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Ok teams, I need your feedback. BigBlueBall covers a wide range of IM products and related topics. I want to know who you think our competition is in each category (AIM, MSN, etc.).
Please reply with the website name, URL, and one or two lines describing where we stand in relation to them. I’m interested in site quality, timeliness of news, traffic, ranking, and anything that could be useful. What do they do better than us? What do we do better than them? Should we partner with them for news, links, etc.?
Really, I couldn’t really do a whole lot of peeking around, but I did a quick little ditty just for general Instant Messenger Forums.
The big one that kept popping up is a place called WackyB.com
(http://www.wackyb.com or http://www.wackyb.com/zzub/index.php for forum)
The quality, well it looks shiney and snazzy, a little hard for me to follow at first, but if you dig, you can find things.
The Forum organization is pretty alright, they go Yahoo, Yahoo add ons, MSN AIM ICQ, Other, Virus warnings, News Feeds. They also have a little Etc section roped off for general help and such.
I don’t know how on the ball they are for some IM news, but they do have the News Feed section that is updated…like…whoa by GoogleNews, as well as a news section on the home page done by folks.
They have about 12K registered users, though it seems they get a lot of guests wandering by.
Yeah…don’t know about the whole traffic or ranking thing, so yeah.
But honestly, they look kinda helpful…not nearly on the scale that bbb is on, but they’re trying. And boy, they love Purple about as much as we love Blue around here, heheh.The other forum I found was a place called hiptop.com. (http://www.hiptop.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=75)
They have a very very small section for yahoo and AIM help. But they do get daily folks stopping by *little shrug*
Not a real ‘competition’ force by any means, but yeah. *shrug* Meh.Who knows, maybe I’ll try again later, for now, school calls.
Well I found this a bit worrying actually!! Sat here typing into google search –
AIM messenger help, MSN messenger help etc etc etc…. no bbb at all!http://www.wackyB.com is there however, on every single messenger you search for. Not only that but they come up about 4th on each search.
Could not find us anywhere. Makes me wonder how I ever found BBB at all 🙁
If however, I put in instant messenging well we are there but on the second page. Is that because our slogan is ‘every about instant messaging’? Can that be fixed. I am not sure how link’s are made to a search result.
Competition is not just other websites but surely how easy it is for the general public to find us in the first place?
ummm anyway back to topic. If I had a computer problem (before my entry into BBB and a helpful Spike to advise me) I used to use http://www.helpwithpcs.com and http://www.pcpitstop.com/welcome.asp
Both of the above have forums where you can post your problem. As for what their traffic is etc umm not sure! It’s me remember! Wonders off traffic, sigh how can you see someones traffic on a website? Seeing all the staff looking over saying she is soooo bad with computers 😮
There are few sites that cover multiple IM networks. Most of our competition comes from sites that specialize on a particular messenger, like http://www.mess.be
Please consider those kinds of sites as well.
MSN Messenger:
MSNFanatic – one of the more technically inclined communities, however, since they have an MVP on staff, they tend to have a lot of information not yet released to the public, but found by Daniel (duphus on here)
http://msnfanatic.com/MsgWeb.nl – one of the most popular MSN Messenger sites on the net. Watched closely by some Microsoft developers from the Netherlands.
http://www.msgweb.nl/en/MsgStuff.com – a fast growing site with some un-heard of news before the rest of the usual sources.
http://www.msgstuff.com/MessengerMad.com – is becoming one of the most up-to-date sources for MSN Messenger related news. From what I’ve seen, they’ve been beating Mess.be a lot.
http://www.messengermad.com/Msg****.com – is one of the most bravest communities out there. They leak, they host leaks and are almost always one of the first to announce a leak. If something has been leaked, they most likely have it. If something hasn’t – watch their site, they’ll get it soon.
http://msg****.com/**That’s MsgSh1t.com, replace the 1 with i.**
MastaLine.com – has up-to-date news and the latest add-ons. But more importantly, ones made by MastaLine himself.
http://www.mastaline.com/sarahtowny wrote:Well I found this a bit worrying actually!! Sat here typing into google search –
AIM messenger help, MSN messenger help etc etc etc…. no bbb at all!http://www.wackyB.com is there however, on every single messenger you search for. Not only that but they come up about 4th on each search.
Could not find us anywhere. Makes me wonder how I ever found BBB at all.
If however, I put in instant messenging well we are there but on the second page. Is that because our slogan is ‘every about instant messaging’? Can that be fixed? I am not sure how link’s are made to a search result.
Competition is not just other websites but surely how easy it is for the general public to find us in the first place?
This is a serious issue. I need to look into this one. It would help if you posted links to the search query you ran so I could see exactly the same thing.For example, I did a search for msn messenger (no quotes) and found WackyB as the #40 result. MsgPlus.net was #3 and Mess.be was #4. BigBlueBall doesn’t show up until #264!
If you compare the Daily Reach for BigBlueBall vs WackyB on Alexa, you’ll see that we have double (or more) the reach. We beat them out on traffic, in spite of a much lower search engine rank.
EDIT #1: I’m running WebPostion Gold to see where we rank across the various search engines and will post the results when it’s done (it takes a while).
EDIT #2: Great links, evilseph! MSNfanatic is a great site. We have a BBB button on their site, but maybe we could do more. Mess.be is also a good site, although I hate the wacky frames dwergs uses. I wonder if we could do more with mess.be? Hmm….
Well I tried “instant messenger help” and BBB is #21 in the results. This too sort of makes me wonder how I found BBB. How does Google organize the results anyway? What would you need to do so that BBB shows up at least on the first page of results?
As for other competition, I can’t think of any besides the ones already mentioned.
MiamiGuy wrote:Well I tried “instant messenger help” and BBB is #21 in the results. This too sort of makes me wonder how I found BBB. How does Google organize the results anyway? What would you need to do so that BBB shows up at least on the first page of results?It’s not that simple. Google doesn’t want you to know how they rank search results, and they constantly change the rules for that very reason. Basically, they don’t want anyone working the system to artificially boost their own rank.I don’t generally pay too much attention to the dark art of SEO (obviously) preferring to go for what’s known as a “natural” search ranking (based on content, not on trickery. That being said, I think it’s a travesty that BBB is ranked so poorly on a search like msn messenger, and certainly we should be ranked higher than many of the sites currently above us. So there are very likely things that we are not doing now, but should be. And things that we are doing now, that we shouldn’t be. The trick is to figure out what those things are and change them.
One of the best ways to do that is to look at the sites that do have top page ranking and try to sort out why. I’ll be looking at their source code and comparing with ours to look for problem areas.
Also, changing rank takes time. You have to make changes to the site, and then wait for Google to reindex the content. So even after we make changes here, it could be a couple months before that’s reflected in the search results.
But I will pay closer attention.
Just how did we find ourselves on BigBlueBall?
This is where all those other communities started. This, I am so bold to say, is the first community of the whole instant messaging scene of communities.
And this is why I am a part of this great community.
Well, we all complain about our listings being so low, but that’s because we do EVERYTHING related to IM. Of course a site only about MSN Messenger will come up before us in a search about it. We are here, for multi-support, not just “We do this, but you will have to go find some other place to help you with that IM”. I still remember what it was that I searched for to come here, (ok it was along the lines of) A messenger that connects with AIM or something, it was like 2 years ago heh. But still, cetain things brought us all here together. And it was the fact, in my opinion, that it’s because we take that extra step above the rest, we go and help with all IM.
EvilSeph wrote:Just how did we find ourselves on BigBlueBall?This is where all those other communities started. This, I am so bold to say, is the first community of the whole instant messaging scene of communities.
And this is why I am a part of this great community.BigBlueBall – The Mother of all IM Communities! In all seriousness, you make a great point Warren. It’s worth remembering that BigBlueBalll has been around much longer than most of the other sites, and in fact many of their founders started here as members. BBB is the epicenter — I just don’t want to rest on our laurels. I know we can do better.
MrEggsalad wrote:Well, we all complain about our listings being so low, but that’s because we do EVERYTHING related to IM. Of course a site only about MSN Messenger will come up before us in a search about it. We are here, for multi-support, not just “We do this, but you will have to go find some other place to help you with that IM”… And it was the fact, in my opinion, that it’s because we take that extra step above the rest, we go and help with all IM.I don’t expect BigBlueBall to be ranked higher on a specialized keywords (like msn messenger) than a site that specializes on that subject (like mess.be). But I do expect to be ranked higher than wackyb.co.nz and many of the other garbage sites out there currently above us. As for ranking, I’ve started a seperate topic to address this issue.And I agree that our forums are the best place to get answers without a lot of the crap that I’ve seen at other websites.
Getting back to this topic — who is our competition? I’m not interested in beating out anyone, but… I want to be smart about who else is out there and what they are doing. I don’t want anyone to have reason to suggest that some other site is a “better” resource for IM. And if there is a site that specializes on a particular topic (Google Talk, MSN Messenger, Skype, etc.) and does a kick-ass job, I want to consider ways to partner with them so we both win.
Maybe we can formally share news stories with them, or cross-publish reviews and tutorials? Maybe it’s as simple as a link exchange. I’m not sure what it would look like, but I want to help out those good sites because I think it will ultimately help BBB too.
So… if you know of some really good websites, or have ideas on how we could partner with them, post a reply!
On a final note, I’ve been using del.icio.us. to store IM-related sites. If you’re interested, check out http://del.icio.us/bigblueball/im (sites I’ve tagged with “IM”) and http://del.icio.us/im (sites anyone has tagged with “IM”).
Jeff wrote:Maybe we can formally share news stories with them, or cross-publish reviews and tutorials? Maybe it’s as simple as a link exchange. I’m not sure what it would look like, but I want to help out those good sites because I think it will ultimately help BBB too.So… if you know of some really good websites, or have ideas on how we could partner with them, post a reply!
On a final note, I’ve been using del.icio.us. to store IM-related sites. If you’re interested, check out http://del.icio.us/bigblueball/im (sites I’ve tagged with “IM”) and http://del.icio.us/im (sites anyone has tagged with “IM”).
Personally, there are no other general IM sites out there that I visit, or even remember off the top of my head. I think the problem you are faced with is exposure… every Web site wants more exposure (who am I to explain this to a Web developer? :p You might be interested in my occupation in my profile).
I am rebranding fanatic to follow the same road as Windows Live, and it will be turning more into a blog (blogging in general being the closest competition). I’ve found search engines to be my most valuable referrer, for a couple of months this article was visited more than the homepage. I’ve learnt a lot from this and will try to keep that continuing.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it to you before, I’m happy to trade content with you, eg. “share news stories with them, or cross-publish reviews and tutorials“. My philosophy is quality not quantity when it comes to news and content, this usually results in posting bleeding edge news at least a day later than other sites. I believe that those who focus on being the first are usually full of crap and assumptions and often in a very arrogant tone, I just cannot stand reading it.
Thanks for resurrecting this discussion, Daniel. Sounds like you’re taking fanatic in the right direction. In a similar vein, I’m also looking at using a blog for news and allowing guests to comment. If you look at the news stories now, they aren’t too far off from being blog-like already.
Will fanatic also have an RSS feed for stories?
As for being “first” to report — I agree with you. Some websites treat it like a race. That may be true for their audience, but here at BigBlueBall I think most people aren’t rabid about getting it “first at all costs” (even if it’s not 100% accurate). I’d rather have the best coverage rather than the fastest coverage.
Feel free to repost stories from BBB — just be sure to link back to the source and give us credit. I’ll do the same for fanatic.
Jeff wrote:Will fanatic also have an RSS feed for stories?Yes, I am using WordPress 2.0 and am quite happy with it, much better than phpWebSite 0.10 which I’m currently using.
Hi all,
Having just arrived, I’m trying to just READ all this stuff, and “catch up”… but I HAVE to post on this one!I’ve been with WackyB for a couple of years (till I found BBB, and have since been 50/50, but probably sliding more THIS direction now).
My feeling is that WackyB is much smaller, basically a 1-woman band (but very smart gal!) with 2 or 3 good “experts” too – and focuses MAINLY on Yahoo, though certainly covers the others as well. Also focuses heaps on “smileys” etc. 😉
A big difference I’ve always found is how comparatively slow pageloads are here at BBB (I’m on DSL, but usually just at dialup 56k speed).
BUT I must say MY perception is that 4 or 5 months ago WackyB format was revamped (badly, IMHO!) – and since then activity and interest has dropped off quite a bit.
I’m sad about that, personally… but… oh well….
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