The Pitfalls Of Running A Forum

While the industry gets to grips with social media; Twitter and the bloggersphere, there's one thing that has struggled to take off.

Forum's have always seemed to struggle to punch a hole in the online world of windows. I don't quite know why that is. Maybe there are a few reasons to blame?

Twitter maybe? With Twitter providing real-time responses to questions or debates, the idea of waiting for someone to comment back on a forum thread or question may seem slightly out of date and require too much time in front of a screen than anyone can be bothered with.

Effort? It takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to keep a forum fresh and interesting. People have to post different topics constantly, and ones that are interesting enough to force responses from people. The minute you start to repeat the same topics and threads, people are going to turn off and go somewhere else...or not bother at all!

People? Forums have to have a diverse range of people. GlassTalk was guilty of having the same 8-10 people posting threads and leaving comments to each other, and not really welcoming enough to new people. If small cliques start to form then people are going to feel like engaging in fear of not being talked to.

Despite what many people think, I think there is a place for an online forum in this industry. I believe there is enough to talk about to keep it interesting and maybe even force a change for good within our sector. 

What do you guys think? If there was a forum with constantly changing and engaging subjects and the site was interactive and modern enough, would you contribute to it?

Improvements For 2012

Sometimes the best way to improve things is to ask those that use your service/product what they would like to see changed. So, for 2012, I would like your feedback on what you would like to see changed and improved on this site for 2012.

It can be absolutely anything; appearance, content, layout upgrades, themes, less/more advertising, more guest posts, more comments from me.

I really would like your responses on this one. I want to keep this site fresh, ever evolving and always engaging!

Top 7 For 700th!

Well, I've hopped along to my 700th post with this one! When I first started I never even considered the amount of posts going into the many hundreds. But the site has done steadily well over the near three years that this has been running - so for that I thank you!

I thought this might be a good time to look back on what has done well on here, and I may as well forge a 'seven' theme out of the title, so below are the top 7 blog posts that have got me the most views and comments over the past two and three quarter years:

1. Veka/WHS Halo: Meger Or Veka Buyout? 
Story published on May 31st, 2011. Comments: 60. I was the first to publicly break the story of Veka buying the Bowater Building Products group. This by a country mile garnered the most comments, visitors and page views at 2712! May find it hard to top this one any time soon!

2. Tackling The Trickle Vent Issue.
Story published on November 25th 2009. Comments: 4. Surprised to see this as number two really. Maybe it's picked up more consumers wanting to know about trickle vents rather than some of my regular readers wanting to know my opinions of these tacky bits of plastic. Still, it has managed to rack up an impressive 2385 page views.


3. Hot Weather = Hot Sales.
Story published on May 4th 2011. We had a pretty hot start to the beginning of the summer (then it all went down hill!), so this was all about me reflecting on the positive effect that the weather had on sales figures for window companies. This post was viewed 1715 times.


4. Anglian Up For Sale.
Story published on September 6th 2010. Comments: 6. This was my first experience of Anglian being up for sale. We know now that is has been put up another time since this post was published. Once the business is bought I'm sure I'll do a post about that too! People wanted to see what I thought of this 739 times!


5. Is External Georgian Bar Expensive For What It Is?
Story published on May 5th 2010. Comments: 8. This post was just my general ramblings about the cost of external Georgian bar and if it really was worth paying as much as we all do for that product. Personally, I still think it's too expensive! Still, my ramblings were seen 728 times!


6. Economic Tug Of War.
Story published on January 18th 2011. This post was written when certainty about the economy was at an all time low. Since this post was published, the future of our economy looks even less certain! The struggle between rising living costs, raw materials vs wages continues unabated. This post has been viewed 629 times.


7. Synseal Come Out On Top
Story published on January 10th 2011. Comments: 3. For this, I carried out a poll on who the public thought was the best profile manufacturer in the country. Synseal came top of the pile, not my choice however! But still a good manufacturer and well done! This post has gained 457 page views to date.


If any of you feel compelled to read these stories again, I've linked all the titles of the posts to their relevant pages, just for your convenience!


Again, thanks for all your support, visits, page views, comments and recommends on Twitter. Now I'm gonna have to get my thinking cap on for how to mark my 1000th post!

#project200

As the title of this post suggests, this is to promote the new #project200 campaign for @SophiiMaria's blog; http://www.sophiimaria.blogspot.com.

After the resounding success of #project100 yesterday, which I only started after lunch time, it's time to step this up a gear and aim for the 200 page view mark. Ideally, it would be nice to reach this milestone on a regular basis, rather than this be just a one off event. So, like yesterday, your support on this little project would be greatly appreciated.

Why am I doing this? Sophii is a student at Aberystwyth University and trying to make it in the entertainment industry. Exposure at this stage is one of the most important things for her right now, hence all the help I'm giving her. Also, she's now set up AdSense on her site, enabling her to earn some vital extra cash from her sight. Money is extremely important when you're a student. So seeing as though it's the festive season and a time for helping and giving, why not click on an ad and help her out?!

I'll be tweeting #project200 with a link to her site throughout the day, and Sophii will be publishing new posts on a regular basis today and the coming days!

A Big Thankyou!

For those of you on Twitter, you will have noticed I was heavily promoting @SophiiMaria's webiste; http://www.sophiimaria.blogspot.com using the hashtag #project100.

The whole aim of #project100 was to help Sophii's site get past the 100 page views mark before the end of the day. And thanks to you lovely people, she actually managed to get to 106 as midnight struck! So this post is generally a very big thankyou to all those who heeded my tweets and clicked on the link to her site! I'm sure she'll say on Twitter, but I know it meant a lot to her!

You may be wondering why I am promoting her site so much? Well, first of all, she's my girlfriend, so that's reason enough! But, on a more serious note, her aim is to become an actress. So she's using social media to help get noticed by as many people as possible, and I'm doing all I can to help. The more people that know/speak to her, the better chance she has of finding opportunities. She's also rooting out all those in the arts industry on Twitter and following them also.

Thanks to you guys, yesterday's #project100 was a total success, so THANKS! However, the next post is going to explain the next landmark for her site to get to!

I Changed Back!

Well, that change was short lived!

I've had to revert back to the original layout on my site. The new layouts did look fresh and modern, but came with too many limitations. I couldn't have any of the gadgets I have on this current layout. In fact I couldn't have any gadgets at all! Editing the colour scheme, layout of the page, sizing and other features weren't available either. At least with this layout I can alter almost anything I want.

Blogger tells me that as these are new layouts, they are listening to feedback and are looking to integrate more and more features as time goes by, but they're not going to rush it. So I'm going to wait for some more updates, and when they arrive, I shall make the changes!

Explanation Of Changes

Right, time to explain what is going on with my site.

As always, I like to give the look of my site a tweak now and then, this is rather a large one. In fact it's probably the biggest one I've done. I had the rainy mountain background and layout for a while, so I though it was time for a change. Blogger has brought out the 'dynamic view' layouts which give the site a far more modern and interactive look.

But at first you will notice some items that aren't there that were on the previous look. My 'subscribers' and 'monthly page views' gadgets aren't there, neither is my 'tag cloud' gadget, 'previous comments' gadget and 'top read' gadget. Blogger's reason for this is that because these templates are new, they are gauging response and feedback, and changes will be made over the coming weeks and months to make sure it's all integrated properly. 

We're these gadgets necessary to the site? Did you find them useful? I'd like to know so I know whether or not to revert back to the old site while Blogger works on getting the gadgets back up and running for the new layouts.

I'm still toying around with the colour scheme slightly, so please bear with me on this one until I get it right.

Feedback welcome!

Red Velvet Baking

I would like to introduce to you all to another blog by a friend of mine. Her name is Jessica and her passion is writing and baking, so she's done the most logical thing, and started a blog, about baking.


So if cakes, buns or food in general interests you (I know I love my food), then check this new site out. It's only a few days old, so it's going to be fun watching how this develops.


Here it is: http://redvelvetbaking.blogspot.com/

What's Going On With Glasstalk?

When I say Glasstalk, I mean the website, not the networking event.


When the site first launched the debate raged on there. There was good banter, reasoned debate. Yes it did get a bit hairy at times, but that was to be expected as there were plenty of competitors on there speaking to each other.


But over the last couple of months the site seems to be really stagnant at the minute. The odd status provokes the odd few responses, but other than that the debate and conversation seems to have just died.


I've been trying to put my finger on it, trying to figure out why such a busy site has become so lifeless. Maybe it was the novelty of having an industry related forum that had people going there for the first few months. The sheen might have worn a bit thin now and people just might be a bit bored.


The other theory I was thinking about was that maybe double glazing isn't interesting enough to be able to sustain a forum. Take music forums for example. New singles, albums and bands are making waves everyday, ensuring the debate is continued constantly. In the world of double glazing news worthy issues come along only on a monthly basis. Despite how much attention the Veka/Halo story got, that didn't even span a month. Perhaps our industry just isn't interesting enough. 


I know what I would be thinking as an advertiser on the site. I'd be pretty annoyed to think that I've paid good money to put my ads on the side banner of the Glasstalk site, then to see very little or no activity on the site, meaning no-one is clicking on them or even seeing them. Massive waste of money!


So how would you rejuvenate the Glasstalk website? To be honest I'm not quite sure. The whole point of a forum is for people to talk. But of people can't be bothered to talk on there, there is very little anyone can do about it. It would be a shame to see the site go as the industry lacks a genuine forum site in which the issues of the day can be discussed on an equal platform. But with the current lack of interest, I just can't see it being online for much longer. The owners of the site won't want to put money into a site which isn't delivering the goods. 


Ideas and comments very much welcome on this one!

Tesco Windows Website Back Up And Running

Yesterday the Tesco Windows website came back online, dispelling any myths that the company was maybe having second thoughts on entering the industry.


But, for such a massive company to have a website down for 5 days is a poor show, considering the money and the I.T. skills behind the company.


At first glance nothing seems to have changed. The layouts are the same, as are the images and the prices advertised prior to the site going down. So I guess we just have to put this down to 'technical difficulties'. Or maybe it was LulzSec flexing their muscles again!

I've Got My Traffic Back...And I'm Getting Fit!

It seems that the recent patch of bank holidays were to blame for my drop in traffic to my blog. But I am now glad to say it's picked back up, and with interest! Yesterday was my best day for visitors so far, with 115. Probably not as much as Renegade Conservatory Guy's, but still not bad I don't think!


Also, I've decided to turn over a new leaf, and got myself motivated to start getting fitter and more in shape! We've had a treadmill, bike and weights in the garage for years, but have been used up till now only once! And now I'm single, I've started to grow...outwards. And I've got a holiday coming up. The nice American ladies won't be interested in a beer bellied Englishman, so I've buckled down and got to it! 


I'm also doing it for me. I'd like to be fitter than I am at the moment, so using my spare time to do some more exercise seems like the best thing to do. I'm also going for the 'the sharper the body the sharper the mind' effect. If I feel fitter I may even improve on my sales figures maybe? I'll let you know if it has any effect!

Has The Industry Got Bored With The Internet?

Those who visit websites/forums related to the double glazing industry will have no doubt realised that they have fallen quiet over the past few weeks. Glasstalk is a perfect example. The forum really seemed to be gaining momentum with plenty of people logging on, asking questions, causing debates and the odd heated argument. But then about six weeks ago, activity on the site really seemed to fall off a cliff. Maybe it was down to people becoming busy as the year's trading started to move into gear. Maybe the novelty of the site has worn off people and it just isn't as interesting as it was before. To be honest, I haven't posted on the site for weeks myself. Mostly because I've been too busy in the office. But also I've just had nothing to say on there really. Any of the bigger issues I have I write on here. But at the moment I don't have anything of value to post on the Glasstalk site.


I have also noticed a drop in traffic levels during April. Partly due to all the Bank Holidays during the month. But there was also just a general drop in traffic. I think for the same reasons which has seen Glasstalk's drop in content. This leads me to wonder if double glazing blogs/forum's are a winter past time.


During the coldest and quietest months of the year, our businesses suffer their slowest months. This also means sales people have more time on their hands. And where do people turn during bordem? The web. That's when sites like this one will benefit. That's my theory anyway. Of course when a hot topic springs up, traffic will respond positively. But I do honestly think that those who regularly visited double glazing sites have now refocussed and have steered clear of the web to make sure more of their efforts are concentrated on selling and making money. I myself have been guilty of spending too much time during the day on the web. I've also been making and effort to spend less time on the web.


Tell me if you think I'm wrong, but those are the reasons I'm putting forward for the reduced traffic to both these sites.

Glazing Blogger To Buy Out RCG

Well, I think I'm now in a position to buy out the RCG blog!


No, I'm only joking! It was an idea banded about in jest between RCG and Anglian on twitter. But it did get me to thinking how much money it would take to do so.


I went on the the UK based www.websitevalue.co.uk to see how much this site was worth and how much the RCG site was worth. Mine came in at a slightly disappointing £1089. RCG's site came in at £6057. Again, less than what I thought it was. So there's just less £5000 between the two sites.


If you go on to other website valuation websites there are differing values. So these numbers have to be taken with a pinch of salt. But I suppose if I had a spare £6057 knocking about I might think about buying it! 

New Domain Coming Soon...Hopefully!

After our company website updates had been completed, I spoke with our I.T. guys about transferring this site to it's own domain...properly! Not done by me! I tried doing it myself about a year ago and the site nearly became lost in space! I don't want that to happen again. That's why I'm getting some people who really know what they're doing to do it.


My main question is what the domain is to end in. Do I go for .com as there are quite a few readers from outside the UK, or do I go for .co.uk as the majority are from the UK. Or do I just do both?


Answers please!


Whatever the choice, I'm thinking this should be done by May.

Mobile Format

Blogger has now got it's act together and is now able to provide my blog in a mobile format for all you smart phone users out there! There is no rain-drop background, but it is very clear and easy to navigate yourself round. Let me know what your thoughts on it are please!

Dedication

I'm two thirds of the way through adding tags/labels to my posts on this blog, all 480 of them! When I look at other blogs and websites, the majority have either a tag list or cloud, and it helps to organise everything a little bit. People then don't have to trawl all the way through my blog to try and find one post they might want to read!


However tagging 480 posts is difficult, and does require you to be dedicated to your site if it means your going to get it all done. Currently, as I've said I'm past the halfway mark, and I would have carried on tonight, but the internet connection at the moment at home is terrible. So I'll finish my marathon tomorrow. 


Over the past 24, there seems to have been a problem with the comments section. Conservatory Girl and Rob Foy have both told me they have been leaving comments, but for what ever reason, I'm not getting them through at my end. I sent a test comment to myself, and that one made it through. So, to help me out, could everyone please bombard me with comments just so I can see what is getting through and what isn't! If you'd prefer to email me with comments then that is fine, I'll post them for you on your behalf. If you don't see your comment on the blog within an hour or so, then send me a tweet at @glazingblogger and I'll look into it further.


There were also a couple of problems with my subscriptions service with FeedBurner, but this seems to have sorted itself out. Though there is one email address on my list which isn't verified, think it's from some one called Phil (don't want to put the email address on here for everyone to see!).

Change Of Scenery

One of the suggestions that came from me asking how I can make this site better was from Alex who said that the white writing was harder to see than black text on a lighter background. I could see where he was coming from, but I still liked the idea of the white text because there are too many blogs out there with the conventional white background and black text. But I took on board his comment and went about looking at some new themes from Blogger. I stumbled across this one and thought it was ideal. It's a view through glass! How much more relevant to the window industry can you get! Plus, it's a lot brighter. The two old black themes I had looked a bit too moody, so it was nice to have a design which looked a bit fresher and a bit more positive.


I'm still open to suggestions as to what people think I should do differently. But let me know what you think on the new theme!

How Can I Improve This Site?

I'm always looking at ways I can improve the site. Whether it be the looks of the web page, features that I put on like the search box and the Page Views counter, or the simplicity of the navigation. But up to press I've only ever gone on what I think. So if any of you have any ideas on what I could be doing differently on the site I'd like you to tell me so that I can keep on improving it.


Thanks!

My 400th Post

I don't have any big particular issue to talk about in this milestone post, so I thought I'd just share a few bits of information I learned today off a visiting Yale engineer.

As of Monday, Yale, and in turn ASSA Abloy now own Paddock. The takeover was announced over a month ago, but with all the usual checks and procedures involved in buy-outs, this prolongs the process slightly. Speaking with the guy, it seems ASSA Abloy now seem to own just about all of the major locks and hardware companies worth buying. I put it to him that with all the companies they are getting themselves involved with, is there a risk that with such a large and expanding group, could the lines between them blur and could product and service quality suffer (I know he was just an engineer but he seemed a pretty knowledgeable guy)? He assured me that when ASSA buy out companies, they try not to integrate them too much. Simply, they buy them, pocket the company, make them use the Yale brand, but leave them to run the company as they see fit...for now anyway.

The ASSA Abloy Group is now that huge that if you work in any sector that even comes close to windows and doors, your going to be purchasing from a company within that umbrella, and not just here, all over the world. Below is a list copied from a Wikipedia search highlighting why they are the biggest in the world:

Finnish

Abloy
Abloy Exec
Abloy Protec


American
Arrow Lock and Door Hardware
Corbin Russwin
Curries
Graham
Ceco
Fargo Electronics
Flemming
Folger Adam
Hes
HID
Emtek
Medeco
McKinney
Norton
Pemko
Rixson
Rockwood Manufacturing
Sargent
Securitron
TImelox
Interlock USA Inc.
Yale


Australian
Lockwood
Whitco
Trimec
Padde


British
Chubb
Union


Danish
Ruko A/S
Besam


Dutch
Nemef
LIPS


French
Fichet
JPM
Laperche
Vachette


German
Ikon
Keso
Effeff


Israeli
Mul-T-Lock


Norwegian
TrioVing
VingCard
Elsafe


Swedish
ASSA
Besam
Spanish
Azbe
Tesa

It is also probably worth noting that Union, Chubb and Yale have companies within their portfolio.

If you want an example of how to build a HUGE business portfolio internationally, take a look at the ASSA Abloy group.

A Couple More Additions

All of us like to crunch a few stats once in a while, but the posts I've published previously with various stats from this blog have taken time and were quite tedious. So imagine my moderate surprise when I found that Blogger had got their act together and did themselves a gadget which allows you to show how many page views you've had over the last 30 days! Hence that's one of two new features, and I've popped it above the most recent post where it's most visible and doesn't clog the side bar up anymore.


Secondly, I can tell that the little Top 3 Posts feature was used well when I looked at my Analytics, so imagine my more than moderate surprise when I found that Blogger had got their act together even further and had produced a 'Popular Posts' gadget! This is incredibly useful to me as I now don't have to manually change the text and their links every time a post switches places. I could have had the top 10 posts, but I've kept it at 5 for now. If you think there should be more then I'll change it.


Just thought I'd point out the obvious!