My week off is over, and I’ve got a typical backlog of news stories to post tonight, but in the meantime I just wanted to thank everyone for reading 2strokebuzz, it consistently blows me away how many people choose to waste their time here. 3Q06 traffic has been incredible and when I see more hits, I post more, so everyone wins.
I’ve got a few changes in mind for the site, but I’d also appreciate any other comments or ideas, if something about the site annoys you or doesn’t work, or if you’d like to see more features, now would be a good time to let me know (via email or in the comments) and I’ll see what I can do.
For the last couple months, I’ve been toying with the idea of accepting advertising. After coming up with a good plan that would probably be fairly lucrative, I reverted to my juvenile and retarded notion that accepting advertising would be a compromise of whatever little ‘integrity’ I have, so for now, anyway, I’m ditching the idea. Instead, I’ve decided to put more effort into merchandise, hopefully that will bring in a few bucks and you get something to show for your support. Our store is empty at the moment, but look for some new t-shirts soon, and more merchandise down the road. Again, I’d love suggestions!
As always, we love submissions from readers, and if you happen to work for a scooter manufacturer or dealer, we’d love to hear from you, whether it’s official news or product releases, or you have some insider news you’d like to share anonymously.
Anyway, there’s a lot to look forward to this year, thanks so much for everything, it’s a great feeling to have so many friends around the world, Have a safe and happy 2007 and please keep in touch!
Bryan
I love the idea of more scooter merchandise. I think the world needs better scooter shirts! Too bad it costs so much to have them illustrated… and selling through cafepress makes the break-even point VERY hard to reach.
I don’t know if advertising would do much to your integrity unless we found you raving over the “HOT NEW $600 Chinese scooter” in one of your reviews. I say “gofer it!”.
I love the random image from the 2SB Photo Gallery… The site is really clean and easy to navigate. I JUST noticed you have a little radio station going on… That’s cool.
Keep up the great info! You keep us motivated over at “the scoop”.
Cheers!
Steve
Thanks, Steve…
The radio has been there for a while, just to see if anyone noticed it. No one did, heh. I don’t think it works on some PCs, though it seems to work on Macs (It should play the Minutemen and Flamin’ Groovies, if it plays other songs, it’s not working correctly.) Being it’s semi-illegal to stream copyrighted music, I might just drop it, but I love music and sharing good songs, and that’s a not-blatantly-illegal way to do it, if I can get it working properly.
As far as Cafépress, their quality has improved (Zazzle is also good) but you’re right, it’s no way to make a living. I’m working on shirts, investing my Christmas money, and I’m looking at some other neat stuff to sell, hopefully stuff you don’t see everywhere. Achewood has great merchandise, they’re sort of my inspiration.
My other big goal is to find a way to prioritize stories so bigger, more interesting and research-oriented stories stay visible longer and throwaway news stories rotate through the layout faster. That will probably mean going to three columns, sort of like my day-job site coudal.com.
Happy New Year Bryan,
2SB makes my day at work almost bearable, and keeps me in touch with things I’d rather be doing. You might want to put a news link on your site so that people like myself can pass along information, rumors, and all sorts of bologna to keep your web page on the crest of what is news. Personally I would not mind a banner add, but it would most certainly lead to pop ups, and other horrible things, so I commend your responsibility. I’d also buy a t-shirt if it was cool, and under 20 bucks. Anyhoo, Keep up the good work, and thanks for feeding the scooter addiction.
Your Friend,
Alex
Stevensville, MD