write, the reports here and never went to the forums, bouncing in and out with various screen names and email accounts that came and went naturally for about 8 years. LOL I haven't fully utilized the report comment aspect.. I should put in the time and set my settings accordingly to do so smoothly.

[AlexanderS]

Don't have Facebook,don't care for Facebook. Love to fish,love this sight.tight lines!!

[strider43]

Agree 110%

I don't know the Stat here for this site's number of active members/ guests or what ever the rest of us none paying users are classified as but I and I'm sure others have notice a pattern of what people are on this site to accomplish witch could help point the idea's for new stuff in a direction . A lot of people have used this site and taken a lot from it , let's not take away from the hard work previously put in but I agree maybe something big ( Update) would bring in more of the old time site users and plus new ( I'll be thinking on idea's). That said you can only talk about Humpies so many times before it gets a little dull. IMO Ya know? Fishing's fishing? Maybe more physical events revolving around fishing for bankies/ common angler and such maybe not. Don't know if it would be possible or may sound dumb but just off my head maybe a largish group of Wa lakes.com site river guides get togather and schedule a date where they can all get togather and volunteer a day where they go to for instance the Skookumchuck ( Large fishing area avalible) and the guides as well as Experianced site members spread out and walk around to different holes and show/ walk threw a few different presentations / get to know some of the wa lakes community. I realize that would be askin a lot of the guides but isn't anything different than a normal fishin day on the river just with more organized Wa lakes members.
That was a long grave yard shift think of something later.

I'm in no way putting WALakes down.... Just trying to open a discussion of how to bring it up a notch, compete successfully with other forums and FB.

Ya know, even WDFW started copying WALakes, they opened up that fishwa.gov or something, indexed the lakes and such in the state, I don't recall the year but it had to be after WALakes did it.

LOL Pinks, LOL yep, a lot of repeat hype and info sharing. I still SUCK at rivers! LOL

that WDFW fish Washington is completely bogus information. I based a trip last summer to lake listed on there as excellent fishing at the time we went. Could not buy a bite to save my life, my fishing buddy and me are veteran trout fishermen and know how to adapt to different fisheries. Unfortunately like most gov websites it a compilation of BS someone found somewhere and made a website, the fish Washington part is anyway.

[strider43]

WALAKES is so far beyond FB that I cant even find any comparison. Here you can reach out to people who have written something that interest you and you can have a one on one dialog with them to obtain details and WA lakes website
actually works correctly. Face Book does not work very well at all. Two completely different tools- FB fluff and BS- WA lakes useful information with very limited troll activity

[Mike Carey]

Agree 110%

I don't know the Stat here for this site's number of active members/ guests or what ever the rest of us none paying users are classified as but I and I'm sure others have notice a pattern of what people are on this site to accomplish witch could help point the idea's for new stuff in a direction . A lot of people have used this site and taken a lot from it , let's not take away from the hard work previously put in but I agree maybe something big ( Update) would bring in more of the old time site users and plus new ( I'll be thinking on idea's). That said you can only talk about Humpies so many times before it gets a little dull. IMO Ya know? Fishing's fishing? Maybe more physical events revolving around fishing for bankies/ common angler and such maybe not. Don't know if it would be possible or may sound dumb but just off my head maybe a largish group of Wa lakes.com site river guides get togather and schedule a date where they can all get togather and volunteer a day where they go to for instance the Skookumchuck ( Large fishing area avalible) and the guides as well as Experianced site members spread out and walk around to different holes and show/ walk threw a few different presentations / get to know some of the wa lakes community. I realize that would be askin a lot of the guides but isn't anything different than a normal fishin day on the river just with more organized Wa lakes members.
That was a long grave yard shift think of something later.

Weekend-Warrior 17,

We have our Lake Chelan Get Together this year, May 2nd. Several guides offering 50% off fishing trips that day, they're available at the event to talk fishing, our corporate sponsors will be giving away a ton of cool gear, good food, fishing contest... I hope you can attend:
http://www.washingtonlakes.com/forum/vi ... =2&t=21317

It's really hard to do these events. There's a lot of planning and coordination involved, and both Aaron and I have fulltime jobs. So between the winter sportshows and our yearly get together I'll be honest, I don't have much energy for more events. I do know community building is an important part of all this, so I'll try to coordinate another event later in the year. Maybe less organized and more spontaneous.

strider43, thanks for the good words. We appreciate it.

[Mike Carey]

Just to give you all an understanding of what we see "behind the scenes", here is our 2014 month by month site visit numbers. Our highest visited month had over 600,000 visits to the site - in one month!

I can understand when the forum members see not a huge amount of activity going on, and it seems like the place is drying up, it's really not the case. Our traffic numbers are so large we have two dedicated servers running the database. Last year was our biggest year ever, and there are no signs of it slowing down.

The forum is just one small part of this site's overall activities.

[Toni]

Am I reading it right? That there were around 7 million page views in May last year?

[Mike Carey]

Am I reading it right? That there were around 7 million page views in May last year?

yes Toni, those are monthly numbers. So for 2014 the site had a total of 5.6 million actual visits. That's not separate people, that could be Toni visiting 2,000 times, Mike visiting 3,000 times, etc, etc. Even so, it's pretty healthy considering 2013 was 4.5 million visits.

Which is one reason we are doing away with paid memberships. We want our users to have access to all the tools Aaron created for free so they are used more. Makes no sense to develop great tools and then have only a small segment of the user base have access to them.

[kodacachers]

I'm looking forward to seeing the new and improved site! I must admit that I spend more time getting information about fishing than actually doing it! This site provides far more detail and meaningful information than FB for sure. However, its really nice to be getting skunked in Edmonds and see the posts that Possession is red hot in time to motor up there (hopefully ahead of the 400 other guys who read the same post).

[natetreat]

I loathe facebook. I use it. Everyone is on it. But I dislike it very much. Facebook has taken all the children who want to chest bump and bs, but this place is the go to for the 411. It's sad that forums are dying off over transient facebook posts, but facebook is easy, everyone is on it, and it's on their phones with push notifications and spam... I know that all my friends an I organize our trips through facebook... It's just another email address and news aggregator.

[strider43]

I loathe facebook. I use it. Everyone is on it. But I dislike it very much. Facebook has taken all the children who want to chest bump and bs, but this place is the go to for the 411. It's sad that forums are dying off over transient facebook posts, but facebook is easy, everyone is on it, and it's on their phones with push notifications and spam... I know that all my friends an I organize our trips through facebook... It's just another email address and news aggregator.

I have made some connections with old friends that I would have never made without facebook, which is way cool. But for objective information it is really useless.......great for goofing off.

[MarkFromSea]

Thanks for the numbers Mike! Very impressive and glad to hear it's going very well!

[tnj8222]

Every forum I'm on has a feature to like this post on Facebook except this forum. I know most members that are regulars here I also see on Facebook groups like steelhead junkies. Mike's active on there nate also. Mike constantly shares his videos to promote his walakes youtube channel. this site i don't think will ever die but I would like to see it back to where it was with the people I know lol.

Alot is to be said for instant gratification. Even if you don't get a reply on a thread it's nice to know how many views or likes you get. Might want to add that feature.

[Amx]

The views count is there. It's there both on the list of forums when you click on a forum, and it's there when you have your selection/desktop shortcut at 'active topics', which is what I use. The number of replies is also there.

[tnj8222]

Yeah i know views are.

[sinkerswim]

Facebook groups are weird. There's more smack talk on them with people using their real names than any forum I've ever seen. You'd think that when one is hiding behind a fake name they'd be more apt to get lippy, I guess posting from one's phone does it instead.

I keep any eye on a couple FB groups, been blocked by a couple others, LOL. It's interesting for quick things to see but information retention is horrible in that format. With a forum like this or the popular Oregon one ;) there's more info to be found than has ever been written in all the fishing books combined.
Facebook groups don't let you look up posts or reports from several years ago when researching something.

[Mike Carey]

I know Aaron is monitoring this thread and will take some of the suggestions into account as he codes the new site coming later this year. Thanks everyone.