The future of HAMigg
In June 2007, I started a project which I called HAMigg and the idea was to create a social bookmarking site like Digg.com just for ham radio related content. Unfortunately I have to say, that this did not work as good as I thought, due to various reasons. Among others:
- HAMs are pretty reluctant when it comes to submitting content. Therefore most stuff has been submitted by only a few users like KA3DRR, K9ZW and myself. In the long run this is not sufficient.
- Voting was not accepted: People did not vote on articles. I have to admit that the necessity to register was not very appealing, but it was necessary to eliminate “troll voting”.
- People did not comment on stuff, so no real discussion developed. The registration issue applies here as well, but you know about the spam issues on the internet.
- last but not least: I should have paid more attention on publicity. The ham community is different to the SEO community and therefore the “viral marketing” which e.g. worked for SEOigg did not work for this project.
What does that mean? To make it short: I will close down HAMigg in the course of next week. Comments are appreciated.
Update: As of February 25, 2008 HAMigg is “history”.
February 16th, 2008 23:43
Thank you for the Hamigg Effort Christian!
Do not know if it is possible to get to the “critical mass” to make it significant though.
Wonder if perhaps part of the problem is that so many Ham-Blogs lack original content, making linking to their articles which are not much more than links themselves superfluous?
73 and Thank You!
Steve
K9ZW
February 18th, 2008 07:01
Hi Steve,
you made a good point. A lot of stuff is recycled, which indeed would make more linking superfluous. However, there still exist a lot of good stuff on the net, which is “linkworthy”. Maybe it was also partly related to usability.
Anyway. I also suspect it is somehow related to a critical mass, which is not easy to achieve.
73
Christian
February 25th, 2008 01:05
Christian–Thank you for your contribution to Ham Radio’s blogosphere with HAMigg and thanks for the hand-up as well. I’m looking forward to your next endeavor. Thanks again!
73, Scot KA3DRR
February 25th, 2008 07:16
Scot,
thanks for the nice words. Maybe one ran reactivate the idea once the ham radio community is ready for that. We will see!
Regarding a different project: There is currently something in the pipeline. Not really blogging related but DX related. Will post something later this week, when the project hopefully goes live.
73
Christian
March 1st, 2008 09:56
Finde die Musik von dem Sender echt spitze, nur weiterzuempfehlen !!!
March 1st, 2008 23:17
hmm… ich glaube, da hat irgendein Skript nicht richtig funktioniert
Nur weil im Titel des Blogs “Radio” vorkommt, geht es hier noch nicht um Radiosender
April 21st, 2008 03:19
Chris,
You are right in the private sector hams or hobby folk are relucant to post on blogs. In the private sector it is like hot cakes! But perhaps as the blogging gets more popular and people understand it better and its usefulness, try it again.
I just began a blog on my site www.freewebs.com/allhamradio/ because I have the time to monitor it and drum up the content etc. So perhaps check in there in a few weeks to see if the support is any better.
73s Burt – N9VBI
May 2nd, 2008 05:47
Buddy you are doing a gr8 job to keep HAM radio going. The whole HAM community is with you…………73 & Goodluck!
October 28th, 2008 20:32
It’s hard work just getting enough traffic to make an idea like this work (God knows I have tried).
Your efforts where valiant though!
Ali.
xx
November 12th, 2008 23:52
Please keep on blogging, it’s all good the way it is, maybe some more stuff could be added like online streams, pictures etc.
T
February 11th, 2009 17:57
Great work, I thought I was all alone. Humbled again! 73
September 2nd, 2009 11:47
I have an old 10-meter ham radio transceiver.
I tried to sell it on eBay, and was told it is now illegal to sell such items.
Can any tell me in plain English why the old 10-meter transceiver is illegal now?
September 4th, 2009 10:45
No idea … but I guess this is the wrong place to ask
February 5th, 2011 20:07
great site keep up the good work 73 matt m6ceb