Dedication to Fallen Skiers

Sarah Burke

Mon, 14 May 2012 01:17:10 -0400

Sarah Burke

skisandchutes: Skiing is in the middle

Mon, 14 May 2012 01:10:40 -0400

skisandchutes:

Skiing is in the middle

Photo

Mon, 14 May 2012 01:10:18 -0400

The Metapost

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:28:00 -0400

Starting this blog back at the beginning of February, initially as a University set project has now grown into something that is somewhat enjoyable and now something I would like to continue to blog about. The idea of the blog was based on my passion for skiing and the realisation of many top name athletes losing their life to the sport but no central area to embrace them. It also something that is based around a strong following audience, however constricted to a more specific idea (death in skiing) that will differentiate the blog from other more standard blogs (Just Skiing) and websites. So I started with simple posts capturing part of the athlete’s lives but since grown into other aspects of the blog and trying to ever expand. (This post is intended for my University work if you are interested in how my journey has gone please continue…)

Features

My main focus was on the features of the page and making the blog as functional and visually appealing as possible, acting on viewer interactivity to capture the essence of web 2.0. Firstly I added the comment feature to my blog through disqus, allowing users to individually interact with my blog posts. I also added the like toolbar along the bottom of the browser window, which was provided by Wibiya containing a Facebook like, Google plus and twitter tweet button plus other sharing options. Along with this I have created a twitter account that contains all my posts creating another avenue to access my content and in the hope to bring more viewers. On the page a feed that features tweets from the freeskiing industry as well as my own feed on the left hand side has been added.

To increase visual appeal I have used a background which I had some difficulties coding it to fit the contents of the page as well as adjusting to different screen sizes. I fixed the problem through research on Google and searching through numerous options, which mostly didn’t work or were glitchy. I eventually found a solution which produced a sound result but found that many others had a similar issue in sizing a background to the correct aspects. Finally I added in the falling snowflakes along with the snowflake cursor, which was a code I found better theming the feeling of winter.

Content

These features would be backed up by the content to keep readers reading and develop followers. Currently as I write I have gained 26 followers with only 3 that are class members or friends and I am happy that they are all relevant followers. The content was updated no less than three times a week and I felt this was important for viewers in that they had something new too look at each time they visited.

Reblogging was also largely invested into my blog so that there was fresh content without the need for my own producement but also to gain followers through being noticed. I tried to make my posts as varied as possible using a whole range of different posting styles these included Videos, Straight text, Photo’s, Quotes, Questions to the community and lastly links with other relevant information or sites. These Links for example would take you to articles written by other ski magazines, blogs and ski communities. These link style posts were in the attempt to spider web my site out into the wide world web.

Additional pages such as the memorial page, which are in place for people to leave there own posts to be judged by me and then placed on the blog to start a message board for passed athletes. As well as this there is a donations page which links interested people to make donations to existing foundations set up in honour of fallen athletes. The About page was another addition which contains my own CSS and HTML as well as a Home button, which was created from scratch with the help of in class tutorials as well as my own research using sources such as w3schools and other posts by CSS guru’s (Chris Coyier was one who helped alot!) but these kind of guys are all over the internet. I felt when studying CSS that written tutorials were much more helpful than that of videos.

Content within my blog was not always content that I had produced, therefore it was important that I should credit those producers of any work I used, out of respect and to avoid breaching copyright. A lot of the content was youtube videos and photos and I tried to credit everything that was possible. Photo’s are all clickable and will revert you to the site it was taken from and they also have the option to share. A particular post i created, credited work for a photographer who allowed me to use his piece of work. I supplied in the post his Tumblr page as well as his Flickr page and he was thrilled for the plug. This post was reblogged a number of times which help spread his name as well as mine!

Analytics

I started analytics in the beginning of march mainly to see whether my site was growing and results have shown it has. After studying the results you can identify some obvious trends and reasons for peaks in views. As well as the long null in results.

As seen above you can see a significant period of nothing, i was very annoyed to see this after not checking analytics for a little while and realising that it had stopped working. This was due to a change in theme resulting in the loss of the code that was originally there. Unfortunately this affects my results over that period and does not represent true numbers over the entire life of my blog. However, it still presents sound data that helped me see which viewer gaining strategies worked and which did not.

My main focus in gaining viewers was spider webbing as although important, Google Search Competition was fierce. The competition consisted of a large number of Ski Community Sites, Foundations for the fallen skiers and News Reports on these fallen skiers. I still tried to improve my Google Search Rating through using tags and specific words within my blog but it was no match for the already established and heavily hit sites. I also believe it is something that many people wouldn’t search for but something they should stumble upon and share.

Therefore, I focused my energy on spreading the word through spider webbing and site linking. The way i did this was initially reblogging which did wonders in letting other bloggers know what my interests were and if they were similar a following began. The next step was sharing my blog with the ski community through posting forums within the sites such as Newschoolers; a freeskiing community. This was the most effective way of gaining viewers and the correct kind of viewers whom supplied some very positive feedback. When I posted these forums google analytics would show graphically a large peak in viewers. CLICK Through to see this forum. Other ways I tried spider webbing was simply providing links to other sites, blogs, foundations and news reports, in my posts a well as the additional pages.

Although again not complete results you can see that I received a large number of viewers clicking through from Newschoolers.com which shows the effectiveness of advertising through these large communities.

Analytics is a fun way of viewing results and helps with motivation as you watch viewer numbers grow!

Challenges

As with most projects, I came across a few things that challenged me which were sometimes fixable but others impossible. The background issue mentioned earlier was solved after searching through a couple of sites. I also attempted implementing infinite scrolling for my theme and searched numerous pages for solutions, however the theme didn’t allow for it. I searched the theme and many others said that the catching elephant theme cannot infinite scroll which was a huge annoyance as it would be much more effective than the current setup. My Analytics reporting also proved difficult. When resetting the theme the code would need to be placed in the HTML code again and again and sometimes I forgot to replace it. This would leave large lapses in time where there was no data, effecting my overall analytical results. RSS feeds were a trouble that came about mainly because of Tumblr’s removal of the feature. I tried to find an alternative but they were either bugged or had instructions that were not comprehendible by me. It was something that I wished to implement into my blog, adding in news articles from Newschoolers.com that showed updates in the skiing community.

Final Thoughts

The lectures and in class tutorials have given me the tools to go out and learn how to do a lot of other things that at first looked scary and complicated. These things have been implemented into my blog from the very basic and the more advance. Starting at HTML then onto CSS and all the way into representing/ advertising myself on the web professionally. I wouldn’t say that any of my post were more worthy at looking at as they are a compilation of capturing an athletes life and my love for winter and in a way my Blog posts compliment each other. So please take the time to scroll down have a look through each page and take particular attention to the links above and areas I have highlighted earlier.

skisandchutes: Forever reblog

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:39:19 -0400

skisandchutes:

Forever reblog

Photo

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:38:49 -0400

skipowder: Love it

Sun, 13 May 2012 20:38:38 -0400

skipowder:

Love it

Photo

Thu, 03 May 2012 23:53:17 -0400

It’s close to winter in Australia :)

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:17:53 -0400

It’s close to winter in Australia :)

Riley Poor is another skier enthusiast who delved his expertise into the freeskiing industry not in...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:51:00 -0400

Riley Poor is another skier enthusiast who delved his expertise into the freeskiing industry not in his talents in skiing but his dedication to making the industry what it is today. He was in a sense a team manager but a great friend to all he came across.

He unfortunately suffered a serious injury to his spinal cord after a dive into a pool resulting in paralysis which has lead to a long recovery and uncertain journey ahead.

You can read about his journey here on his blog which is updated on a somewhat irregular basis; understandably, but shares stories about his personal life, recovery and the injury itself.

It’s unfortunate to hear people suffer such horrific and life altering injuries but you can see in a lot of cases a great deal learning and wisdom developing that is often shared to people who are close or in reach of the message.

Again he has a foundation that is dedicated to funding the sport as well financially aiding his recovery. It will be added to the donations page and please don’t hesitate to donate.

A blog post dedicated to Billy Poole

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:58:34 -0400

A blog post dedicated to Billy Poole:

Here is a post I found on another’s blog written in Billy Pooles memory.

A Billy Poole Tribute by Phillip Baribeau, another interesting...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:51:00 -0400

A Billy Poole Tribute by Phillip Baribeau, another interesting watch.

+ one, like or tweet about the blog!

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 08:33:00 -0400

+ one, like or tweet about the blog!:

A new toolbar (located at the bottom of my page) powered by wibiya, has enabled me a quick and easy way to allow you to share my blog further from just tumblr. Just give them a click it’s all it takes! Or add it your own blog!

REBLOG if your a ski blog! I wanna follow you!

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:49:57 -0400

lovescff4life:

i actually want to find some more sick ski blogs to follow.

Wishing I was in Whistler for Sarah Burke's celebration of life tonight

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:49:37 -0400

skipowder:

skiingisbelieving:

<3 me too

Same…

Photo

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:45:08 -0400

illeeshpretzelsteeze: every winter blog should have this.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:30:22 -0400

illeeshpretzelsteeze:

every winter blog should have this.

skiingisbelieving: imcomingcolorado: forever reblog ^^^^

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:25:56 -0400

skiingisbelieving:

imcomingcolorado:

forever reblog

^^^^

Would just like to credit a fellow blogger Andrew Speight, who...

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 21:03:00 -0400

Would just like to credit a fellow blogger Andrew Speight, who created the image used in my profile picture. Check out his awesome work right now on his Flickr page as well as his Tumblr page! The actual image is clickable so it will take you directly to the source.

Who is liking the blog so far? Any Suggestions? Leave a comment below with the new addition of the comment feature to my blog!

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 01:16:00 -0400

Who is liking the blog so far? Any Suggestions? Leave a comment below with the new addition of the comment feature to my blog!