Why do you people sign up?

[Forumadmin]

I am stumped with a perplexing issue. We had 16 visitors all on the forum at the same time the other morning. So what I here you say. We get alot of lurkers during the day.

Well some have joined/registered. But not one person has posted a thing.

My question is why register if you don't post!

This is a forum and as such the intention is to create some sort of discussion on integration topics.

Unless things change I will make it a closed forum. You will have to register to read. If you don't have the time to post then you don't have the time to read.

I can only contribute so much and talking to ones self is not that entertaining.

[Dean Roddey]

Believe me, you aren't alone. Many web sites suffer from the same thing, and if you make it more restrictive it will only make it worse. It's just dang difficult to get a community going, and about as easy to lose one once you get it started. I've seen even quite popular sites just drift away into nothing, for no more problem than it went offline for a few days due to a technical glitch and never quite picked back up again. It's some wierd side effect of herd mentality or some such thing, I dunno. And the majority of all people who populate various web sites only lurk and never say anything most of the time.

And automation sites seem to suffer more than most it seems. It's obviously a fairly hot topic, but there are a number of other HA related sites around that are just dead and they seem frustrated about it as well, as well as the HA related news groups which have very light traffic. I've never really figured out how HA can be so clearly growing in interest but cannot create a real community anywhere. In some ways I guess it's because a lot of the talk goes on in product specific forums, because automation system have a tendency to be worlds unto themselves and once you chose one, everything else become peripheral to that.

Now if you want to figure out some way to work naked women into the mix, I'm sure you'll get some traffic, but short of that I can't really figure out what makes some sites click and the bulk of them never quite be able to get off the ground. Somehow you have to create a community of people who want to come back daily to talk to each other, but I don't know what it is that makes it happen.

[Phil.H]

Believe me, you aren't alone. Many web sites suffer from the same thing, and if you make it more restrictive it will only make it worse. It's just dang difficult to get a community going, and about as easy to lose one once you get it started. I've seen even quite popular sites just drift away into nothing, for no more problem than it went offline for a few days due to a technical glitch and never quite picked back up again. It's some wierd side effect of herd mentality or some such thing, I dunno. And the majority of all people who populate various web sites only lurk and never say anything most of the time.

And automation sites seem to suffer more than most it seems. It's obviously a fairly hot topic, but there are a number of other HA related sites around that are just dead and they seem frustrated about it as well, as well as the HA related news groups which have very light traffic. I've never really figured out how HA can be so clearly growing in interest but cannot create a real community anywhere. In some ways I guess it's because a lot of the talk goes on in product specific forums, because automation system have a tendency to be worlds unto themselves and once you chose one, everything else become peripheral to that.

Now if you want to figure out some way to work naked women into the mix, I'm sure you'll get some traffic, but short of that I can't really figure out what makes some sites click and the bulk of them never quite be able to get off the ground. Somehow you have to create a community of people who want to come back daily to talk to each other, but I don't know what it is that makes it happen.

There is not a problem with this forum, the problem is the secrecy with some of the players in this section of the industry, that is why you might have a dozen in the forum snooping around and no one adding info. This situation is actually contributing to restricting the growth of the home and building automation market. We have only scratched the surface of what is possible in this industry, that's what makes it so interesting to work here. Companies with the right products and channels to market have a huge opportunity in the coming months and years. There is plenty of room for good quality players. Beware of snake oil + smoke and mirrors as we move forward.

Phil...

[Forumadmin]

Beware of snake oil + smoke and mirrors as we move forward Darn,
What am I going to do with this 20 litre of oil now the words out!

You are quite correct Phil and Dean, I just hope the forum will grow and the conversations with it. A community of integrators would be a good thing, exchanging views and opinions and learning from each other in the process.

It seems like a good concept, i'd even go so far as to say a win win for manufacturers and systems integrators.

[max]

Ross,

I came on hoping you would give all your trade secrets away..... No such luck.

You only tend to visit forums when you are looking for something.

Maybe CIS should have a forum of some sort that has real technical information and then more people would get involved????

Maybe we should suggest it to them???

[Forumadmin]

Ross,

I came on hoping you would give all your trade secrets away..... No such luck.


You have not asked for any.

[Forumadmin]

Ross,

Maybe CIS should have a forum of some sort that has real technical information and then more people would get involved????

CIS are represented on this site. If you require specific informatiom of a technical nature, try posting your request. You may be suprised.

As for hosting an "open" integration forum I don't see how a single manufacturer could achive it without natural business obstacles.

[landerd]

I'd have to say that I have registered (and posted). The reason I did this was twofold - firstly, to allow myself to introduce myself and ask some very newbie questions regarding HA. Secondly, to 'lurk' - as a newbie I am not going to have overwhelming experience or opinions on products or techniques, so I feel that I am not going to have too much to offer initially. Maybe some of the new members can be lumped into that category?

I agree with a previous post however - if you are here to find something, how about posting something? Small tips and tricks that wouldn't put you out of business that may make things much easier for another system integrator/installer.

As for making the forums private, does that not stop search engines from accessing the pages as well, therefore reducing traffic due to non-matched searches...?

There's my $0.02 anyway.

D

[Forumadmin]

I'd have to say that I have registered (and posted). The reason I did this was twofold - firstly, to allow myself to introduce myself and ask some very newbie questions regarding HA. Secondly, to 'lurk' - as a newbie I am not going to have overwhelming experience or opinions on products or techniques, so I feel that I am not going to have too much to offer initially. Maybe some of the new members can be lumped into that category?
Quite possibly, I guess the whole idea of a forum is to gleam info and post when you feel confident. I appreciate your point.

As for making the forums private, does that not stop search engines from accessing the pages as well, therefore reducing traffic due to non-matched searches...?
Yes internet spiders would be limited to crawl the announcements forum and thats all. Would it impact traffic? Yes I believe it would.

[Forumadmin]

As for making the forums private, does that not stop search engines from accessing the pages as well, therefore reducing traffic due to non-matched searches...?

OK I had a bit of a hack with the php code. Spiders are now welcome to browse the forum. Guests will have to register to read the forum.

Nice comprimise. I'll see how that goes.

Cheers

[landerd]

Hacker ;)

Nice work

[BeoLinker]

Ross,

Just an idea, I appreciate the title of the site is "Integrate Oz" but I find the site a good resource for C-Bus information as we struggle to catch up in the UK.

I am sure if more people knew about your site in the UK they would contribute, maybe ask some UK companies (automation suppliers etc) for a link exchange? (although "Integrate Oz & the Poms" doesn't quite have the same ring to it ;-> )

I must confess to being a reader only at first although hope as time goes by to be able to give something back, I would hate to see it go by the wayside!

Thanks
Greg...

[Forumadmin]

What about Integrate-uk? its got a ring to it. ;)
I must confess to being a reader only at first although hope as time goes by to be able to give something back, I would hate to see it go by the wayside!
Well I'm not planning on removing it just yet if at all. 30 users today concurrently and not a word to say, and 24 users online now! So far today there have been over 250 unique users/visitors and the day is only 12 hours old. pftttttttttttttt!

Whats a benevolent dictator got to do? :confused:

[Colin Smith]

I am sure this site will grow.
I think the problem lies in the fact that there are very few (true) home integrators in the market place right now. (I.e. doing it 40Hrs+ a week)
I would imagine that there are a lot of part time installers, who are lurking to simply extend their knowledge and simply feel that they have not had the experience to feel that they can contribute.

Colin Smith

[Forumadmin]

Hi Colin,
This is true to be sure. I don't expect any rocket science answers from anyone in particular. A simple.. Hi I'm Fred, I'm new to this capper, I'm into blah blah, cheers Fred.

conversely,

Hi I'm Fred and I'm a rocket scientist and I’m into blah blah, cheers Fred.

[rhamer]

Mr Dictator,

This forum is the best resource that I have found that covers my interest of HA.

For many years I felt alone and isolated with no one to talk to about my HA addiction. :(

But now I have all these new friends :D

Please don't feel no one is contributing, just by calling in and looking shows that people are interested.

Cheers

Rohan
HA home user and total Geek.

[Forumadmin]

Mr Dictator,

This forum is the best resource that I have found that covers my interest of HA.

For many years I felt alone and isolated with no one to talk to about my HA addiction. :(
Please Ross will do fine, as the benevolent type you can infact call me just about anything, except late for dinner.;)

I hope you get the fix for HA addiction you are looking for form here and other forums.

Cheers

[IR fan]

I want to learn heaps more about integration I plan to be installing or at least designing installs for my staff, don't have any yet, but I'm willing to employ if I can learn enough to sell myself as an expert and build a name for myself. I'm getting good at security and planning to maybe join forces with my brother in that and bring in automation as a side business, maybe even taking security to the side business if it works out that way. Hopefully integrating two sales into one so to speak.

Anyone that can help me learn, maybe taking me on as a casual tech, to help out when I can in Melb I'm open to the idea? :confused:

[Dean Roddey]

I can make an observation based not on my own experience, since my web site is product specific and therefore very targeted, but on the experience that I've read of other folks who run very successful web sites. I'm pretty sure that they would tell you that you should cut the topics down to what the traffic can handle, and expand as necessary. Of course that's a huge PITA when it actually finally has to be done, but generally the splits occur fairly rarely. Being an engineering type, I'd probably have done the same as you and created a very well decomposed set of discussion areas, but I'm pretty sure it's not the optimum thing at first, because the likelihood of people getting involved, for whatever reason, seems to be related to the perceived level of activity already present, and that always seems higher if you have fewer areas so there are more posts immediately visible to them when they go to the areas that they have an interest in.

It makes no real sense to me logically, but I think that it's fairly well proven empirically by folks who run discussion type web sites. Look at AVSForum, for instance, they have more new users sign up per day than I have users (and something like 125,000 registered users, and many thousands of posts a day sometimes, but they only have maybe 30 actual discussion sections total (some others are things like announcements, test posting, special deal postings, photo gallery, etc...), and of those probably half of those get almost all the posts. They are always very leary of splitting even a very active section because of the diffusion of discussion that occurs.

Anyway, there it is for what it's worth.