Hi all,
With all the great articles and discussions on AeroScale lately I am wondering if we can do more to promote the site so that others can discover it and join in. I know this will happen slowly over time no matter what, but it would be nice to jump start it a bit. So I would ask those reading...

1. Have you told all your modeling friends who do aircraft about the site?

2. Your local club (if any)?

3. When you post on other sites do you mention AeroScale or let people know you spend time here as well?

4. Have you added or requested the site be added to any links pages on other sites (or your own)?

Word of mouth is a powerful thing! And perhaps many of you are already doing these things. But for those who aren't it would be very nice of you to give the site that courtesy. And in the process of doing that you will make the site an even richer more vibrant one than it is today by those new people discovering and using it.

Again I want to thank Rowan, Jean-Luc and their whole team of contributors for the amazing work they have been doing. I couldn't be happier with how far the site has come in the past year. That said I think although we have a lot of talented staffers and members on this site, we haven't yet been truly "discovered" by the aircraft modeling community at large. And that is a bit of a shame for all of them.

Much thanks,
Jim

Hey Jim,
I do what I can to tell members from other forums about AeroScale. I make mention that this is one of the only sites/forums that stay busy pretty much 24/7. I’ve even seen HeavyArty mention this also. I can say that a few I did talk to has join us here, and the same for Gino.

BuffCon 25 is Sunday April 15, 2007...what can be done, not sure but I’d do what ever I can or able to do for the site. Heck I’d sit at a table, maybe a few other members would be willing to do the same….maybe(fingers crossed). BuffCon is small but does draw in big crowds, 500 or better in a single day.

Joe

Jim you may have considered this already but how about getting with the model companies we tought here to include flyers. A flyer in the box is worth a visit to a website.

Regards Stephen

Thanks guys... Joe, it's good to hear you are already doing some of those things, and Stephen that is an interesting and potentially powerful idea as well. If we could get even a small kit manufacturer or accessory item vendor to do that it would be great.

I am *really* hoping that the 60 or so people who read this and didn't comment will be motivated to do some of the things above. So to those people I say this.... It's always a challenge to convince people that one person can make a difference. The evidence of course that they can make a difference is all around us. And no where is that more apparent that this site. I may have started it, but people like Bryan Dewberry, Rowan Baylis, Mal Mayfield, Jean-Luc Formery, Chuck, Stephen, Joe, and many others took up the challenge and made the site a bit of themselves in the process. Without these handful of people who have poured some of their time and energy into the site there would be nothing. So imagine if that handful was a bucketful. Wouldn't that be interesting?

I woke up one day and decided to start Armorama for fun. And in the process it has changed my life (for the better).

What are you going to do today?

Thanks,
Jim

Build.

Hey guys,

Well, I can't speak for the Cyber-modeling community as a whole, but I've discovered you, and the site is superb. I know that modelers I speak to here in Memphis are aware of the site and enjoy it.

Cheers!

Ed

Aeroscale members:
Not to be naive or ignorant, but I just today caught the aeroscale portion of armorama.com. I guess with all the changes here over the past year, I missed the transformation. Now that I've been reconnected, I will pass on the constant vertues of this website to all I talk to in my hobby and out. I even show the things here to my coworkers in my field of Motorcycles, which is my form of employment. There are plenty things here for all to enjoy. To all the staff and members alike. KEEP UP the Great Work!!

I usually mention The Big A whenever forums is on the agenda. Like today when I did a questionaire(?) from Osprey Publishing. They asked which three forums you visit most often and I answered this one, Classic trains (another of my big interests) and The Aerodrome...
Or when I email manufacturers etc. etc.... you're mentioned as well.
You're doing a superb work fellas, top notch!!!

I am spreading the word as well, but have limited contact with people that are capable/confident about writing in English as I am currently living in Latvia.
However, I am originally from Denmark and have brought at least one guy to the forum from Denmark.

Thanks for the great work with the website!

I must admit that I have not mentioned this site to anybody yet despite the fact that I am very pleased with it.

The difficulty is that i hardly know anybody with an interest in modelling and that the only site that i frequent is Kitmaker. And anybody I meet here obvouisly already knows about this site.

Jim,

Are you systematically approaching the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Altavista,...) ?

Why not put RSS on the main kitmaker pages (and publish kitmaker as a RSS friendly site on the RSS collection pages)? It seems that this is a real visitor booster.

Ever thought of offering the manufacturers (especially the small ones) to open a subsite on kitmaker (that they can manage themselves) about their products.

As one of the "little" fish in this pond I do by best to spread the word and virtues of this site. I always tell the Air Cadets (at my local squadron here in the UK) that Camogirl and I teach modeling to that this is the best place to come to for any additional info or help that they may need if we can't. I also have a link to Kitmaker.net and the Bulldogs area on my website that I'm slowly developing, but I am thinking of dividing it down into the core areas.

Keep up the good work everyone

Aeroscale currently has about 23,000 pages indexed in Google, but our search relevancy for phrases like "aircraft scale modeling" pretty much sucks at this point. That is why gettting links on other sites is important. Submitting a site is not the issue. It's who is linking to you and the depth of your content. We have the depth... just not a lot of external linking. For example Armorama comes up before AeroScale does for that search.

RSS is something that is on my list... just on a back burner for now.

I do want to create KitMaker Vendor zones which would give you a sort of one stop place to see all the news, reviews, and other info for a particular vendor (meaning manufacturer or retailer). Also on my list.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Jim

Hi Stephen

Ironically, I was only reminded of this the other day while planning to resurrect a long-planned project for a series of colour references on Aeroscale.

Flyers for Armorama (as was) was a topic we discussed in Staff a while ago. The original idea was to make the flyer also serve as a reference card, so that it had a chance of surviving the trip home - something along the lines of this very rough mock-up:



I got a positive reaction from my LHS to including them with every sale. Actually getting a manufacturer to pack a flyer inside their kits is definitely a step up and worth pursuing - nice idea! I have a couple of contacts I can sound that out on.

All the best

Rowan

[quote.

RSS is something that is on my list... just on a back burner for now.

I do want to create KitMaker Vendor zones which would give you a sort of one stop place to see all the news, reviews, and other info for a particular vendor (meaning manufacturer or retailer). Also on my list.

Jim[/quote]

O0www, your list.

I guess that your list of "to do" thingies is enormous

I suppose that the question is, what is the priority and where is that time gone again :-)

But don't worry, Kitmaker is unique, competition is light years behind, and the site keeps on evolving and improving.

All together, its an impressive piece of work.

Thanks to you and the staff.

and also because of the great folks that hang around here