| vagabondsurf.com It's about life - not "lifestyle" |
| WHO WE ARE 2 ONE YEAR AFTER March 2002 |
| As vagabondsurf.com hits the one year mark it might be interesting to see just where we are. Our original idea was to try to do what the highly publicized and over-capitalized internet surf content websites were either doing or failing to do. Of the Big 4 websites only Surfline remains, supported at least content-wise by their fantastic surf report options. Partnering with SURFING magazine has given them good editorial content as well. Surfer and Transworldsurf still have their own websites which are also very good - odd how they didn't get a whole lot of press in the internet run-up a couple of years ago. I guess they didn't have that start-up pie-in-the-sky promise of untold riches - of money for nothing, and chicks for free. Most lamented in my mind is Bluetorch. They had a good website and even in their death spiral they put out a good television show. What they didn't seem to have, however, was a plan to make any money, much less make back the investments which allowed them to briefly shine. vagabondsurf.com was created to provide a somewhat underground, non-Orange County pro surfer-obsessed look at all the wave-riding possibilities. We wanted to create a place for real people to drop in for something to make them think, smile, feel, and just stay awake and involved in surfing. The content-driven internet website niche concept is valid - but it isn't lucrative. The first to go was the original webmaster, who was too focused on startup financing. He wanted lots of money, and wanted it quick. That left the nuts and bolts of putting the site up and maintaining it to the rest of us- learning from scratch. Another original left to have a life and put priority on his full time job. The Ad Guy talked the talk, but turned out to have been dropping resumes to surf companies when he was supposed to be booking ads. This came to an ugly end right after Christmas.What can I say about that? Cheesy bastard - if I'd known that was what he was doing I could have given him a glowing recomendation for any surf comany in OC. January 2002 was a time of reckoning, and in the end I reckoned I'd do something drastic and foolish: keep vagabondsurf.com open and true to the original vision. This precipitated moving the whole show, a major downsizing not so much of people as of perception. Things here are truly homegrown these days. The dog gets to sleep at my feet and sometimes the phone gets answered and sometimes it doesn't. The hours I keep are odd now, and I really have the chance to live up to earlier ediitorial comments about the surfing life - it isn't all about money. Office help comes from interns - which means people volunteering in exchange for experience. When unpacking boxes I came across an issue of The Surfer's Journal with an article on SURFER founder John Severson. In a photo caption or nearby paragraph the early days of SURFER and what it took Severson to do to put out a magazine was detailed, and in many ways it sounded like what vagabondsurf.com has become. I bet once SURFER became a juggernaut Severson had nights where he wished he could have gone back to the early days. That's right where vagabondsurf.com is right now. A little leaner, maybe a little meaner, but still here. Nels Norene Publisher vagabondsurf.com |
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| Who We Were (WHO WERE ARE 1) |
| A little bit about us... |
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| Copyright (C) 2002. All rights reserved. ***** |