Inaugural Annual "State of the Website" Address |
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Story By Te Awamutu Online Overview | Statistics | Financial Situation | Current Features & Projects | New Projects OverviewThe original Te Awamutu Online website was launched in June 1999 at www.teawamutu.gen.nz, migrating to www.teawamutu.co.nz later that year. It's been an eventful 3 1/2 years, with our fair share of ups and downs. We actually believe our continued existence is an achievement in itself. While many community sites have languished or disappeared, we have continued to enjoy solid support. We attribute much of this success to the people of Te Awamutu - their strong sense of community and pride in our district. Unfortunately rosetown cyberspace is not quite as rosy as it could be, and this report includes some areas in which we are cutting back our activities. However we are working on solutions to spread the workload and increase efficiency, and we're keeping a positive outlook. We believe our situation is stable and the continuation of our service is assured for the foreseeable future. Website Statistics for www.teawamutu.co.nz
Interpretation: Traffic peaked around the end of 2001 and beginning of 2002, and seems to have settled at around it's current level. The peaks correspond very closely to periods when we are more active in the community and providing new content for the website, whereas the troughs tend to occur during our times of low activity. On the whole we can be very happy indeed with our statistics. For a community website in a town the size of Te Awamutu to be getting almost 800 visitors per day is outstanding. Note: The term "hits" is meaningless and we do not use it. The number of hits a site receives is a gross exaggeration of the number of visitors, which is why it is used by marketers rather than analysts. Financial SituationThis is the bad news section. Our original plan was to fund this website largely through sponsorship from local businesses. Unfortunately this sponsorship has failed to materialise and Te Awamutu Online is still funded entirely by our business Wavelength Media. This means that many of the features we had hoped to introduce won't be happening, some current features won't be updated and we've scaled down our overall operation until this situation improves. If anyone out there is interested in helping support Te Awamutu Online through sponsorship or use of our commercial services, please contact us. Current Projects & FeaturesNews The news service we've offered in the past is no longer viable without supporting income. From now on we will be cutting back on reporting news events and taking a new approach: We will publish news stories supplied to us by local people and organisations. We want to make it as easy as possible and we won't be too tough on those who don't have experience writing stories, so don't be shy! If you have news, here's how to submit it. Along with another couple of ideas, we think it's still possible to sustain a news service. Indeed, if the community gets behind it, this system may actually work out better than the old one.
Virtual Te Awamutu has received a huge amount of positive feedback since its launch in July 2002, as well as great press coverage in the Courier and Waikato Times, plus a commendation for Best Innovation at the 2002 Waipa Business Awards. Although sales of the CD have been slow, we see this as an important product and we will make every effort to release updates in the future. Directories We have a number of directories for local organisations, businesses, etc. In the past we have kept these directories updated ourselves, but it's becoming too much work and we are starting to rely on businesses and organisations to advise us of any changes. It's possible that in a future upgrade we will consolidate these directories into one system. TeAwamutu.Net
On the other hand, we have discontinued our free web page service for businesses and replaced it with a paid alternative. We're sorry we couldn't keep this service free, but in the end businesses are making money from it. New ProjectsWe do have a list of projects in the pipeline and we envisage that some of them will happen this year. Here is a short version of our "To-Do List":
Late last year we trialled an interesting new feature: TATV (Te Awamutu Television). The plan was to create a short monthly video summary of local news and events. The trials went fairly well and we were able to produce a couple of 10-minute shows with passable quality, although it is apparent that such a service would be far more suitable to high-speed connections such as Jetstream. Predictably, the stumbling block was money and this project is on the back-burner for now. However we are excited by the potential of TATV and we are working hard to find a viable production model. Shop As mentioned in last December's newsletter, we are developing an online shopping centre. When it's finished, you'll be the first to know. Rebranding Some time soon we will be rebranding the website in conjunction with the Te Awamutu Public Relations Organisation and Te Awamutu Alive. This will help to create a consistent image for promoting our town. Other Projects We have a long list of suggestions and improvements. It's anyone's guess as to when/if these things will happen, but here are a few of the priorities in no particular order...
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