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What has happened to Alpine Zone?

SnowRock

Active member
Joined
Oct 16, 2012
Messages
320
Points
28
Location
Jersey City, NJ
I lurk more than I post, but have always appreciated the hyper-local knowledge of east coast mountains you get here. I chalked up the slowness to the general summer malaise but have noticed a few functionality issues visiting time to time lately.
 

TheArchitect

Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2011
Messages
236
Points
18
I'd hate to see this place go away. While I'm more active on Pugski I do come here every day to check things out. I really like having a site with the primary focus being the northeast.
 

abc

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2008
Messages
5,806
Points
113
Location
Lower Hudson Valley
I usually don't visit here regularly in the summer. I think that's true for many. So I'm not too concerned with the low traffic.

What I'm concerned is the increase in "technical difficulties" on my occasional visits. Some days, the forum became "read only" because posting was close to impossible. This, following last winter's frequent outages, will drive users away for good if continues into the coming winter.

So, I hope it'll get corrected and the site continues. After what happened to epicski.com, ski forum are not something to be taken for granted.
 

snoseek

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
6,260
Points
113
Location
NH
I just now am starting to think about skiing.

Most of the time this board has existed I've been skiing elsewhere than the northeast...then again every so often I do like to spend a winter back home and I'm sure my days of Northeast skiing are not done. I define the term "home" pretty loosely anyhow. I hope that doesn't change moving forward. I do like to keep up with whats going on back there and am genuinely excited when you get the good stuff back there. If you go through the emotional roller coaster as a skier back in the Northeast, well then by god you better believe the highs are extra high!

I've met a ton of really fucking awesome people over the years from here. All different walks of life which is maybe my favorite part of the whole thing. Some really really excellent skiers/riders as well. Nick if you're reading this pass this joint along. Puff, puff, pass.
 

VTKilarney

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 5, 2014
Messages
5,552
Points
63
Location
VT NEK
I don't think that this place will die soon, but it will most certainly continue to degrade unless something changes.
 

jimk

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 1, 2012
Messages
1,790
Points
113
Location
Wash DC area
I think this thread proves there's still life, but yeah, after the epicski demise, some redundancy with NMS is a good thing, a very good thing.
 

Jully

Active member
Joined
Dec 13, 2014
Messages
2,487
Points
38
Location
Boston, MA
Hah. I was in northern Alabama for 2 weeks this past January and was hoping to ski there, but it was too warm. Apparently they blow snow like crazy when it's cold enough, it lasts a couple days before it all melts, then they are closed until the next coldfront

Wow, how can they possibly make any money?
 

skiNEwhere

Active member
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
4,141
Points
38
Location
Dubai
Wow, how can they possibly make any money?

I feel like it's almost the novelty of skiing that brings business in that region. The ski area is only a few acres as well so it's not like they need to blow that much snow.
 

prsboogie

Active member
Joined
Aug 13, 2014
Messages
1,764
Points
38
Location
Swansea
I'd hate to see this place go away. While I'm more active on Pugski I do come here every day to check things out. I really like having a site with the primary focus being the northeast.

http://www.***************************
 

yeggous

Active member
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Messages
2,170
Points
36
Location
Eagle, CO
How much money can a website like this make? And doesn't everyone use ad-blockers anyway?

A site *like this*?

I'll let other with more direct knowledge comment. The key to maintaining profitability is probably the lack of reinvestment. If you believe this isn't a growth market, then financially your best decision is to keep it on life support and keep cashing the checks. As you mention, ad blockers have eliminated most of the up side. That's why most newspapers are paywalled when in the past they were freely available.

I can speak with some experience on the economics of well maintained, modern ski forum site. It loses money every month. I've been keeping an eye on the bottom line and believe the key to long-term sustainability will be to derive some alternative revenue stream besides the primary ad-supported content. I have to pay for a modern software platform, stable cloud-based hosting, mobile apps, promotions, and content development. If you don't have a passion for it, then it's not worth the effort. Which brings up back to a *site like this*.
 

benski

Active member
Joined
Jun 18, 2014
Messages
1,114
Points
36
Location
Binghamton NY
A site *like this*?

I'll let other with more direct knowledge comment. The key to maintaining profitability is probably the lack of reinvestment. If you believe this isn't a growth market, then financially your best decision is to keep it on life support and keep cashing the checks. As you mention, ad blockers have eliminated most of the up side. That's why most newspapers are paywalled when in the past they were freely available.

I can speak with some experience on the economics of well maintained, modern ski forum site. It loses money every month. I've been keeping an eye on the bottom line and believe the key to long-term sustainability will be to derive some alternative revenue stream besides the primary ad-supported content. I have to pay for a modern software platform, stable cloud-based hosting, mobile apps, promotions, and content development. If you don't have a passion for it, then it's not worth the effort. Which brings up back to a *site like this*.

Alpine zone defiantly makes more money. If you google northeast ski forum Skimrv.com and a link who's description is all Korean except "alpinezone.com" comes up.
 
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