We are fast approaching 3 months from starting this forum. I think we have an excellent core group of members and I thank everyone for the support so far.

I would like to ask everyone what I can do to make the place better? What is the best way to grow our membership? How can I/we increase quality content?

Please feel free to discuss below or PM me with your thoughts, and thanks!

Neds, I don't know if this would work, but we might want to see if Koi is amenable to putting up a sticky announcement that our focus is no longer just on Renato, but on affordable watches in general.

Something else we might try is seeing if WL might make us an official 'sister website,' with a link to us (which we could reciprocate) back over to them.

Not sure Koi would go for any of this, as I think he said something about the sites being kept exclusively apart from one another, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to pass these thoughts along...

Mortuus wrote:
Something else we might try is seeing if WL might make us an official 'sister website,' with a link to us (which we could reciprocate) back over to them.

Not sure Koi would go for any of this, as I think he said something about the sites being kept exclusively apart from one another, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to pass these thoughts along...

Hell no, these two forums should stay completely separated, period.



This forum will work if more people are genuinely interested in discussing the same stuff as found on say a half dozen other forums, although with an obviously better format.

I just think in a nutshell that there are too many media areas available for those that wish to talk about their inexpensive/made for tv/$80-$500 watches around, market I believe is saturated.

Great move pulling renato out of he forum name, step in the right direction.

H

I'm going to have to agree with the assmonkey Hater on this one.

Me three...........

Sorry, guys...I guess that my objective here was to somehow call attention to our site, not as a 'clone' of WL, but rather a place that, while different, often appeals to the same people. (We have a goodly number of members of both here, for instance.)

I have to admit to some very mixed feelings about the removal of the Renato moniker from the site title. Okay, I get that we were occupying a very small niche, one that was headed for obscurity in the wake of Renato's admittedly lackluster 'opening performances' on Shop and elsewhere. Nonetheless, we had an identity, albeit somewhat flawed.

Hater wrote:This forum will work if more people are genuinely interested in discussing the same stuff as found on say a half dozen other forums, although with an obviously better format.

I just think in a nutshell that there are too many media areas available for those that wish to talk about their inexpensive/made for tv/$80-$500 watches around, market I believe is saturated.

I'm sorry, H, but I'm having a bit of difficulty getting my head around the above two statements. It seems you're saying that, since we have a much better forum/format, we'll do fine, even though we're covering the same ground as half-a-dozen other, more established sites. But then, it seems you assert that the market we're covering is saturated. If I'm way off the mark, please tell me, H. (And this is not in any way an attack on you or your opinions; I just want to understand where the above statements are coming from and, more importantly, where do they take us?)

I genuinely like and greatly enjoy our site, and want the best for it and its membership, but now that we've cut our admittedly tenuous ties with Renato, what is our 'mission'? (Guess I shoulda asked that before making my not-so-well-received recommendations above...)

I was just agreeing with keeping things separate from WL's Mort. I don't get the $80-$500 part myself.

Same here Mort................this ain't watchlords........

Guys this isn't WL's. What I see this as is a place to go for watches 80-1200 which is what most people are willing to spend on a watch. If we put info up on these type of watches people will come. I agree with Hater that there are many Forums with this type of content.

What separates this forum from every other is take a look no banners, no sponsors and no company saying you can't say that the watch is junk or very well made. I think it is time to reach out to some people that we know to tell them this is here. Don't step over the lines at other places is advice I will give.

I think we have a good core, the numbers here will grow and it will take time. Those that are at WL's should know numbers sometime don't always tell the whole story. The content of the site is always a key factor in keeping members coming back. Also as for WL's they do have a list of other forums and blogs.

Ocean wrote:Guys this isn't WL's. What I see this as is a place to go for watches 80-1200 which is what most people are willing to spend on a watch. If we put info up on these type of watches people will come. I agree with Hater that there are many Forums with this type of content.

What separates this forum from every other is take a look no banners, no sponsors and no company saying you can't say that the watch is junk or very well made. I think it is time to reach out to some people that we know to tell them this is here. Don't step over the lines at other places is advice I will give.

I think we have a good core, the numbers here will grow and it will take time. Those that are at WL's should know numbers sometime don't always tell the whole story. The content of the site is always a key factor in keeping members coming back. Also as for WL's they do have a list of other forums and blogs.

Sounds like the answer I was looking for...thanks.

Ocean wrote:Guys this isn't WL's. What I see this as is a place to go for watches 80-1200 which is what most people are willing to spend on a watch. If we put info up on these type of watches people will come. I agree with Hater that there are many Forums with this type of content.

What separates this forum from every other is take a look no banners, no sponsors and no company saying you can't say that the watch is junk or very well made.

What ^ said (thanks much Ocean for the articulation)

My meager couple of cents:

I think that the masthead says it perfectly as a destination site: "A place to discuss affordable watches openly." That's very cool - a site where people who either favor or only have the means to discuss their watches under 1000 dollars is a great idea. Hopefully, a place where a person could come do talk about anything at all ... I mean, any watch at all. I'm sure there are even Armitron or Casio fans out there who are serious about their collection. Why not give them a place to talk about it?

I like that masthead a lot. I mean; a while back, on a different forum, there was this subculture of watch buyers who preferred - I kid you not - those $15 Chinese Goer and similar branded watches you buy on eBay. Some of the people had collections of large numbers of those things. Personally? I wouldn't get near them - but the fact there was this subculture of fans of those watches really fascinated me. I found that mostly there are people who simply get off on buying 10 watches for 100 bucks. Would I? Nope. But I can only stand back and learn about the rationales of those who do.

And that's the thing. As I've mentioned on the WL forum, I'm perfectly happy just to learn, look at, and appreciate watches I don't have the means to buy - but I'm also happy to openly discuss ones that are more affordable. My only tips to growing the forum are to start a FB page of the same name and run it concurrently, because FB is the straw that stirs the blog drinks these days; and make sure the site gets onto search engines, a most valuable tool. Oh - and no damning people for their "affordable" tastes. We all agree that sites like WG breed the worst kind of non-WIS behavior - but ranking out on people for quartz watches or their favorite brands gets old really fast.

With the array of interesting watch guys already here - who wouldn't want to at least check this place out?

Great post, TB...it gave me a genuine appreciation for what the site is and could become. The prospects are truly a pleasure to contemplate.

Although I can understand where mort is coming from in his initial post as WL get a ton of hits from google and that a tie in link would expose this forum on a wider scope, I also think that the discussion has come around to what this forum is about.

There is a good core of members here. Even though I was not on the ground floor of watchlords, can you imagine what the first couple of months there were like. I am sure there were plenty of crickets in the background. It has evolved into IMO the best forum I have ever belonged to. And that is just not exclusive to watch forums, sure there is a cornucopia of info about land cruisers and civics on the other forums I belong but the entertainment value at WL is immeasurable.

This site will grow into it's own identity in time.

fatman wrote:This site will grow into it's own identity in time.

Another good post & summary; I've come around to thinking the same way, and I'm pretty sure there will come a time when we'll actually miss the relatively quiet 'good old days' of our first year as a forum...I think my mistake was in comparing us to WL and wanting to get there ASAP. Not now, though...

I have a suggestion. Why don't we do some informative posts on the watches we own. They can be a mix between a review and simple my new watch thread. This way google traffic might pick up and send people over here.

For example, when you google "Clerc Icon 8", my post at WF is the first one at the top and the first few images are mine as well.

This is a great idea. It is important what you title your thread. Like az said "Clerc Icon 8", "Mido Baroncelli Power Reserve", "Zeno Bauhaus". I have noticed what az suggests does work for google searches. As a matter of fact I'm in the process of adding one right now.

DBCooper wrote:This is a great idea. It is important what you title your thread. Like az said "Clerc Icon 8", "Mido Baroncelli Power Reserve", "Zeno Bauhaus". I have noticed what az suggests does work for google searches. As a matter of fact I'm in the process of adding one right now.

Where would you post these? I think there should be a "Tell us about your watches" section or something.

I have just been putting mine in the German or Swiss forums.

I like the idea of sharing watches from our collections here. It would allow us to put together 'mini photo essays' and concise write-ups for whatever watch we'd like to talk about. (And I wouldn't limit it to just watches we like; if we had a bad experience with a particular watch, we should tell others...)

I've always thought it would be cool to do something like a 'watch of the week' from my own collection, but being rather busy with my life outside of watches, I'd hate to have a deadline to meet every seven days. If we had a "Tell Us About Your Watches" section, as recommended by AK, members could post when they have the time and/or inspiration. I like it!