No wonder NS is dying

OregonDeadGive us the recap OP. What notable skiing went down at the Winter Games NZ?

eheathThe truth of the matter is right now its august, the slowest traffic month of the year and our full time staff is busy working on projects for this fall. Winter Games NZ hasnt really been a thing we've covered in the past and you can rest assured because we will be producing plenty of coverage this winter.

VinnieFMaybe August wouldn't be so dead if there was some effort put into covering events and happenings that go down throughout the month.

I dunno the $$ returns on a news article, but maybe it would pay off to pay for a local in NZ to attend, take some photos, and do a write-up.

DirtYStylEWow sorry about the redundant post. I just hadn't had enough coffee yet.

I think more people need to realize that we live in a society. Each member could contribute to the forms to make them more activate. Someone in NZ should just write this article for fun and the sweet sweet karma. I know I am looking forward to my free sticker pack at 100k karma :^)

DeebieSkeebiesstill waiting on mine :(

freeskibum82not much advertising money coming out of NZ is why.

DirtYStylEWow sorry about the redundant post. I just hadn't had enough coffee yet.

I think more people need to realize that we live in a society. Each member could contribute to the forms to make them more activate. Someone in NZ should just write this article for fun and the sweet sweet karma. I know I am looking forward to my free sticker pack at 100k karma :^)

CLQCan pretty much anyone right an article for NS? How does that work?

CLQCan pretty much anyone right an article for NS? How does that work?

SofaKingSickwell, almost anyone...

DirtYStylEEveryone knows NS died because of the mods

mattm7I'm dead right now

DIRTYBUBBLElol this event happens like every summer and I’ve never seen coverage for it

eheathAugust has been historically the slowest month on NS for as long as analytics can go back on our site, august is slow because there is very little skiing going on and most people are not interested in reading or watching skiing, its summer. Our core audience is still around, but even in 2008 august was slow.

But we don't hold off on content in the summer just because its slow, but we also don't sell ads for this time of year. Sure we have a few banner ads and pre-rolls, but those are ads that are part of a much larger package that focuses on the winter and advertisers basically get slots this time of year for free because the cpm is effectively 0.

If you'd like to know more info, hit me up and I could explain it in more detail, but your idea isn't bad just not worth it. As larger events come across the calendar (first world cup is in November) you will see more coverage.

VinnieFMaybe August wouldn't be so dead if there was some effort put into covering events and happenings that go down throughout the month.

I dunno the $$ returns on a news article, but maybe it would pay off to pay for a local in NZ to attend, take some photos, and do a write-up.

BlurstToday I thought "maybe i'll sign onto NS for the first time in ages"

This was the first thread that I saw....

Maybe I'm part of the problem? sorry guys...

DesertStixTotally understandable angle but if every business just gave up on revenue/traffic for an entire month, a lot of these smaller ones wouldn’t be in existence.

I don’t see why because it’s historically been a slow month, that equals never ending dead Augusts. Maybe OP has a good idea although not sure this event is it haha. But there was a South American skier on here not too long ago complaining that no content is catered to seasons south of the equator. I know that I would personally be interested in reading about skiing in these places and you would also grow the community.
I know it seems easier said than done. Looks like you’ve been trying for years but I think that defeatist attitude regarding August is just going to perpetuate it being so dead when in reality there is sooome content to be posted. I would much rather watch some random NZ comp highlights than a how-to on home baked chips. Just saying...

eheathIts not just August, its May though September. Assuming we're over here sitting on our thumbs isn't fair either because our journalism team is busting ass on projects for this fall, spending time on these projects when we have less traffic is perfect for NS, every year we get a few months to regroup and strategize for the winter.

Its not that we do anything for the traffic to decrease in the summer, it happens every year like clockwork regardless of what we do and TBH writing one article about some low level contest in NZ isn't bringing people back. Like I said before, the articles and videos are coming back soon but its in our best interest to wait until people want to watch/read about skiing.

Everyone posting in this thread is an outlier, you guys are the core of NS. You guys come and go regardless of time of year and its fucking awesome, I love the NS community and I hope it continues to bounce back. But y'all gotta understand that summer time is slow time and its the time we catch up and plan out the winter, we're a small crew and we do our best with what we have.

DesertStixRespect. Never said you guys were twiddling your thumbs just maybe focusing energy in other places which adds to the dead summer. You can only work with what you have and I understand that aspect...

eheathI understand you have this mentality where anyone can change anything if you try, which is true for some situations, but 90% of our audience doesn't give a fuck about skiing in the summer, they come back to the site in the fall when its getting cold and they're excited to ski.

Focusing our efforts on projects for the winter is infinitely more important than increasing traffic in august because winter is when we make money and when we receive the most traffic, our ad revenue in the summer is effectively zero.

Taking time out of the schedule to cover this NZ event, which wouldn't work because there is not a video or a live stream, means we'd need someone on the ground, which costs more money for a piece of content that returns $0. What would you do?

**This post was edited on Aug 30th 2018 at 1:34:55pm

DesertStixHaha calm down bud. And I’m not so much focused on this specific NZ event as I am confused by the idea that baking home made chips is somehow more worthwhile than ski content. And I said I understand needing to focus limited staff energy on high volume times of the year. Not sure why you are so defensive about that.

eheathI understand you have this mentality where anyone can change anything if you try

Twinjibber77This doesn't really apply to this thread or anything at all, but I have an idea:

Would it be possible to create a travel reviews section? I'm thinking barebones, upload your own photos, and write a review or travel plan of what you did. I think this would be sweet for people who travel the globe and even bored teenagers on summer vacations. People may not add much content, but I've got like 20 countries I would be willing to add. It would even be awesome for ski resorts... for example: If I had never been to Killington before then I would have no idea what parks to peep, what trees to hit or what bars to go to. Same goes for mountain biking or cliff jumping 3 states over from me...

The reason I think NS is a good spot for this is that people here like to go out and do shit, wherever/whatever it may be. Also, I think we're all on a fairly similar wavelength, so I'm not interested in creepin' through tripadvisor... it's for fuckin' tourists.

nutz.If you say a website is dying and don't visit, how is it possible that they invest money into paying for said coverage (if for ex they haven't seen much return in the past, not sure if this is the case but generally there's a lot that goes on the background that you have no idea about)? I don't think you can really make any sort of definitive judgement without knowing the unit economics and the general situation.

mikemacHonestly NS fires me up in the summer. Don’t check it everyday but when I do there’s pretty much bound to be some dope season edits that kids work on all spring and summer and cuts from all the camps. summer is the best time to troll around the threads when you’re bored. I think the app has done a lot to modernize the website and I love looking at it while I’m taking a shit at work.

Also if y’all want to pay me to go to Argentina and NZ I’m def available.

VinnieFI'm fine with NS being dead in the summer so long as sweet content will come. Just seems like there are some low hanging summer fruit to be had that really wouldnt cost much and keep the site more relevant throughout the summer which would be good for southern hemisphere peeps as well as retaining users throughout the year rather than having to entice them all back each fall.

Dorko: Our team is swamped compiling content for the fall and we are understaffed. It's a known weakness of ours and we try our best. We also need to recruit so like I suggested to mikemac, happy to have a chat with anyone who has some drive to freelance. Appreciate the feedback, hope to improve on this moving forward.

ski_steeThere is a market for ski content year round absolutely.

CLQI disagree, not that many people want to think about skiing in summer. Im willing the bet 95% of NS users are in the northern hemisphere as well.

TwigJust to echo this, we have plenty of budget for content creation, in fact this year we have a bigger budget than I can ever remember us having. We are still looking for story tellers who can turn that budget in to something spectacular. Our few full time staff have been spending this summer creating content, planning content gathering trips, writing reviews and redesigning sections of the site, which is why things like the event in question, the Junior Freeski World Championships, have been missed. To cut a long story short, if anyone out there is interested in being part of our news/content team, hit me up and we'll talk.

**This post was edited on Aug 31st 2018 at 11:21:20am