Last week Tim Miner, the creator of Trail Sherpa, invited me to get in on the action on his site. He’s putting together a team of contributors to the site; it’ll be up to me to make sure everybody plays nice and all their contributions make sense.
We’ll be blogging about gear, great trails and other hike-centric matters.
Why not just do this here on Two-Heel Drive? Mainly because Tim has already gone to the trouble of building a social-networking site designed specifically for hikers, backpackers and others who are into human-powered recreation. Other outdoor sites have social functions tacked on; Trail Sherpa has them baked in.
The advantage to a social-centric site is that it becomes a much better place to hang around and gab with people who speak the same language. Pretty much all the hiking blogs have a Facebook page, but the content is just as dispersed there as it is on the overall Web. It’d sure be nice to have it all in the same place.
Trail Sherpa has a long way to go to make that happen. I’m writing this mainly to say I believe that it can, and to encourage the rest of you to give it a try.
Good to hear you are joining the team. I am sure I will see you there at Trail Sherpa.
Tom, have you checked out Views from the Top (http://viewsfromthetop.com/forums/)? The forums are must read for anyone planning hikes in the White Mountains – especially in winter.
Trip reports can offer a lot of info on trail conditions and what we can expect.
Sometimes I will meet hikers who introduce themselves as their VFTT alias.
It’s one of the best examples of online community that I’ve seen.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Trail Sherpa makes it work.
Okay. I’d like to be a part of this effort. Let’s give it a try.
The key is that folks have to use the tools available there, sharing links, pics and stuff.
The site still has a long way to go but Tim planning tons of upgrades in the future.
Congrats, Tom. Looking forward to checking out that site. 🙂
Congratulations on another great assignment.
You are making a go of becoming a freelance writer.
One of these days I’ll meet you on the trail.
Danny
Thanks for sharing our story Tom. You’re spot on. We’re just in the beginning stages of this journey, but we’ve taken that most important first step. We think the most powerful influence on the direction of Trail Sherpa will come from the members. I have some grand plans, but like the things I’ve done in the past with online communities, the best ideas come from the crowd of friends that gather together. I really excited to see where this all goes. So stop by and jump in to the conversation!
Interesting news. I need to become more familiar with using Trail Sherpa.
First: congratulations Tom!
With all due respect to your present and previous gigs, what makes TrailSherpa different/better? As Joe User, I tend to use these sites at least in part as personal history (where did I go/what did I do back when?) as well as sharing with others, and like with all the other social networks, maintaining a presence on more than one is just asking too much.
So: why TrailSherpa and not, say, Everytrail? (Or do you view those as not really being competitors?)
Steve,
All good questions. These sites are a function of their underlying technology, whose utility is evident only to those who find it useful.
EveryTrail does a few things really well, but plenty of people get along fine without it. And the community features are fringe benefits; they are not its intuitive reason for existence.
Trail Sherpa’s social tools — blogging, sharing, updates and groups — are baked into the site. So that makes it an entirely different animal. It’s more complementary to EveryTrail than competitive.
Right now we have massive social-media overload where everybody wants you to create a new profile and attract a bunch of new “friends” to their sites. In a few years this’ll all calm down and users will find their way to the sites they like.
My opinion about great writing is the same for going to a great movie (relatively speaking of course). Will the content allow me to become engulfed into the moment that I forget where I’m at, and will what was on my mind vanish for a brief time period? If yes then you just found another advocate / supporter.
6 months later, I’m curious to hear how things are going with this. I never figured out TrailShepra or how to participate at all; EveryTrail has seemingly gone dead-quiet since the acquisition (at least among the crowd I followed); Trailspace is steadfastly gear-, not adventure-oriented. Honestly, it still seems like EveryTrail is/was the closest step to a “hiking social network” that I ran into — it seems easier to go from posting trips to posting more general content — but as I said, it feels dead these days.
What are your thoughts nowadays?
 Steve: More probably would have happened at TrailSherpa except that my freelance business took off and I didn’t have enough time to devote to it. However, Tim, the creator, is fashioning it into a network of outdoor-related blogs, so the whole focus has shifted from what we were thinking about six months ago. It has the potential to be a whole new animal unlike everytrail or trailspace in many ways. It might be a couple years until it gels into something new and interesting but Tim is very entrepreneurial and deeply devoted to the concept, so we’ll have to see how it turns out.