New bike trade forum launches
Posted on in Cycles News
Some established users of the forum became concerned over the Xmas period that the BikeBiz forum was not secure and was being accessed by the general public, an assumption triggered by a reported spam posting for cheap cycling jerseys posted at 10.09 a.m. on 29th December.
By 5p.m. the same day some regular posters were prompting Si Watts to create a new, secure trade only forum, but Si was reticent to react before BikeBiz had responded to the growing criticism of posters having their comments potentially exposed to their customers.
As rumblings of discontent rolled on into the New Year ‘Someone Else' (forum identity) launched a new forum and as user demand increased, without any comment from BikeBiz to address the concerns raised, Si Watts accepted his nomination to take over the running of Bike Trade Buzz.
When Intent Media purchased BikeBiz from founder Carlton Reid, forums were not a feature that they had accommodated into their other markets and web formats, but Carlton convinced them of its value in driving web traffic and creating some form of community for the trade. Such was the success of the forum that Intent reconsidered the inclusion of forums within their other markets.
The BikeBiz forum was revamped in autumn 2010 in tandem with the rest of the website and despite initial reticence to change by a number of regular users, after a settling down period the general consensus was that it was an improved feature. BikeBiz even removed advertising from the forum area, something which had been regularly requested previously, but reflected a commitment to the discussion format alongside advertising income generation.
The current fall out was driven by the perception that the forum is not trade only secure, but it is notable that visitor numbers - users and ‘lurkers' - to the BikeBiz forum have been relatively low since the launch of the new format, which now includes user numbers. Users peaked at 19 around the time of re-launch and extensive debates about the new format, but has rarely gotten into double figures since that time.
Despite this BikeTrade Buzz was heading towards 60 registrants on its first day of launch, not bad for trade only on a Bank Holiday.
The BikeBiz team are expected to comment tomorrow when the business re-opens after a 2 week break, but at the moment we appear to now have 2 active industry forums operating, something that may not please everybody in the trade. Many suppliers have historically been critical of forum contents that criticise them anonymously and generally avoid participation in the forums.