Howdy from Welove2ski.com

A snowHead

Hi

's, just a friendly message to say hello and reintroduce myself. We (a couple of the folks from Welove2ski) used to post on here a little bit a few years ago, then a hiatus, now back again.

Anyway, just wanted to say we're going to experiment with making a renewed effort in being part of the community over here, if that's OK with all of you. I think we could provide some good advice on resorts, holidays etc where it's needed, and hopefully that means we'll be adding value.

Full disclaimer: yes, that does mean we plan to post some links to our own resources on Welove2ski.com where it's appropriate. Not our intention to spam though, so if you see us posting a link unnecessarily then please do say.

Hope you'll appreciate the up-front approach, we'd rather not be seen as just another ski website posing as a skier, if you know what I mean. wink

Anyone who does read our site will know that we've also undergone a major overhaul in the last 12 months, so any feedback/suggestions on what we're doing well and what we could do better would be very welcome (just send us a PM or email).

If that all sounds groovy, then looking forward to chatting with you!

A snowHead

Welcome back to snowHead

from me.

I view your website often and have found it informative and interesting Smile

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

welove2ski, Your "encyclopedia of world ski resorts" of ski resorts is described as "comprehensive" but only includes just over 100 resorts, in all. Clearly it features many of the "big names" and an eclectic collection of smaller ones but it might be worth making slightly less grandiose claims for it. Apart from individual european resorts (which may well have more skiing than some of the small ones you've included) your list excludes the whole of Japan, Scotland, South America, Australia and New Zealand).

What criteria do you use in deciding what to include, or exclude? It might be a bit more honest to describe the list as "some of the best places to ski in Europe and North America" but to add that there are plenty of others not on the list which are still well worth seeking out.

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I like the "we love to ski" website. However I would suggest putting the resorts on a drop down list from the top left tab to make them more accessible. Then the page you read could be dedicated to recent articles etc.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Hi guys, thanks for the feedback.

Avago, thanks for the kind words and happy to be here. Smile

pam w, completely see what you're saying. You may remember that we used to have some coverage of China, Japan and NZ - but with limited resources these have yet to be updated and moved to the newest iteration of the website. Rest assured that it's a work in progress - in a perfect world we'd have full coverage of the southern hemisphere. Scotland, too, is somewhere we desperately need to cover.

In terms of how we decide, it's inevitably driven by the resorts that have successful businesses built on British tourism. And that means the Alps, for the most part. Advertising is the sole revenue stream for Welove2ski, and we have no choice but to prioritise ski areas with businesses willing to market themselves to Brits. It's free market economics, pure and simple.

I get your concerns over the use of the word 'encyclopedia', too. We have to have some license to blow our own horn, don't you think? Little Angel

snowymum, that's a straight up excellent idea, and exactly the kind of input we came to snowHead

for! I've added exactly that functionality, as per your request. How's that for customer service? wink

Would welcome anymore input, keep it coming guys!

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Is it true that welove2ski.com is also known as welove2skianywherebutscotland.com?
The Scottish flag seems to be absent from this European-American snow report!

http://welove2ski.com/snow-report-february-25-2013

Comprehensive info. on today's Scottish snow conditions - the best for years!
http://www.winterhighland.info/

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Comedy Goldsmith, for the same reasons mentioned to pam w we've found it difficult to allocate the resources required to do Scotland justice. Better to leave it than to cover it in patches, we've always thought. But you raise some valid points, and we're open to ideas. Have spoken to the team and it's something we're going to look at in the near future, you have my word. Smile

After all it is free

welove2ski, trust me, this is a bit tongue in cheek.

Sending emails out giving base layer and keeping warm advice as we are about to head into March is missing the boat by about 3 months IMHO.

wink

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

welove2ski the Flypaper. Today 27 February (photo: GlencoeMountain)

" ... it's something we're going to look at in the near future, you have my word."

welove2ski, my word, I'm flattered that a humble scribble can be of such influence!

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

bladeskier, hehe - to take that to its logical conclusion, do you suggest we stop publishing anything when the season is over as well? We'd certainly all have more holiday time... wink

Bode Swiller, can you imagine how irate the Scottish skiing community would be if we just covered Glenshee, and didn't do Glencoe/Nevis Range/Lecht/Cairngorm? Covering five resorts fully is a big job, and we're still only scratching the surface of what the Alps has to offer. Some content on skiing in Scotland is in the works though, I promise you.

Of course, if you'd like to write resort reports for all five - without a budget - you'd be very welcome... wink

snow reports

Comedy Goldsmith, don't mention it. Already implemented snowymum's suggestion straight away, as you may have seen. Getting input from you guys is a large part of the reason we wanted to come back on snowHead

in the first place - you're the kind of people we want using our site after all!

You know it makes sense.

welove2ski, Far too many tweets, take a lesson from Iain Martin at Skipedia. Less is more I would suggest.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Love the website, though I preferred the old format, was it that there were bigger photos on the main page? The website just looked better. Snow updates are great as are the tips for given resorts. Bring back the hierarchical list of ski resorts though and also encourage users to post their own comments on resorts. Cover more resorts if possible. Thanks!

I should also add that I love reading new reports about resorts I hadn't previously heard of.

A snowHead

just a note but the 'we love/we hate' summary is missing on your Val d'Isere resort summary...

Out of interest are the reports created by yourselves or taken from elsewhere? Reason for the question was the use of the term 'cableway' which was in one of the Hate lists for a resort i looked at.

The size of the signup to the mail list if massively out of scale with the rest of the content on the page....its HUUUUUUGE snowHead

A snowHead

Boredsurfing, You're always welcome to unfollow us or add us to a separate list wink

I think we average about 10 tweets a day, which we think is pretty balanced. We do have quite a few more followers than Skipedia, which suggests we're doing something right... Razz

8611, Thanks, I'm glad you like the site and the snow reports! The old site was certainly a different beast, but after four years it had become quite disorganised so we had to change. We're always looking to update the aesthetics though, so perhaps you'll like it more on the next go round. Design is a very subjective thing... What do you mean by 'the hierarchical list of ski resorts'?

skinutter, Great spot, thank you. We'll get on that right away - must have slipped through the net. To answer your question, yes - every single resort report was written in house. Terminology is a funny thing though. We generally try to use the measurements/terms of the country the resort is in when in doubt. Which is the resort that you were referring to?

And yeah, that signup form is pretty large. We're just experimenting with it at the moment to see if it increases subscriptions. Huge does tend to mean it gets noticed...

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I once went to a talk my a social media guru, he reckoned a good frequency was to tweet once daily, FB update once weekly and to blog once monthly. Since I subscribe to none of these social media areas it was lost on me Laughing

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Megamum, Interesting. Surely you'd prefer it if your favourite website were updated more than once a month? wink

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

welove2ski, So you've admitted you're just in it for the ad money. What can we expect from you in terms of contribution to stoke or gossip on sHs? How about some tales out of school about long defunct tour ops or other interesting gossip from your vast experience?

I'm glad I don't follow you on twitter - 10+ tweets a day is just needy for any commercial business (or indeed a private individual) unless your stock in trade is current affairs commentary.

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fatbob, That seems a little hateful - have I done something to offend you? I promise you that money isn't the only motivator, but surely you'd agree it makes sense for a business to make decisions that will allow it to continue as a business?

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

fatbob, I think on twitter it largely depends on how many people you follow. If you only follow a few then yes - 10 tweets seems like over the top, if you follow loads of people then you might not see any of those 10 tweets. So it is all down to the person I guess... rolling eyes

After all it is free

Dia_FindTransfers, yup, I'd agree with that.

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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snow reports

tiffin, So I can't withdraw the credit if he's a naughty boy. Damn.

fatbob, More because I liked your turn of phrase, but your reason is fun as well Smile

You know it makes sense.

Too many tweets at the same
time end up as a block and thus easily ignored!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Boredsurfing, if you aren't following many people - as Dia_FindTransfers pointed out - then I understand that 4/5 tweets over 2+ hours would represent a block. But you have to understand we're trying to reach 7k followers, and people only check their feeds for small segments of each day. If you're not active in that period, they don't see you. Which is why most successful websites will do exactly what cathy says - reword the same tweet multiple times (because it will be seen by different people each time).

fatbob, I can see I'm unlikely to win you over here. That's OK though - if snowHead

's or Teton works best for you when researching a ski holiday, that's great news. We can't be all things to all people, and you seem to prefer your info when it's crowdsourced. Other people prefer to arm themselves with the opinions of so-called 'experts' (even if all that means is they've been to a lot of different resorts) - and that's OK too, right?

A snowHead

Welove2ski, As someone who used to check your website on a regular basis, there are a few aspects that I miss in the updated site. Firstly I would like to see a return of the "snogs". They provided local knowledge and up to date conditions on the major resorts.
You have also dropped sections like, travel to the resort, which very useful and your guide to the mountains seems ti include less information.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

You need to Login to know who's really who.

welove2ski, what a super picture you tweeted of Sir Patrick Stewart on a chair lift! Wonder where he was skiing...

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

welove2ski, I'm finding the discussion about your tweeting quite interesting. Over the past couple of weeks you seem to have taken to tweeting the same thing 3 or 4 times, which is really frustrating. I'd assumed something had gone awry with some automated tweet feed from the website and that it would be fixed soon. I'm gathering from this thread that this repeating yourself is on purpose?

I follow a lot of people and a few organisations, but still find it irritating when my twitter feed is cluttered up by the same tweet several times. Are you finding posting multiple copies of the same post is increasing the traffic on your website? How is it affecting the number of followers you have on twitter. I'm currently 50/50 on whether to unfollow you, based on the repetitive tweets. I don't mind how often you tweet, so long as it's new and interesting information each time. Am I so far in the minority on this that you're happy to lose me as a twitter follower?

This isn't meant to be antagonistic - I'm genuinely interested. I know that "social media experts" are only too happy to tell you things like "tweet it several times with different wording" but does this actually have a positive effect on your business?

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welove2ski, to be fair I'm probably not your std target punter and I do enjoy what you write in trad media. I just find on the web that blogs etc are better if they aren't up the harris of advertisers. Mind you ski press has never been that objective so I might be expecting the moon on a stick.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

sugarmoma666, you are not alone. I very quickly unfollow anyone who tweets the same content multiple times. I follow many twitter accounts and see multiple tweets as a waste of my time – they're just clogging up my already full stream. And don't get me started on people whose tweets primarily consist of just links...

I'm with fatbob on this. If welove2ski contributes to the snowHeads community by posting useful/interesting/amusing content right here on snowHeads, then great and welcome! But if all they're going to do is post abstracts with links to their site for the full content, then I see that as spam and I'll make use of the 'ignore' function.

After all it is free

I too have noticed a change in the pattern of welove2ski's tweets recently, and found it annoying. Particularly for me as the tweets seem to be highlighting old content. It's meant I now pay very scant attention to them as the signal to noise ratio is much worse than before, and so I expect I'm missing stuff that is genuinely timely and interesting. Oh well.

Help!!

Howdy from Welove2ski.com

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