Reading about Internet Marketing
Just received my internet marketing book ready for the course I’m starting in January. Lot’s to read and learn.
Knock knock
Read ‘Knock Knock‘, Seth Godin’s Incomplete Guide to Building a Web Site that Works. It has some interesting ideas about website conversions and waxing the alley. Lots to think about.
QR tattoo
How cool would it be to have the QR code for your website tattoo’d on your arm. Imagine going for a digital marketing job interview, rolling up your sleeve and saying, ‘Yeah, that’s how into digital marketing I am!’
Kindling
Working on my first Kindle publication, a series of interviews, one for each of the eighteen chapter. It’s a bit of an experiment both the building of it and using it as a marketing tool, so we’ll see how it goes, but hopefully it’ll be published in time for Christmas for all those people who get Kindles in their stockings.
Timelines
Facebook is rolling out its timeline for profiles to its regular users (even though developers have had it a while). One of the interesting ideas about the timeline is that you can add content way back down the line before Facebook even existed. Could it be pushed a step further? Could your timeline split at you birth and create a family tree from before the internet even existed, all with old photos and important dates and locations.
McApp
Heard McDonalds radio advert for their new ‘find a macdonalds’ iphone app. Interesting that ‘new media’ is being promoted via ‘traditional media’. Websites like ancestory.co.uk and ebay.co.uk advertise on TV too. The barrier between the old and the new is falling away with marketers using every platform available to them.
Mockingbird wireframing
Started using an online website wireframing service called mockingbird for laying out websites. It’s really handy for multiple level page layouts and great for collaborating as changing things on paper is time consuming and messy.
Nompa Prototype 1
Initial testing of the Nompa has proved successful. The deck is light (compared to a nosno) and has loads of twist, the trucks have more turn than I thought they would, but not too much, and the bindings are nice and light.
I’ll give it a proper ride this weekend and then put the brake trucks on it and try it on some steep bike tracks to see how it performs on the terrain it was born to ride.
One day, five Passes and a van load of mountainboarders
Roger Swannell reports on an epic downhill challenge for 7 eager road-riders that took place in The Lake District in November ’11…
“Why do you want to climb Mount Everest?”, asked the reporter. “Because it’s there”, retorted Mallory, way back in the early ‘20’s.
The idea of the ‘challenge’, born in mountaineering, and quickly spreading to other sports like fell running, hiking & mountain biking, and then becoming the focus of charity fund-raising events like the Three Peaks Challenge, has now found it’s way into mountainboarding.
Starting, as these things often do, as a ‘we should do this’ kinda discussion on SurfingDirt Forum, the date was set, the maps printed, the accommodation booked, and the Five Passes Challenge was ready to go. We all piled in the car and headed up the M6, driving like James Bond in Octopussy, to arrive at the bottom of the first Pass.
Good to go.
Whinlatter
Nice easy warm up. The road is two lanes all the way down so there is plenty of room for cars coming up. Nothing broken, but Brennigs wheel fell off. We gave it a score of 4/10 as it’s not too challenging but good to start with.
Honister
Starts out steep, with some tight chicanes, before mellowing out a bit. It was nice to get some thumbs up from vintage car rally drivers as we shot past them. And Chris’ flaming brake blocks gave us a reality check about what we were doing (but didn’t stop us). This one scores 8/10 for the super fast start and stunning scenery.
Two runs down, three to go
Wrynose
The sun was starting to set as we headed up the third Pass on our list. The run down was long, smooth and fast, giving us more melted brake blocks. Wrynose also gets a score of 8/10 for it’s openness, speed, sheer drops, and worryingly close passing cars that wouldn’t slow down for us.
Hardknott
It hadn’t got any lighter as Allan wheel-spun his van up Hardknott Pass with the rest of us in the back, not being able to see the road and not knowing what to expect on the run down. This is the steepest of the passes with hairpin after hairpin making it difficult to pick up any speed. We gave it 5/10 because although it’s steep, you can’t let it go and pick up too much speed before you’re slamming into the next corner.
Kirkstone
The last Pass, also in total darkness, was the highest. After Hardknott it seemed a bit mellow but we gave it a score of 8/10 as it’s long, fast, and finishes at the car park a short walk from the town centre.
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After the riding was done, we went to an eastern European chip shop for dinner where the ladies behind the counter took a shine to Brennig, not only did he get table service but he even got a knife. We also had a great idea for a one-stop-shop where you could get therapy, have your teeth polished and rent a car. It would be called ‘Mental Dental Rental’.
A long drive down narrow country lanes took us us to the barn we’d booked to stay in for the night. We wondered around aimlessly in the dark for a bit before finding a room with a pile of mattresses. That can’t be it, we thought, and carried on looking, only to find another door with our name on, opened it to find the same room from the other end. Now we know where the expression ‘born in a barn’ comes from, didn’t matter whether the door was open or closed.
All-in-all, it was an awesome trip with a great group of riders. Its good to see more brake riders out there, and see collectives like this coming together from all over the country to ride some of the most awesome roads in the country, with the added degree of setting ourselves the challenge of getting them all done in a day. MVP of the trip has to be Brennig who was uncatchable and did it all with the nonchalance of someone with a great future in downhilling ahead of them…
So, next challenge? !
Originally published on Remolition
How I broke Surfingdirt
Surfingdirt, the biggest forum in the mountainboard world, went down for a few hours today. And yes, it was my fault. I was trying to edit the title of a thread so it fits with the new Session Finder sub-forum and I crashed the database.
Luckily, Fuze, the forum super administrator, fixed it and Surfingdirt was back up shortly after my little mishap.