1 post tagged “paddlesports”
Wow. What a community!
The story: OK. About 4 or so years ago a study came out naming Adventure Tourism as THE fastest growing market vertical in tourism. Who wouda thought. A couple years later, studies showed that Adventure Sporting retail became the 2nd largest industry in between IT and Telecom. WOW #2. Here's where the mystery lay: Why then did it seem that whitewater was at a standstill. Manufacturers were closing down, pro paddlers weren't getting the coverage other adventure athletes got... there were many signs of contradiction in the stats. So in 2007 we got a closer look. Adventure industry stats showed that, where most adventure sports climbed in enthusiast buy-in, whitewater and a handful of others declined! As far back as 2002 a decline started. Viewing these stats at the same time as I, was an old pal Eric Jackson (www.jacksonkayak.com), the #1 whitewater boat manufacturer. We got to talking.
"So how can we bring attention to our sport?" one of us asked. We stepped back and listed the many characteristics of our passion and both came to the same conclusion... its the people. Another element of note in our industry is our web savvy. There isn't a SINGLE boater who isn't hooked to the web. Boaterboards, Skype, youtube, myspace is laden with our kind.
"So... why not bring the community together" one said. So we did. www.Worldkayak.com was launched last week. The site is set in three social media arenas...
www.worldkayak.com - your common portal, run by 25 regional ambassadors who keep it up to date with regional news, events, lists of paddling orgs and much more. It is already signing on ambassadors from Central and South America, 10 countries in Europe, the Africas, S. Korea, Japan, NZ and Australia. All built on Breathe Production's publishing tool suite of course.
www.worldkayakblogs.com - a blogspot with attitude. Much like Vox actually, but built for self customization. Bloggers can set up a web site just like VOX, but can also add on their own 'widgits' and choose from thousands of WordPress templates. More importantly bloggers are associated by region and a growing list of categories (tips, video, trip journals etc.).
www.worldkayakblogs.com/wiki - a riverwiki built on the same engine as wikipedia.com, this site will play host to an evergrowing list of rivers and detailed descriptions of each.
The sites will forever be moving, migrating, growing and exciting for all ... our community is becoming more present and hopefully worldkayak.com will help pave a way to an increased interest in our sport. Please feel free to check things out... its very early in its infancy, but growing rapidly.
I'd like to thank our ambassadors, Colin Kemp and EJ and all who helped get this up... this was a team effort!
