The Future of WashingtonLakes.com

[Anonymous]

As summer is coming to an end, we are hard at work here on the next big thing for WL.com. Earlier this year, on April 27th, we revealed a new website design. The vast majority of our visitors thought it was a great improvement over the previous design. We had great plans for this website that we wanted to include in this design, but we were unable to complete them on time.

Many of you have asked us what a "Premium Membership" is, and why it is mentioned in various places throughout the site. Premium Memberships are an idea that Mike and I have tossed around for a few years now but have never had the time to implement. Until now.

Work has begun on the next evolution of WashingtonLakes.com where Premium Memberships will become a reality. These memberships will not be free. There will be an annual membership fee. We will be adding LOADS of new features to the site, many of them coming directly from requests in this very forum.

Over the next few months I want to share some of the details about the development of things to come and get feedback along the way. This way we can be sure that we get everything just right. We'll want input from you on features that you would like to see, annual fees that you think would be appropriate for the content and services that we will be providing, and even things that are wrong with the current design that should be addressed or completely removed from the new design.

The new design will include everything that our current design has. People that do not want or cannot afford a membership will not be losing anything. All the current features on the website will still be available for free to any registered user with a "Basic Membership". If you have registered for an account with our current site, you have a Basic Membership.

Some of the new features planned for the Premium Membership are:

Create your own Fishing Portal: You can create your own personalized fishing website to store all of your fishing memories. Create photo galleries and upload your best fishing photos. Have easy access to every fishing report you've ever made. Share the link with friends and family and give credit to all of your "fishing stories".

Start a Fishing Blog: Finally! A place where you can talk about what interests you, and you alone. As a bonus, you're completely in charge! Remove or Edit blog replies when the mood suits you. After all, it's all yours!

Generate Detailed Lake Reports: We've got more data in our database about the fishing conditions of Washington's lakes than anyone else on the planet. Period. Only Premium Members have direct access to it. Sure, the data is spread all over the site for free to anyone with a lot of time on their hands, but why take the time to do the work by hand? With our Report Generator you can quickly make reports to suit just about any need. Want to know which lakes, over the last 12 years, within a 20 mile radius of your location, have reportedly had the best fishing during the 2nd week of July? No problem. Or, how about what color of lure and/or kind of bait to use at a particular lake? Done. You choose the data you need, and our system does the rest.

Enable GPS: We've got the GPS coordinates of just about every lake, River, Stream and Creek in the state. You'll be able to find those hard to locate fishing holes with ease. Download custom waypoint files with any or all of the states fishing areas to your handheld GPS unit. Take it with you on your next road trip and you'll never be far away from somewhere to fish. Put this together with our Email Alerts and you can't lose.

Email Alerts: Create your own alerts for things that are important to you and we'll let you know when the site has been updated. For example, you could create a Fishing Report alert that lets you know when a new report has been posted to your favorite lake, river or county. It's up to you how broad or focused your alerts are set.

There are more items in the works, but I think I've listed enough of them to get a conversation going.

Do you like what you see? Are we missing something? Is this whole thing a bad idea? Can't wait to sign up?

Let us know.

Oh, did I mention that we'll be adding WashingtonLakes.com to a "network" of fishing sites that will cater to fishing reports from Oregon and Idaho and that Basic and Premium memberships will work on all 3 sites?

[michaelunbewust]

I THINK YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK WITH THE IMPROVEMENTS. THE PREMIUM MEMEBERSHIP IS A GREAT IDEA. THE ONLY THING I SEE COULD BE BETTER, IS ALOT MORE FISH-INS, LIKE THE BBQ, OR THE FISHING DERBY @ POTHOLES THIS WEEK-END (17 MEMBERS ATTENDING AT LAST COUNT). THIS BRINGS A TOGETHERNESS TO THE MEMBERSHIP. IVE ONLY BEEN ON HERE A COUPLE OF MONTHS, BUT HAVE TAKEN 2 FISHERPEOPLE FROM WL.COM OUT TO MY FAVORITE "HOLES", AND WILL MEET A BUNCH MORE THIS WEEK-END. A BI-MONTHLY FISH-IN WOULD BE AWESOME. OTHERWISE, I THINK YOU OFFER PLENTY FOR ANY PRICE OF A PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP. KEEP ME POSTED. THANKS.

SHIPPER MIKE U.

[bassackwards]

Aaron,

Sounds good. Pretty exciting stuff comin our way. Also sounds like a lot of work....just make sure you leave time for FISHING!!! In our "high tech" world, low tech is sometimes best. I'd just add, keep it simple whatever you do to the site. I think the majority of us jump on to get info or post a report and then jump off. I'd hate to see the "vibe" change on the site because of access restrictions.

I appreciate all your and Mike's hard work to keep this thing up and running strong.

Bassackwards

[Anonymous]

Everything sounds pretty cool Aaron. Nice work. I agree with michaelunbewust on the get togethers. Nothing builds a stronger community than positive personal interaction. I have made good friends on this site but this would not have happened had I not made the effort to get out and meet them. Another suggestion would be more giveaways and contests. Haven't seen a winner for Posting Reports for the Months of August and September. Last one I remeber was July and CK14 got it. Having problems with the amount of Columbia Basin or River Reports? Have giveaways for the most reports posted by a member for the month. Or offer a prize for the best report in these sections for the year. Like I've told Mike before, I have ideas coming out of my ears. Just away to keep things fresh and interesting. On a forum there are only so many questions you can ask and topics you can bring up before things get stagnant. Everyone loves to win free stuff. Another cool thing to do would be to find Pro Anglers on the tour from Washington and have a Pro Spotlight (or interview) or something were they could talk about stuff and give tips to the members of WL.com. Or have this as a Premium Member option. Another guy I thought would be cool to have in the forums talking about stuff is Terry Rudnick. The OG of Washington fishing. Guys like him are great to have around. The only other guys like him at WL.com are Don and Bruce. That I know of. These type of things I think would intrest more people and in turn produce more Premium Members. Just a thought
That's just a little bit of what I'm thinking. I don't want to go on and on because I know you have a lot on your plate already with this upgrade. Let me know if I can do anything to help. I think what you guys have done with the site so far is awesome. Keep it up


fishnislife

[CK14]

Another cool thing to do would be to find Pro Anglers on the tour from Washington and have a Pro Spotlight (or interview) or something were they could talk about stuff and give tips to the members of WL.com.

look no further fishinislife, i'm open for an interview anytime....

sounds like the new WL's is gonna be pretty dang cool! thanks for all the hard work guys!!!

[Aaron]

I'd hate to see the "vibe" change on the site because of access restrictions.

There won't be any access restrictions, at leaste no more than there are right now. We're not thinking about reducing the usability of the website, we're going to try to increase it. Everything that is available to you right now will still be available. The usefullness of the front page will be greatly increased. Just about everything that has changed on the website will be displayed on the front page somewhere. Headlines for recent video additions, new articles, forum topics, blog entries, reports of all types, and news articles will be on the font page... each with a little icon next to them if they are new items since your last visit.

[Aaron]

A lot of you have mentioned having more WL.com sponsored activities. These are great, but very time consuming. I agree that having more of them would be a nice addition and I'll try to think of a way we could have more of them on a regular basis, perhaps on a predetermined annual basis.

[cavdad45]

How much are you figuring to charge for the premium membership? Is it going to be annually, monthly, or a one-time fee.

What is your expected time frame for the updates? Will there be a downtime for the website or will these be added in as they are developed?

[Aaron]

How much are you figuring to charge for the premium membership? Is it going to be annually, monthly, or a one-time fee.

What is your expected time frame for the updates? Will there be a downtime for the website or will these be added in as they are developed?

We have not decided how much yet, only that it will be a small annual fee. One thing we were hoping to get feedback on was how much the users think services and content like this might be worth to them.

We expect to have this new functionality online sometime before May 1, 2008. We will probably bring the site down for a few hours when the time comes to make the switch.

[Mike Carey]

I don't have too much to add from what Aaron has outlined. If you have any "cool ideas" for website enhancement now is the time to share them as Aaron works on the new site code. We are trying with each revision to improve from the previous one. I can tell you that the Beta Aaron is developing is another step in the right direction.

I swear, if I won the lottery or was able to reduce my regular job hours, I would devote my free time to this site. Our challenge is balancing work, family, and website (and go fishing in there somewhere).

I am curious what guys would think is a resonable yearly rate for a paid membership with the above (and a few more) add-ons. Because of book keeping issues, I would expect we will look at 1,2, and lifetime premium memberships.

[A9]

1 year membership: $10
2 year membership: $15
Lifetime: $30

[bassackwards]

I don't have too much to add from what Aaron has outlined. If you have any "cool ideas" for website enhancement now is the time to share them as Aaron works on the new site code. We are trying with each revision to improve from the previous one. I can tell you that the Beta Aaron is developing is another step in the right direction.

I swear, if I won the lottery or was able to reduce my regular job hours, I would devote my free time to this site. Our challenge is balancing work, family, and website (and go fishing in there somewhere).

I am curious what guys would think is a resonable yearly rate for a paid membership with the above (and a few more) add-ons. Because of book keeping issues, I would expect we will look at 1,2, and lifetime premium memberships.

Yearly: $25

Two-Year: $40

Lifetime: $150

Just a tad more than BassMasters, but still cheaper than most.

Just throwin it out there.

[Marc Martyn]

What you have proposed so far looks great. I would go along with Bassackwards fee schedule.

I would really like to have a weather section on the site. Preferrably, Weather Underground.com It has a vast collection of personal weather stations. This is very helpful for different areas. Here is a link to the personal weather stations on wunderground.com for the Redmond WA area. Check it out:

http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps ... &wmo=99999

[Aaron]

I would really like to have a weather section on the site. Preferrably, Weather Underground.com It has a vast collection of personal weather stations. This is very helpful for different areas. Here is a link to the personal weather stations on wunderground.com for the Redmond WA area. Check it out:

http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps ... &wmo=99999

I don't want to get into all the details just yet, but what we have brewing in the weather department will be quite impressive. It's very similar to what the WU link you posted is offering, but integrated with all of our lake and report data. I'll post more details about this part of the new site later when I have something more concrete to share about it.

[cavdad45]

When I submit a fishing report, I like to use the spell check feature before submitting, but on the forums it isn't there or else I'm not computer savvy enough to know the icon. Can we add that to the forum reply page? And guys would you please use it, sometimes the posts are very difficult to decipher.

Did you say you were going to expand the lake coverage to include Oregon and Idaho or were you planning on setting up links to similar sites?

[Aaron]

When I submit a fishing report, I like to use the spell check feature before submitting, but on the forums it isn't there or else I'm not computer savvy enough to know the icon. Can we add that to the forum reply page? And guys would you please use it, sometimes the posts are very difficult to decipher.

Did you say you were going to expand the lake coverage to include Oregon and Idaho or were you planning on setting up links to similar sites?

We'll see what we can do about getting spell check into the forums.

We'll be expanding our own coverage of Oregon and Idaho. Unfortunately, there ARE no other sites like ours. There are other sites that think they have a similar concept, but fail miserably on the delivery. It's going to take a few years to build up any kind of solid report history for these other states, but in time we'll have 2 sister sites just like this one and we'll be creating a new central site that will link them all together. Membership accounts will work across all of these sites.

[cavdad45]

When I submit a fishing report, I like to use the spell check feature before submitting, but on the forums it isn't there or else I'm not computer savvy enough to know the icon. Can we add that to the forum reply page? And guys would you please use it, sometimes the posts are very difficult to decipher.

Did you say you were going to expand the lake coverage to include Oregon and Idaho or were you planning on setting up links to similar sites?

We'll see what we can do about getting spell check into the forums.

We'll be expanding our own coverage of Oregon and Idaho. Unfortunately, there ARE no other sites like ours. There are other sites that think they have a similar concept, but fail miserably on the delivery. It's going to take a few years to build up any kind of solid report history for these other states, but in time we'll have 2 sister sites just like this one and we'll be creating a new central site that will link them all together. Membership accounts will work across all of these sites.

That sounds awesome!!! And you're right about the other sites presently available, they don't come close to this! You and Mike have done a fantastic job here and the people on this site are the best around.

[shawn]

I would pay 15-25 dollars for a year and 25- 40 for two years and life time 75-100.I'm basicaly poor but would pay a reasonable amount for the premium stuff because if it as half as good and cool as it is allready now it would definetly be worth it.

[bassackwards]

I wouldn't put too much time and energy into the "Speel Chick"....(Spell Check) option, after all, we all talk the same and I don't see a lot of people caring about spelling on a fishing website....see below example of how our brains work and why spell check isn't needed.

Ohr mynds ahtayatilly oyyy reid tme fooat avd loiot lqqtwrs of eeeh wpod, tpqts wiy seeel ciopk izz't nqqdqd.

[cavdad45]

I wouldn't put too much time and energy into the "Speel Chick"....(Spell Check) option, after all, we all talk the same and I don't see a lot of people caring about spelling on a fishing website....see below example of how our brains work and why spell check isn't needed.

Ohr mynds ahtayatilly oyyy reid tme fooat avd loiot lqqtwrs of eeeh wpod, tpqts wiy seeel ciopk izz't nqqdqd.

Huh?:-k