Feeling My Way Around Social Networks

Some of you are aware that I have recently become a bit of a Paragliding nutjob. I have found the sport, in the word’s Jerry MacGuire, completes me [two handed circle action for effect]. You see I like adventure and beautiful scenery but not activities that make me feel like I am going to die every second which made Paragliding a great choice as you only feel like you will die every few minutes.

So of course, I hit my first love, the Internet (not my Fiance, she’s my third love, in order of discovery not preference!) to find out more about my fourth love, Paragliding, only to be dismally disappointed by the quality and consistency of paragliding websites out here. I found myself wondering why no-one had created a great web presence for such a cool, aspirational sport.

The Light Bulb Moment

Ahhhh! And there it was. My second love (marketing) instincts kicked in, as they usually do when I am on the net. My marketing brain started spewing out jumbo about paragliding phsychometrics:

· High LSM participants, willing to spend good money on equipment and gadgets.

· Passionate and tight community.

· Well documented travellers and explorers.

· Hi technology usage and knowledge.

· Well defined niche.

· A very large niche, hundreds of thousands of participants worldwide.

· Multiple (and I mean plenty) monetization opportunities for a paragliding website.

· And no-one has secured this market online?!

And so of course I created a paragliding website or social network to be more accurate, called Cloudseekers using the uber-cool platform: Ning. Now the first release of Cloudseekers, as you see it now, is in its most basic format with the standard social network functions of sharing blogs, photos, videos etc. But the beauty of a niche social network, is that you can develop it specifically for that audience’s needs and be ‘everything for someone’ and not ‘everything for everyone’. Now all I need to do is find a decent developer for the phase two developments. Any recommendations?

Find more videos like this on Cloudseekers

Yes you can build Widgets… soon

If you are like me and have been dying to try your hand at creating a widget but know nothing about coding beyond basic HTML tags and are too cheap to pay someone to do it for you, then you will want to read this article.

Sprout Builder has arrived in all it’s glory and is set to make widgets accessible to a much wider group of ‘creators’. I imagine will mean a lot more niche widgets and hence a lot more widget users/viewers. For example, I enjoy a leisurely paraglide on the weekends and I have had an idea for a widget for the 100k + registered paragliding pilots worldwide. When you estimate how many of those are online, we are talking very niche. How many of them have used/seen or bothered by a widget, even more niche.

Confused
Please note that all the positivity I pour out above (being my optimistic self) is based on the promo video on the site and I haven’t actually given the tool a go. Confusingly, their blog says the tool had launched yesterday but when I try to use the app, I am asked to give my email address, to which I duly abided, as they are in closed beta phase. But, much like my potential card fraud query at the bank, I’m sure it will sort itself out in a few hours or days.

Either way the video shows off the interface a bit and seems simple enough. It reminds me of Swishmax’s linear editing style interface as well as Synthasite’s drag and drop building style interface. I’m hoping it’s more like the latter!