Any ideas how to attract people to our new forums?

I just posted the following on my local MUG's forum and suggest others do the same:

"MacFixit Forum Closed; FineTunedMac Forum Open

CNET, which bought the MacFixIt web site and forum some while ago, has closed down the forums as of Tuesday, August 4 (so far the accumulated posts are still available as read only at http://www.macfixitforums.com/).

Many of the moderators and posters from MacFixit have created a new forum to continue the excellent troubleshooting help and sense of community that was the hallmark of MacFixit for so many years.

The new forum can be found at http://www.finetunedmac.com/ "

I've emailed a few folks who have joined and I suspect that others will do the same, and so on, and so on.

I don't see an option to view the membership or even the membership count, but I'm certain that it has risen by a few since yesterday.

Not to quibble about details, but this should really be 'All of the mods...'

Blurp! I'm so embarrassed. I have changed the post to read "All of the moderators and many of the posters . . ." on my local MUG's forum.

I initially found the old place by using Google to search for keywords relating to a specific issue I had with my system at the time.

All of us probably know all of this already, but traffic here will naturally grow as the posts here increase, giving more for Google's spiders to index; and we can also help the site's growth by adding meta tags and a proper title to the first page. And all of us who have sites of our own can add links to this site.

Dave,
Can you provide any guidance in the area of making a hyperlink named, for example,

here versus

Mac OS X - Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk

more Google friendly? Both take you to the same site.

I have no knowledge which would suggest that one hyperlink name over another would help Google’s spiders find Fine Tuned Mac or Google’s searchers find a home here.

This is just a matter of providing words for search engines to include in their indexes, allowing those words to provide matches when they are searched for. Adding "Mac OS X - Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk" will result in those words being included in searches for any of those (individual or groups of) words.

When a search engine's spider crawls around a site and adds its text content to its search index, it follows all of the links on a page and also indexes those pages. Unless a site's robots.txt file excludes a particular page from being spidered by search bots, every word on every page of a site will be indexed, and provide matches when any text on them is searched for.

Here's the page about how to Improve traffic with Google Webmaster Tools, which has a link to Google's page about Webmaster guidelines.

I just sent the following email to David Pogue (BCC to joemikeb and tacit):

Dear Mr. Pogue,

I have been a long-time poster at the now-defunct MacFixit Forums. In case you are not aware of the situation, CNET (which owns MacFixit) decided to shut the forums down so that their own CNET forums could absorb the traffic and presumably make money for them. The regular posters and all the administrators and moderators at MFIF rejected this move for reasons that you can read at http://archive.macfixitforums.com/ by going to the appropriate CNET forums and perusing the responses. The direct link is http://tr.im/vKqb but I am finding that the pages tend to load slowly. In addition, if you look at threads in The Lounge you'll see other comments. The direct link is http://tr.im/vKqw

In response to CNET's move, MFIF has been resurrected in record time as http://www.finetunedmac.com/forums/ and it has all the regulars, administrators and moderators. Since this is a startup site (as of just a few days ago), it is not yet widely known. MFIF had a well-deserved reputation as THE premier place for advice and troubleshooting regarding Mac computers. FineTunedMac will be equally good because the same people are there. CNET claims that its site is even better but, in fact, it is poorly designed, has outdated software and difficult to use.

I am writing this to ask if you could mention FTM in your weekly column in the New York Times and also to ask if you could cite it in your upcoming Mac books (and, by the way, I'm looking forward to buying the Snow Leopard edition of the Missing Manual series; this is a shameless bribe, of course!). I have no financial stake in this nor am I employed by FTM. I am simply a Mac enthusiast who enjoys learning about Macs and also enjoys helping people.

Thank you for your time.

Very truly yours,
Jonathan M. Chuzi

Pogue has responded to me in the past about another issue so we'll see if anything comes of this. He has a wide readership so I thought that this was worth a try.

Here's a thought about drawing attention to FTMF...

The principal leaders of FTM should contact Mac news sites (i.e., Macworld, Your Mac Life Show, Macsimum News, Mac|Life, Daring Fireball, etc.) that most likely know and have followed MacFixit over the years.

While I don't know his opinion of MFIF, I think Shawn King, at YML, did not have a high opinion of how MF handled their Home Page, as I believe he thought it was nothing more than a rumor source for unconfirmed, Mac issues. (And over the years, I have agreed with that observation.) Since Shawn has a Mac news show, and given whatever opinion he has about MF, I will bet he will find the development of FTM interesting. And as result, I think he could be open to interviewing an FTM spokesman. (I listen to an archived replay every Saturday morning, while I'm having my 1st cup of coffee. And, having listened to him for many years, I know he has a pretty good following.)

Hey, I even suggest contacting David Pogue, Bob Levitus, & Walt Mossberg. ...They might not directly "ring the bell" given their high-profile, but as these guys are Mac-friendly, they may point to others who would.

The news is the reaction within the Mac community about what CNET did and how elements of the Mac community rallied, saving a great resource. ...And, just so I'm not misunderstood here, the objective is not to rake CNET over the coals, but to bring attention to a ground-swell spirit within an active, platform-knowledgeable element of the Mac community.

Anyway, when you follow my drift, you can see the possibilities of using, Mac news sites that I'm sure would find this development interesting for their own readers / listeners.

IMHO, I think everyone, associated with getting FTM launched, should be very proud of what's been accomplished. And as result, I encourage spokesmen to go forward and spread this news.

Edit - Just would to insure it's clear that, in my comments above about MacFixit, I am differentiating MacFixit Forums from MacFixit's Home Page. While I have previously held a jaded opinion about the Home Page, I have always thought MacFixit Forums was a tech-support jewel for the Mac community. And as result, I have repeadedly recommended MFIF to new, Mac users - as I will now recommend FTM.

Cheers.

Hey Franklin, y'all might want to give your front door a name. At the moment it's an <title>Untitled Page</title>. Page names help the bots and the bots help you. Harmony

Dave,

Thank you. Very clear and helpful.

...and further than just putting "Fine Tuned Mac" in the title, be sure to put some descriptive words that cover the site features as well since that will further enhance the search engine relevance of the title tag. Adding an expanded version of some description text to the body of the home page will help as well.

Watch next week's Kibbles and Bytes SmallDog Electronics weekly newsletter for a FineTunedMac plug.

sweet!

After CNET unceremoniously shut us down I accidentally discovered that "Edit" was still available for 24 hours after each post had been posted, so I backtracked and changed a few *response* titles to road-signs that have already turned up close to or at the top of Google searches.

You dirty devil! :devil: (smilie starvation syndrome symptom)

Way to go!!! :clap: (SSSS)

Probably the best way to attract new members is to provide accurate, timely, friendly, constructive information. The word will get around that the place to get actual help is FTM and not C|net.

Well said!

Good word-of-mouth is, without a doubt, the best advertisement! (But every little bit helps while we wait for it to kick-in.)

I know absolutely nothing about the labor of programming, but it's occurred to put forward the idea of an iPhone web app for FTM.

If it could be done (by a volunteer programmer ...which may be too much of a request) and access to the FTM Forum is thus formatted for the iPhone's screen, this might provide another great means for access.

I already access the Forum through my iPhone's Safari Bookmark for FTM. Works pretty well, although adjusting the layout, even in landscape, is required in order to easily read.

Anyway, just a thought...

A sincere thank you to Small Dog Electronics.

Tech Tails #675: Old Friend, New Home

awesome!!

I teach school about eight miles from the original SmallDog store!

as a thought to increasing awareness, if you have a blog or other website, make sure to add a (prominent!) link to FTM!

Good Job

<title>Macintosh, Mac OS X, and Mac System Troubleshooting</title>

I'm thinking of ways to drive more folks here, but I'm waiting to get some of the growing pains with regard to poor performance and slow loading sorted out before I really start pushing in some of the places I can announce the forum.

One idea I'd considered is doing a Dashboard widget for FTM. The programming involved in making a widget is a lot less than the programming involved in creating an iPhone app (and you can't distribute iPhone apps without having a paid developer account with Apple anyway). Anyone have any opinion about the usefulness of a FTM widget?

I think a(n) FTM trouble-shooting widget is a great idea!!

I recommend this site to all the other Mac forums that I'm on. And I've put the link to FTM on the CNET forums twice now, in appropriate posts to threads.

They will come.

Would a FaceBook presence advance our cause in any way?

FB presence always does -- good idea! I'd wait to see if Franklin's db hosting upgrade resolved the load issues first, though...

speaking of Facebook, how many of us are already there?

/raises hand

I'd be glad to be friends with any of you: http://www.facebook.com/roger.grow

I just created a Facebook account a few days ago:

http://www.facebook.com/franklinveaux

I also have a MySpace that I almost never use:

http://www.myspace.com/tacit_rainbow

I'm most active on Twitter and on LJ (my LJ presence is actually enourmous):

http://twitter.com/franklinveaux

http://tacit.livejournal.com

Fb friend request sent, and I'm following you on Twitter, though I'm not a big twitterer.

I really enjoy Fb, connecting with, and staying connected to people from all the various walks of my life.

> I'd wait to see if Franklin's db hosting upgrade resolved the load issues first, though...

Nope... I wasn't volunteering, Doni; I have not yet found it necessary, or even desirable, to involve myself in on-line social-networking.

My social-networking takes place either over the phone (land-line) or by addressing the person on the next barstool.

In my world, the equivalent of "Friending" is offering to buy somebody a drink.

Well, there are those who would consider things like forums (and BBS, Usenet, IRC, MUD/MOO, etc) forms of early social networking...

Personally I have never been drawn to a site because of a widget -- in fact it is generally the other way around after I have been using a site for a while I might decide to install the widget. But that is just me others may be very different. It might be interesting to take a poll to see how many FTM users actually use widgets before investing any time in developing one.

I'd also be curious to know what kind of widget's being envisioned. An RSS reader? A search box? In what scenarios would a widget be more useful than going to FTM?

I was thinking of a fairly simple RSS reader widget, since they're easy to create. I have no idea what value, if any, such a thing might have in attracting people, but if it were offered on Apple's widget store, it might raise some awareness, maybe.

Makes sense to me. Why not? Wouldn't hurt to expand the brand, and who knows what could come of it later?

> Well, there are those who would consider things like forums (and BBS, Usenet, IRC, MUD/MOO, etc) forms of early social networking...

Ohmygod!!!

I've been wearing a gauze mask over my mouth and nose, and I've caught the dreaded "social-networking syndrome," anyhow.

Has anybody told the CDC that there's a new, virulent strain in the wild?