 Poster: A snowHead
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M is the roman numeral for 1000?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Yes, as in 'Mille'.
I'm trying to get an online Latin translation of 'snowHeads', but this is proving difficult.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Qui nivi student ? (those who devote themselves to snow)
edit.. or "qui nivi amant" ...
"Those who love snow"....
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| PG wrote: |
| "Those who love snow".... |
.. with their heads 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Then there's "Devotees of snow", studentes nivis....
None of which really has the right ring to it, does it?!
PS, DG...... why? 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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That's the best yet.
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| admin wrote: |
Nevertheless, if anyone fancies paying £25CPM to advertise on snowHeads I'm all ears :lol: |
I think I made this point earlier in the thread it is is very high and seems like a hangover from the dot.com days. I would have said that around $10 CPM was more realistic and for forums I would pay a much lower figure as they tend to have high viewes with low CTR (click thru rates). The same would apply for the ski club's snow reports, people going for snow reports probably click less on ads as they are often regular users.
The Ski Club would counter that their users, or at least members which is the only client base they probably have good data about are AB type profiles. OK ABC1 are a bit dated and marketeers talk about 'aspirers' and 'thrill seekers' and other such profiles. It is not really my area but my dad worked 40 years in marketing so I've got some clue.
CPM has fallen out of favour in the Web world. Few savvy advertisers would buy space on that basis. Click thrus or even sales/leads are the normal measures as they are pretty easy to measure on-line.
The other thing that would worry me about buying space from the SC site is that they are not overly net savrry and I would worry about the accuracy of the figures they are supplying. The posted figures do nothing to change my mind.
Of note from the latest figures, the Dec 2004 figures were around 20% better than Dec 2003 but by April 2004 they were down 40%. Obviously the effect of closing the forum.
What Pete say's about magazines is very interesting. You need to ask about return rates and the distributor may be able to give you these. You can also figure that the average magazine is read by more than 1 person., although many magazines claim a figure of 3 to 4 which seems high to me. One thing is sure, UK ski magazines have frighteningly low circulation rates, DMSM and Snow and Board must hover around 20,000 (anyone got figures?). 2FreeSki couldn't make it pay.
My only interest is that the SC makes its figures available and it is useful for people working in the area to discuss this information.
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It all went a bit off topic here so it's all here now.
U.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| davidof wrote: |
| .......My only interest is that the SC makes its figures available and it is useful for people working in the area to discuss this information. |
Matter between the SCGB site mangers and their advertisers, alone, I would have thought.
I agree click-through rates seem a sensible basis to charge - together with some measure of viewer profile.
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The phrase "unique users" comes up in this interesting piece in today's Guardian, which explores the future of the printed newspaper and its electronic equivalent:
"In the past five years the number of page impressions - separate pages opened by readers - has risen from fewer than 10m a month to more than 100m with, for example, some 9 million unique users (separate individuals) arriving at the Guardian website in June this year. It has become one of the world's leading newspaper-based websites, far ahead of any other newspaper website in the UK, and in the US second only to the BBC among favoured UK news sites."
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Sorry to revive this old chestnut but far from the ski club of great britain critically re-assessing their statistics re. unique visitors, the figure has 'crept' in the other direction now, with this page boasting of 'the Ski Club's 706,000 annual unique visitors'.
I do not question the high value or popularity of the ski club of great britain's snow reports, they currently clearly provide the most comprehensive snow reports in the UK but, according to Laura's own description of how they were calculated, these figures are misleading.
Laura has also said that the integrity of such data is important to her. So, of all the staunch defenders of the ski club present, has no-one thought to mention this to her? Perhaps there is fear that such a communiqué might be seen as criticism and not taken well?
The thing is: this is suddenly no longer just some 'backwater stat'. It is currently being touted 'at full volume' on the front page of the ski club of great britain site. Although, I think "Sponsor the Ski Club Snow Reports " rather stretches the definition of 'Latest News' - don't U?
As said before, I think the ski club of great britain is skiing a thin snow bridge over a deep crevasse here and they might end up wishing they took out an experienced local guide.
These figures are presented as the crux of their case for advertising on their site and if advertisers subsequently discover them to be untrue, the ski club of great britain’s reputation would suffer whether there was any original intention to mislead or not.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Intrestingly that must mean that Landrover is no longer intending to sponsor those figures, no real surprise now that they are owned by Ford I guess
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u brain, those are obviously serious criticisms. I'm not sufficiently au fait with internet use data to comment. I do know, from my long experience with the Club's magazine, that we have always used the auditing services of the Audit Bureau of Circulations to verify circulation and sales data.
I will ask Laura if any audit of the data has been undertaken, and whether a definition of the term 'unique visitors' is given by internet auditiing bodies. It's best if she pops in here to respond.
The data posted up by the Club today is:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall statistics for skiclub.co.uk
Dates: Nov 2003, Dec 2003, Jan 2004, Feb 2004, Mar 2004, Apr 2004
Unique Visitors: 97,000, 170,000, 197,000, 139,000, 109,000, 49,000
Visitor Sessions 423,000, 423,000, 537,000, 348,000, 276,000, 105,000
Page Impressions 4,842,000, 4,842,000, 5,102,000, 2,790,000, 2,167,000, 783,000
(figures rounded to the nearest thousand)
Winter Snow Report Statistics
Snow Reports Nov 2003, Dec 2003, Jan 2004, Feb 2004, Mar 2004, Apr 2004
Unique Visitors 63,000 (65%), 134,000 (79%), 151,000 (77%), 104,000 (75%), 81,000 (74%), 31,000 (63%)
Visitor Sessions 121,000, 332,000, 406,000, 253,000, 203,000, 63,000
Page Impressions 635,000, 1,676,000, 1,764,000, 950,000, 801,000, 275,000,
(figures rounded to the nearest thousand)
(% = % of overall website visitors that look at the snow reports}
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much  on Thu 30-09-04 12:06; edited 2 times in total
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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u brain, there is a similar debate on the SCGB forum. I have posted there that I think it all silly fuss about nothing. This is advertising. The club wants to promote itself, and will use any means at it's disposal. Some "facts" may be misleading, but I don't think any actual untruths have been stated.
No different from you or I going for a new job and painting a glossy picture. What about some of those advertising slogans. And take a look round your local Heatlth Food shop if you really want to gorge on misleading statements.
Now, David Goldsmith explains his concerns:
"The issue is nothing to do with personalities or competitors. It is quite straightforward: should the Ski Club of Great Britain pay to have its website audience data independently audited by a respected body?"
He doesn't want the club to be ruined by the data turning out to be wildly inaccurate. I couldn't care if the club claimed a million visitors.
I'm just not quite sure why U are so miffed.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Jonpim, that's a ludicrous set of statements. I doubt if any other member of the Ski Club would endorse your view in the penultimate line.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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David Goldsmith, Ludicrous? Maybe. You disagree, certainly. I was just expessing an opinion. Possibly on the exteme side....
If something on the SCGB site is wrong/annoying/whatever, then email Laura and tell her so. No point in getting heated about it here.
Maybe I have been away too long...
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Jonpim, I know it's tempting to believe that advertising is different to any other profession, but it's exactly the same. It's a profession in which people have a choice of either making true statements, or untrue statements. No one expects the Ski Club of Great Britain to be a Mother Theresa, and no one expects the Club to be a Dr. Harold Shipman.
I suppose we all have a view about where, on that scale, the Club should rest its soul.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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As someone who purchases advertising I have to rely on the statements made by the publisher as to numbers, social scale and target audience. All advertising is hit and miss initially, it's only after you've paid that you can measure the results and analyse the effectiveness or otherwise of the medium. One of the reasons I use Ski and Board is that their readership figures are higher than DMSM.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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That is the whole point David@traxvax, most advertisers have to take such figures at face value. How many have the time to really study the detail behind how they were generated? Not many, I suspect, even if they understood the technicalities of why those figures are not what they appear to be.
In this case, I suppose it all hinges on your definition of "unique visitor". Before I knew otherwise I assumed that it meant "an individual person" ie. 706,000 unique visitors = 706,000 different people.
I suspect any reader with a grasp of the English language would automatically draw the same conclusion. There's certainly nothing currently on that site to define otherwise.
Jonpim, you suggest this may just be typical advertising rhetoric.
"Carlsberg don't do a forum but if they did it would probably be the second best forum in the world after snowHeads" = advertising speak 
"35,000 people have visited snowHeads in the last 7 months" = untrue 
But, by SCGB's use of the term we have had 35,000 'unique visitors' in 7 months of low season!
BUT HOLD YOUR CHEQUEBOOKS all u marketing hotshots: We have only 840 members! Have we had 40 guests lurking for every member visit? Well, how many times have U seen 40 guests viewing snowHeads?
Quite simply, fewer than 1000 people have dropped 35,000 IP addresses between them and using this ratio, 706,000 unique IP addresses would equate to around 20,000 actual people! Or, as I understand the meaning of the words, 20,000 unique visitors. Although the figure may not be quite that low, I wouldn't be surprised if it was under 50,000. I would be very surprised if it was over 100,000
It appears Laura has been emailed about it and her response amounted to little more than, "well, other people do it.". So that makes it all right then 
But "why should I care?" U ask.
Jon, I care about the fact that the BOGOF salmon in Sainsbury's is almost twice the price/kilo of any other salmon I see. I care that 0845 numbers are called 'local rate' when they're rarely charged that way (unless u phone from a BT landline). I care that Orange tell me a call will cost 1p/minute then charge 25p. I care that I keep getting told that I've won a prize by recorded messages on the phone when I'm damn sure I haven't.
It's sharp practice and it's just not a very decent way to behave.
Well, I heard that Which? might look into the dodgy supermarket offers, Orange gave me a refund (eventually) and I've flushed my landline down the toilet so these things can be resolved!
Do I care because I have a vested interest in this case? Well obviously, there's no point in denying that it's a wind up talking to potential advertisers/sponsors of snowHeads about figures of hundreds AND thousands and getting the SCGB's figures of hundreds OF thousands thrown back at me. Am I supposed to explain to some low-tech marketing mngr what an IP address is and why it means SCGB's figures are not what they seem?
I am proud of what we have here and feel the truth should be impressive enough - thankfully, to some people it is.
But, the main reason I care is: I'm a skier, from Great Britain; they are the ski club of Great Britain. They are influential enough that, if they operate sharp practice, the whole scene is likely to suffer. Member or not, that means U!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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U, well said! You've pointed out the difference between the hype and reality, I guess we should call it the credibilty gap. From my own analysis I estimate that there are about 17,000 paying members of the SCGB, allowing for family membership etc.
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I guess so. Looks like bashing a competitor to me.
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Nick Zotov, no it's not competitor bashing, it is - as U brain says - a question of the proper use of words.
The word unique means one only. Since every person on this planet is unique, no further definition is required.
If you, Nick Zotov, go to Tignes this winter, and 5 other Nick Zotovs go to Tignes the tourist office could properly count 6 unique visitors all named Nick Zotov.
If you are the only Nick Zotov to go to Tignes this winter, but you go there 6 times, you don't constitute 6 unique visitors do you? You've made 6 visits. The adjective unique is inappropriate and incorrect in that context.
Last edited by After all it is free  on Tue 26-10-04 14:13; edited 2 times in total
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Perhaps the corrects term is " hits " ( ie visits to the site ) and not unique visitors. Other companies use that term and it explains what the correct position is
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Nick Zotov, I'm sorry but it's really awkward for me. I would like, in my role as Admin to see more friendly links between the two sites. I have approached them in the past but the response has not exactly been a warm one. snowHeads official policy toward SCGB is open, welcoming and inclusive.
There are even a number of critical considerations which I might have raised for discussion in the past on the olde forum which I daren't bring up myself now for fear of snowHeads being branded the SCGB-bashing board because of my role here. That was never the point of snowHeads.
But more to the point, for me to see myself, the individual, as indistinguishable from snowHeads would be a conceit. I know it's hard but please try to see the distinction too. I may have set it up, but I am not solely responsible for what it is.
snowHeads will plug on pragmatically trying to get better and better independent of what SCGB does thankfull for its very existence to MO day. Whereas I, personally am still annoyed about being kicked out so rudely in Feb and still don't feel like we ever got the appology we deserved.
Opinion and attitude aside though, these numbers as they are published are just not right. I personally think that presenting statistics in that way, while being aware of their true nature is a dishonest practice and my respect is diminished for anyone who does so.
Nice try hibernia, but 'hits' was the term used to hype up the internet in the early days and refers to html commands. It was probably the biggest numbers scam of them all. Advertisers thought it meant just that but in fact each web page displayed can generate hundreds of hits.
OK here are some big numbers for people who like them 
For the month of Sept 04:
Snowheads generated 2.2million hits, served 779,000 files in 75,000 pages accross almost 15,000 visits. That month gave us 6500 scgb-style 'unique visitors' and registered membership grew by 12%... but I expect it'll pick up 
Go sell that to the advertisers 
While I remind U back here in the real world that we have a nice cosy 847 members, some of whom haven't been around for a while... welcome back Jonpim.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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It has struck me that in advertising terms that internet adverts are rather like an advertising hoarding by the side of the road, many will see it as they drive past but take no notice, some will study it but decide it does not fullfil their needs, a few will decide that it would be useful to them but never buy the product but a tiny minority will actually purchase the product based on the advert they first saw.
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Ah, D G Orf, but if I understand things correctly, they aren't trying to sell - but build brand awareness.
But I could be talking b*ll*cks
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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My impression is that the self-styled Ski Club of Great Blue Whale sees us as snowPlankton whereas really we're snowMinows and they're a bunch of Trout - please correct me if I've miscalculated in any way.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Right, guys, I think it's my round: I'm having a pint. What do the rest of you want. u brain? David Goldsmith? Anyone?
This is a tricky one, but I do admit I can't really maintain my position. Usually I can get away with a good bit of bluster, but you guys are too good for me.
I am pretty ignorant of lots of this internet statistics stuff, but if I understand the basic essentials, there are 2 problems:
1. the term "unique visitors" is misleading (and I hate being bamboozled)
2. the use of this term is common throughout Webland.
Solution: education. Call "File on Four" or Panorama. Blast this term out of the water.
But if, as Laura suggests, everyone is at it, it does seem a bit unfair to pick on the ski club. Why not everyone else as well?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I can bring out old chestnuts.. I've been trying to help a club member, who seems to be having trouble with her clubsite registration cookie. So I had a look at mine, and saw right at the top a Webtrends-ID. So it appears the club is using webtrends for its statistical analysis. Have a look at the second message here. It appears that the term "unique visitor" is a webtrends expression; the second forum message discusses the significance of it.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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This posted on the SCGB site I thought it useful to copy it here
www.skiclub.co.uk has been audited by ABC ELECTRONIC for the month January 2005 and has been given the certification that our statistical analysis is accurate. ABC ELECTRONIC have certified that in January 2005 www.skiclub.co.uk had an impressive total of 272,494 unique users and just under 700,000 visits. These statistics have risen by 38% and 28% respectively from January 2004.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| D G Orf wrote: |
| This posted on the SCGB site I thought it useful to copy it here |
How about this for a different spin:
Ski Club Page Impressions Nose Dive.
Lastest accredited statistics for the Ski Club of Great Britain show that just 4,340,460 pages of content were served in January 2005 compared to 5,101,690 in the same month last year. A drop of nearly 20%. One analyst commented: "Although visitors numbers are up they just can't find anything useful, the Ski Club site is just not sticky enough". In an expanding market for online information the Ski Club of Great Britain is the only ski website to have experienced such a dramatic drop.
I still can't believe anyone pays them a CPM of 25 quid - if I got that I could retire next year!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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davidof, is that bold heading and report sourced from elsewhere or a bit of cheeky counter-propaganda on your part? !
As a Ski Club member I welcome the fact that ABC are now auditing this data. However, I'm not clear why ABC use the word 'unique' in their audits, given the discussions we've had on the subject. Haven't they picked up and run with a misused word?
To me, a 'unique user' is a single human being with a unique fingerprint, DNA, and so on. There seems to be an ongoing confusion of definition here.
Err ... one point. You've quoted this sentence:
| Quote: |
| In an expanding market for online information the Ski Club of Great Britain is the only ski website to have experienced such a dramatic drop. |
How do we know this? Which other ski websites are ABC-audited, or audited by some other independent organisation?
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I presumed that it was a bit of tongue-in-cheek from davidof?
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| Elizabeth B wrote: |
| I presumed that it was a bit of tongue-in-cheek from davidof? |
Yes just a half-joke to show the different interpretation you can put on figures. 4 million page views per month is excellent and shows that their site is widely consulted.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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AND , as last year many more people were going in to the Chatroom and some people who Chat will visit many pages in a month , it seems to show that it is very probably only this area which has fallen in popularity ? !
The people visting the Ski Club site for other reasons are more likely to "look around" the site and be of interest to the advertisers I would have thought.
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FAQ
RIP scgb forum 