Comments about Bjorn3D and competitions

**ET3D** · 08-02-2011, 09:29 AM

Scott raised an interesting point of discussion on a competition thread, and I figured it deserved its own thread.

Originally Posted by Scott

Well maybe you guys could help me come up with contest ideas but have something to do with getting people to read more and partake on the site. I want to keep Folding involved with it. That is my main goal with the contest but I need to build readership of the site also.

Disclaimer: I'm not running a successful tech site. My opinions are mainly based on my experience with other sites, my personal reactions and my analysis. So take everything with a grain of salt.

Observations:

Competitions which encourage "spammers" can discourage non-spammers, who feel they have a low chance of winning.
Similarly new folders may be intimidated by the threshold required to get bonus entries, especially since new SMP folders get very few points initially (and need to know about passkeys to get more).
Forum building competitions don't necessarily build general site readership. They build the forum to an extent, but people won't necessarily go read other parts of the site.

Some ideas for current style competitions. My understanding is that these competitions are meant to reward efforts in both forum posting and folding, but can be tweaked to encourage more posters / folders.

Cap the post count eligible for entries. This way active posters will get more entries, but not in a way which completely unbalances the competition.
Give new folders (who have never before folded for Bjorn3D) either a special prize for which only they are eligible or a large number of bonus entries (equal to what top folders get is probably a good value).
Post a link on each competition to a post describing how to get started with folding (such as "GPU/CPU Folding: The Easy Way").
If you can get sponsors who ship internationally that should help get more people interested in the competitions.
Link to more information about Stephanie. You mention her in the competition posts, for which she's the obvious inspiration, and I think that being able to find out more about her would help connect people to the cause, and so make them more likely to fold in general and for Bjorn3D in particular. You can make it just a sentence or two if you don't want to dedicate a full page to her, but I think that more than just a mention would be good.

Regarding other competition styles, there are two I found which encourage going over the site. The first rewards commenting on news items (TechSpot did that), the second is a review egg hunt, where you hide things inside reviews and ask people to find them (Hi Tech Legion did that).

The question is what's the goal of getting more readers. If it's just page hits, then monthly competitions Hi Tech Legion style would probably get page hits, simply because people will go over the specific reviews. It's easy to get hundreds of page hits per entrant using this kind of competition.

Regarding news comments, I think there's a little confusion in that news items have both Disqus on the page, and then the news items are also posted to the forum. The current incentive is to respond to them on the forum, since most regulars are on the forum anyway, and the competitions encourage forum posting. People who read the item through the site then don't see any of the comments. It would be nice to have a single consistent way of commenting on news items. I'd also suggest making news items take less space each on the front page, so more of them can fit or be easily read.

I think that in the end a site's success boils down to its content. Bjorn3D is an also-run hardware site. It posts some news, a few reviews per week (which is not bad), but has nothing which really distinguishes it. From my point of view the best thing about the site (not including the competitions and forum) is the daily roundup, with other news items being rather meh (ECS improving components, USB 3 media reader, Symantec Enterprise Vault -- powerful sleeping pills).

Two things I think can help. One is a more interesting voice and commentary. Where there are opinions there are counter opinions, arguments, flames and the destruction of civilisation. Err, I mean it could help discussion.

Better, at least IMO, is to find a focus for the site. That could make it a place where people who are interested in a specific subject come. For example, make folding a subject, since it's already an important part of the site. Promote folding news to the main page, even post community updates (i.e., how Bjorn3D and its fans are doing; the kind of thing that's in the forum now). For CPU and GPU reviews, dedicate a section to folding performance. Do articles on driver effects on GPU folding, measure power use of systems when folding, measure temperatures when overclocking and underclocking / undervolting, with various coolers. There's a lot of ground to cover.

Doesn't mean everything has to revolve around this, but pepper enough of it that people interested in this particular subject would see Bjorn3D as the authority for it. It's possible to do that with another subject, I just suggested this one because it felt like an obvious match and I don't think anyone else is doing it (I may be mistaken, I'm not a hard core folder). Still, a focus is good. I read Bjorn3D in its Rendition days (even though I didn't own a Rendition based card), and it was attractive for that focus.

**Blacksmith1** · 08-02-2011, 02:09 PM

Since you are the only person who has commented on the news content so far, please allow me to pick your brain a bit.
What type of news are you looking for? I have been trying to get stuff that will interest a variety of readers, but I am not a writer by trade so original pieces are not in the current pipeline.
This being a Tech based site I was instructed to find tech related stuff. the IT type stuff I threw in to try to get more IT types on the site. the product releases are pretty much what we are about, so again if not that then what.
I'm being serious here, I need some kind of feedback as I cannot see who reads what.

as for folding news you find that maybe once a month.. not good for a daily visitor.
and I am not at this time comfortable with doing opinion pieces as it has been over 30 years since I did any writing (that was for a Jr high school newspaper.)

Addendum: I do not have the equipment or time necessary to do the kind of analysis you describe. as it is I spend over 2 1/2 hrs every day just searching out the press releases and doing the bit of writing that you see. I am currently searching on 60 sites daily and some of those require going to more than one page to see if there is anything new or any updates.
Which, if any, of the pieces from the last month did you like?

**Joshua_Mahr** · 08-02-2011, 02:42 PM

Thanks for all your hard work Black. ET thanks also for your time and help. I am with ET. We need something to make Bjorn stand out. Maybe specializing in some field of equipment reviews. Like be the definitive source for PSU reviews or Case reviews, or GPU's. Just something that makes people say " If you want to know about PSU's you need to look at Bjorn's site they are the best." Something allong those lines. I would be more than happy to help!

**ET3D** · 08-02-2011, 03:41 PM

Blacksmith1 , thanks for the hard work. Personally I'm enjoy reading about the latest tech, some science, some tech / gaming related market happenings and politics (patent suits, CEO changes, ...). The latter usually bring the most discussion. That's not an exclusive list. I don't care much about press releases for products that aren't much different than products from other companies, nor about IT specific things (although helpful software for enthusiasts is nice to read about).

I think that "trying to get stuff that will interest a variety of readers" is a mistake, because you won't attract any specific type of reader. If you do get a person interested in IT he likely won't be interested in other things here. The reviews are obviously geared towards tech enthusiasts: cases, motherboards, PSU's, SSD's... The daily roundup also does a pretty good job addressing the same readers, IMO. The news should also be made to appeal to the same people. Much of the news is already like this, but I think that canning many of the product press releases will help.

I'll go over recent news and tell you what I like:

MSI Afterburner for Android
"Lots of news from EK" - semi interesting, but a bit awkward to read
ECS Facebook contest - hey, I like contests

Death by Xbox
More AMD rumours
New products from ASUS
Raw format codec packs - semi interesting, would drop the image
And now for something completely different - nice because it has personal experience
EK waterblocks for graphics cards
Has Google come to its senses - uninformative title, but I found it a useful post
New Catalyst drivers
What's in a name
A cool new graphics novel
Looking to build an HTPC?
VUDU ... Wallmart
Hard disk myths - but this was mentioned in a daily roundup, and I think fits there better
A firmware is in the works...
Video Game Industry Association...
All we can say is "Wow really"?
Windows 8 news

Okay, stopped there. That's quite a bit of news for a week. I don't think that a lot more is really needed. And of course as I already said I like the daily roundups.

**Blacksmith1** · 08-02-2011, 07:11 PM

Cool, I put up all the product releases so that people that like a specific company will see that Co's new product, the card reader is boring as all ####, but there are people that are looking for one. and it being from Kingston it should be higher quality than the "OFF" brands. i know Kingston tends to be thought of as budget, but they do make a quality product.
as a tech based site I don't want someone to come here only to see something on another site that we missed.
Maybe if i collected the "minor" offerings in to a consolidated piece?
Yeah the EK piece is disjointed. I was really tired and cheated a bit, it's 3 press releases in one go. If that's the way it struck you and I both, then I will never do that again.
Clear concise is what I want, not always easy with the kids screaming at each other due to fighting, or gaming in 2 different rooms. "NO stupid! The other way!"the brain fogs up now and then.
And I stand by the ECS piece, I have used their stuff over the years. and they were decent, just and only, but a solid consistent decent. If they are upping their quality then People should have a chance to hear about it. They wouldn't be the fist second string line to go pro. assuming they stick to it of course.
I'll try to find more interesting stuff, but our primary focus is hardware, so product releases are a must.
Now, let's have a go at what you didn't like, and what you didn't like about it.

**ET3D** · 08-03-2011, 10:49 AM

Putting the product press releases separately from the news could be helpful.

Regarding ECS, I think you're right, but that's because I connected more to what you posted here as a personal experience than how you posted it there. Quoting them as "the world's leading ..." is the place where I stop reading. That goes back to what I meant about voice. If you say "I had an ECS motherboard" it's better than quoting something that raises the bull**** meter, and it's also better than a generic "we have used their products", because it's easier to respond to a specific person and product type than a generic group of people and products. If you mention the specific products you used ("I had a P4M800-M7 motherboard in my Pentium 4 PC") it would be even better. I realise it might not be easy to remember the exact details, and I'm not saying that you have to, all I'm saying is that being specific and sharing your experiences (what was good and bad about it?) is a way to get people more involved.

Same thing regarding the Kingston media reader. If you said there what you say here (boring product but you think that Kingston is a quality brand) that's something someone can respond to (agree or disagree).

Based on your post it's obvious that you have opinions and you can express them. Even if you're not a great writer, expressing your opinions would come across a lot more interesting than just sharing the press releases.

Just IMO. I hope others reading this thread will say what they think, so we'll have some more points of view.

**Blacksmith1** · 08-03-2011, 05:06 PM

when it comes to the news or the site in genreal, I have noticed most of the members tend not to express their opinions.
even when asked to directly
http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthr...om-our-members

**Joshua_Mahr** · 08-03-2011, 07:05 PM

I try! Maybe introduce people to the "New Post" link at the top of the page.

**slugbug** · 08-03-2011, 08:01 PM

I would have to agree with the post count limit. We don't want the forum turning into a spam fest with people posting just to build up their entries.

**Blacksmith1** · 08-04-2011, 02:42 AM

Which is what happens.

**James86** · 08-04-2011, 04:28 AM

who spams??
I agree there should be a post limit for bonus entries and I like all the news posts but sometimes I just don't have anything to say.

**Blacksmith1** · 08-04-2011, 04:48 PM

I'm not looking for comments on each item posted, just opinions on the latest crop so I can figure out which types work well and which ones should go to file 86.

**werty316** · 08-06-2011, 02:54 AM

Coming from someone who as entered a few spam contests in the past, they are pointless plain and simple.

**ca_adi** · 08-06-2011, 11:13 PM

Hey guys, I just wanted to say on behalf of all of us, thanks for all your comments and suggestions. Rest assured, we're going to sit down and discuss this and work on implementing your suggestions to take the site forward. You guys are the ones that keep Bjorn3D going, many thanks to all of you!