Jump to content

10 Ways You Can Help dr.com


Recommended Posts

1. Visit our sponsors' restaurants, and let the manager or server know (after the meal!) that you're supporting them because they support us.

2. Share and Like threads on Facebook and Twitter. Clicking our own "Like" is a beautiful thing, but it stays internal; the only way we'll ever grow is to get the word out on the internet.

3. Recruit a friend to become a member. If everyone did this, we'd have twice as many members <violins play>, and then it would grow exponentially if it kept happening.

4. Post! Post! Post! We all want to chill and read good content, and posting is hard work, but without our members' posts, we wouldn't have a website - it means everything, and our members are some of the greatest experts there are.

5. Spread the word about DCDiningGuide.com. Rich is working constantly to develop this, with the hopes that our websites will play off one another and develop synergy.

6. Thank Pat, Linda, and all our forum hosts, again, and again, and again. First there was hillvalley, then mktye, then leleboo - these precious gems have kept this engine running over the years.

7. Help get New York active. I'll make you a deal: if you post about your meals in New York, and tell all your friends in New York about us, I'll have a nice surprise for you soon. (And that nice surprise was the Philadelphia forum. Please tell your friends in these cities to join donrockwell.com and become active.)

8. Post in the Professionals and Businesses forum. I *know* this forum alone could sustain this entire website, if only people would take the time to post about their friends, family, and business associates.

9. Volunteer. There are so many dreary, monotonous tasks to keep this website operating smoothly that I can't begin to tell you - relentlessly grooming the slopes of our forums has cured my insomnia.

10. Wish our Members Happy Birthday - Privately. I love the thought of this, but don't like the public thread for it because it become cliquish. Everyone deserves to feel special on their day, so please send a quick PM with well-wishes

11. Thank people for particularly well-written, detailed posts. This can be in the form of the Like button, but also with a brand new post expressing appreciation for particularly laudible effort - I wish we saw more of this.

12. Retweet my Tweets. It takes two seconds, and recruits the massive power of the internet to draw attention to our members' posts (only rarely do I Tweet about my own - start with this one?).

Okay, I lied, and I can probably think of 10 more! :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about posting in ChowHound regularly, and mentioning this site?

For instance if someone posts a review of say Komi that talks about how good or bad something was, a stealth DR'er could pop in and say, "It's funny you mention that because I just read a review in Don Rockwell.com that was the exact opposite"

Or if someone asks about some hot new place, someone could go in and post, "I haven't been there yet, but I really want to based on this review on Don Rockwell.com, www.include-link-to-DR-thread-here "

I know that some folks are not fans of Chowhound, but it's a huge, very well known site, that is probably the first place locals and out-or-towners go to get the low down on the DC food scene. I know I do that when I'm traveling somewhere (as well as looking at the travel forum here). Is there an equivalent of DR.com in say, New Orleans? Probably, but how would I find it if it was named after a person, instead of "The New Orleans Restaurant Forum"? Chowhound has a huge worldwide following, and by dropping little "Don Rocks" in there will surely turn people on to this site.

Just some food for thought (pun intended).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about posting in ChowHound regularly, and mentioning this site?

For instance if someone posts a review of say Komi that talks about how good or bad something was, a stealth DR'er could pop in and say, "It's funny you mention that because I just read a review in Don Rockwell.com that was the exact opposite"

Or if someone asks about some hot new place, someone could go in and post, "I haven't been there yet, but I really want to based on this review on Don Rockwell.com, www.include-link-to-DR-thread-here "

I know that some folks are not fans of Chowhound, but it's a huge, very well known site, that is probably the first place locals and out-or-towners go to get the low down on the DC food scene. I know I do that when I'm traveling somewhere (as well as looking at the travel forum here). Is there an equivalent of DR.com in say, New Orleans? Probably, but how would I find it if it was named after a person, instead of "The New Orleans Restaurant Forum"? Chowhound has a huge worldwide following, and by dropping little "Don Rocks" in there will surely turn people on to this site.

Just some food for thought (pun intended).

Done too often, that would probably annoy the @^*&%* out of regulars on Chowhound.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about posting in ChowHound regularly, and mentioning this site?

For instance if someone posts a review of say Komi that talks about how good or bad something was, a stealth DR'er could pop in and say, "It's funny you mention that because I just read a review in Don Rockwell.com that was the exact opposite"

Or if someone asks about some hot new place, someone could go in and post, "I haven't been there yet, but I really want to based on this review on Don Rockwell.com, www.include-link-to-DR-thread-here "

I know that some folks are not fans of Chowhound, but it's a huge, very well known site, that is probably the first place locals and out-or-towners go to get the low down on the DC food scene. I know I do that when I'm traveling somewhere (as well as looking at the travel forum here). Is there an equivalent of DR.com in say, New Orleans? Probably, but how would I find it if it was named after a person, instead of "The New Orleans Restaurant Forum"? Chowhound has a huge worldwide following, and by dropping little "Don Rocks" in there will surely turn people on to this site.

Just some food for thought (pun intended).

That's how I got here -- following mentions of the DR name on CH. Just saying

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about posting in ChowHound regularly, and mentioning this site?

For instance if someone posts a review of say Komi that talks about how good or bad something was, a stealth DR'er could pop in and say, "It's funny you mention that because I just read a review in Don Rockwell.com that was the exact opposite"

Or if someone asks about some hot new place, someone could go in and post, "I haven't been there yet, but I really want to based on this review on Don Rockwell.com, www.include-link-to-DR-thread-here "

I know that some folks are not fans of Chowhound, but it's a huge, very well known site, that is probably the first place locals and out-or-towners go to get the low down on the DC food scene. I know I do that when I'm traveling somewhere (as well as looking at the travel forum here). Is there an equivalent of DR.com in say, New Orleans? Probably, but how would I find it if it was named after a person, instead of "The New Orleans Restaurant Forum"? Chowhound has a huge worldwide following, and by dropping little "Don Rocks" in there will surely turn people on to this site.

Just some food for thought (pun intended).

You know what? I *really* appreciate this, Bart. But at the same time, I don't think I'd feel right if I knew this was an organized thing (yes, I know, Chow.com is owned by mega-medium CBS, so who cares, right?). I guess as long as we're not trying to pirate their members, there's no harm in a little word-of-mouth marketing, by hook or by crook (he says, fingers in ears, saying "la-la-la-la-laaaaa, la, I can't heeeearrrrrrr youuuuuuuuuuuuuu." :)

I still think the business cards stealthily put in restaurants' restrooms are a fun and harmless way to create some productive mischief - if anyone wants some, I'll print some up and give them out. We discussed this in depth about a year ago (can anyone find the thread?), but then I got blindsided by life and didn't follow through with it.

Done too often, that would probably annoy the @^*&%* out of regulars on Chowhound.

I agree with this.

(Ironically, if someone could count the outbound links to Chowhound on this side, I suspect they'd number in the hundreds, if not higher.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just followed up on suggestion # 3, recruiting a friend/grad of our school who is a great character, currently a bartender at Ancara (he says they are crazy busy for pre theater dining...and his feel is that folks are really enjoying it.) (that is his plug...not mine)

Great character btw: he is featured at AARP magazine here and in our school blog celebrating his change of career

He has a terrific bar personality so if you stop at the bar at Ancara say hi. He can be very entertaining.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

107 users are online (in the past 15 minutes)

31 members, 73 guests, 3 anonymous users (See full list)

Anytime I see 3-digits of members perusing the sight, it's music to my eyeballs and makes everything worthwhile.

(As long as we're here, go ahead and scroll up to the topmost post in this thread (he says, prostituting himself)).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know what? I *really* appreciate this, Bart. But at the same time, I don't think I'd feel right if I knew this was an organized thing (yes, I know, Chow.com is owned by mega-medium CBS, so who cares, right?). I guess as long as we're not trying to pirate their members, there's no harm in a little word-of-mouth marketing, by hook or by crook (he says, fingers in ears, saying "la-la-la-la-laaaaa, la, I can't heeeearrrrrrr youuuuuuuuuuuuuu." :)

It is clear that Chowhound is paying to take from you.

If you search on Google for just "donrockwell" - the first 5 pages have little to do with chowhound. But...

If you search on Google for "donrockwell" + "review" or "restaurant" - by page 3, virtually all the returns are to chowhound, including chowhound sites for cities outside DC that have nothing to do with "donrockwell" at all.

While I have no idea what deal they have, this isn't an accident - as certainly "donrockwell" and "restaurant" should have 20 pages (10 links each) that either link to your site or pull up articles about you (or random sites about other Don Rockwells).

I'd have no qualms about whatever you choose to do relative to chowhound. They seem unique in their coming after you.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So see what I mean, search "donrockwell restaurant" on Google and by the 3rd page, the search is clearly switched to "chowhound restaurant" - even the highlighted terms are chowhound and restaurant.

You probably knew this, or I'm pointing out the obvious. I just wouldn't have any room for high standards with chowhound. Of course, it is a free country and they can spend as they like and all that. Its just clear they are spending to ensure you do less well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So see what I mean, search "donrockwell restaurant" on Google and by the 3rd page, the search is clearly switched to "chowhound restaurant" - even the highlighted terms are chowhound and restaurant.

You probably knew this, or I'm pointing out the obvious. I just wouldn't have any room for high standards with chowhound. Of course, it is a free country and they can spend as they like and all that. Its just clear they are spending to ensure you do less well.

No, I didn't know this. :(

Thanks for pointing this out; I can't compete with CBS and Google, and don't know what to do. I've suspected similar things with other online publications, but haven't specifically noticed anything about Chowhound - you know, it may be because *we* link to *them* so much. And it may be the exact same thing with these other places that I've been paranoid about - Google algorithms are quite complex ... the things that show up on the two Google Ads on our home page are downright scary sometimes. Things that show up on Facebook are even scarier - e.g., I Google searched on a very esoteric pair of expensive headphones, and all of a sudden, ads for places selling them started showing up on Facebook. I get "middle-aged man" ads all the time and it bothers me no end - while that may sound funny, I suspect that similar things happen to everyone else here, regardless of their demographics, all of it based on their online search activity which I strongly feel should be private.

It's ironic, isn't it? We encourage discussion about our competitors, and we get penalized for it. And this may explain why organizations like Eater, The Washington Post, and Washingtonian go out of their way to almost never mention us (can you think of any Post employees who used to post here all the time before they worked there, but rarely post here anymore?). They know what they're doing in terms of being search-engine savvy; I don't, but I'm learning. What to do about it is another issue entirely.

Regardless, I want to encourage everyone here to do the right thing and continue linking to our competitors whenever they feel something is worth linking to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, I didn't know this. :(

Thanks for pointing this out; I can't compete with CBS and Google, and don't know what to do. I've suspected similar things with other online publications, but haven't specifically noticed anything about Chowhound - you know, it may be because *we* link to *them* so much. And it may be the exact same thing with these other places that I've been paranoid about - Google algorithms are quite complex ... the things that show up on the two Google Ads on our home page are downright scary sometimes. Things that show up on Facebook are even scarier - e.g., I Google searched on a very esoteric pair of expensive headphones, and all of a sudden, ads for places selling them started showing up on Facebook. I get "middle-aged man" ads all the time and it bothers me no end - while that may sound funny, I suspect that similar things happen to everyone else here, regardless of their demographics, all of it based on their online search activity which I strongly feel should be private.

It's ironic, isn't it? We encourage discussion about our competitors, and we get penalized for it. And this may explain why organizations like Eater, The Washington Post, and Washingtonian go out of their way to almost never mention us (can you think of any Post employees who used to post here all the time before they worked there, but rarely post here anymore?). They know what they're doing in terms of being search-engine savvy; I don't, but I'm learning. What to do about it is another issue entirely.

Regardless, I want to encourage everyone here to do the right thing and continue linking to our competitors whenever they feel something is worth linking to.

You keep having this notion that Google is linking to Chowhound because of things like

- links from here to Chowhound

- mentions of Chowhound

- your members also using Chowhound.

- Google algorithms are complex

It's none of that. None of that matters.

Chowhound paid Google to bring up Chowhound returns when someone searches DonRockwell (and Site or Restaurant and probably others).

The ads are similar but a little different - they use a combination of your site content and what I've done recently - they are taking a wider context and giving results on more circumstantial elements. Of course every ad is paid for, but how they are chosen is a wash of factors. The Google search uses the terms in the search, plus whatever someone paid for.

As an example, I've never been to a chowhound site. I've never written about chowhound until now. I've never linked to them. Yet, on my search for "Donrockwell restaurant"...after the first few returns the actual search terms are changed to Chowhound and restaurant.

Google's done this for a long time. I don't know the specifics but I'd imagine it costs more and more to move "the line" up - the line where returns become predominantly chowhound and not donrockwell.

My suggestion: Even if you can't afford it, pretend you can and contact google. Explore in depth what you can do to modify the results. They probably have a different answer for Chowhound searches (since they are probably already a client) so pick another site that you want to pay to shift...say dcdining.com....and dig, dig, dig - so at least you understand what the rules of the game are.

Of course, such a search returns your site as the first return. Either Chowhound didn't pay enough OR google knows they can't simply re-direct on the first hit or they become irrelevant as a search engine. I don't know. But I often go a few pages into a search to see trends. I've never seen such an obvious re-direct to chowhound as is happening here.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Note, I'm taking a number of assumptions/guesses above. If someone can replace these with current facts, please do so.

Accurate understanding is most of the battle. Years ago I owned a small internet-only mail order company, so I'm somewhat familiar with this, I'm just not current.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I searched donrockwell + dining, and all of the results on the first page were for this site or dcdining; the last was for chowhound. The next page, they were all mixed, including multiple hits for chowhound.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I googled Donrockwell Restaurant and my 8th link is direct to Chowhound Manhattan, no mention of DonRockwell in the summary. Even funnier is my search suggestions from Google:

post-3189-0-40985200-1374091303_thumb.jp

Bing didn't let me down, though. All DonRockwell related results. If you want to throw your hate in the corporate battle, you should contact Microsoft. I'm sure they would love to see how a small upstart is getting hurt by Google.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I googled Donrockwell Restaurant and my 8th link is direct to Chowhound Manhattan, no mention of DonRockwell in the summary. Even funnier is my search suggestions from Google:

attachicon.gifdonrockwell restaurant - Google Search.jpeg

That's my point. The first few results will be OK, but then it is chowhound. And this is not due to something that's happening here on the DR site.

So why does this matter? People (including myself) look to others for confirmation. This site exists purely on that notion. Google is viewed (generally) as an independent and unbiased search engine that gives confirmations (if I knew the answer, I wouldn't need google...)

BUT....when someone searches on DR and then Chowhound comes up in the dropdown-autofill choices, and then creeps into the search results, eventually (by the 3rd page) accounting for every result....the person searching will tend to think that Chowhound might be the better choice, is a strong alternative - or may simply be the same thing (ie, DR is a ChowHound owned website). Google presents not just a single result, but a broad spectrum of results and Chowhound owns all the colors on either side of the DR rainbow.

And that has some value to ChowHound. And so they pay for it. They have bought some package that says "yes, we understand you will return DR.com....but then after that's done, we want to own all the rest of it. We want the drop down suggestions, we want all the results we can buy."

Don, you could spend 100 years programming this site for Google optimization. Chowhound just writes a check to undo it all.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think there are a combination of factors here not the least of which is the algo is confused about the sites and references.

After gobzillions of searches - do you believe their algo gets confused?

By comparison, Yelp has the level of representation I'd expect - which is to say that yes, it shows up as DR.com mentions Yelp and vice-versa. But that's maybe one or two returns in 5 pages.

By page 2, Google is showing pretty much only Chowhound returns.

Also - as someone else noted - this is for "donrockwell" plus anything - it doesn't have to have to be the word restaurant. Try typing donrockwell +a, +b, +c etc and watch the auto-fills that come up

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting. I Google search for Don Rockwell - two words - and get no Chowhound hits. They only paid for the site name.

When I googled it was as one word (no space), plus dining, and chowhound ended up at the bottom of the first page. So, it doesn't need .com to trigger this effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After gobzillions of searches - do you believe their algo gets confused?

Yes. Google keeps changing aspects of its ranking algo(s). Yes I do think they get confused at times and in that regard give unsatisfactory results to a search. On top of that there are other factors: One of which these days is personalization with regard to anyone's searching habits. For instance if you had searched a lot recently on or for chowhound you might get results with chowhound in the rankings. If I hadn't searched on chowhound, I might not get the volume of responses showing chowhound.

But the results were unsatisfactory for you. Deeply unsatisfactory.

I also don't think google is "selling" the results you saw to chowhound, for a lot of reasons. Mostly the chowhound references started showing after the 10th result, meaning for most searchers they wouldn't be found till the 2nd, 3rd or latter pages. Only a teeny percentage of searchers go to the 2nd page or beyond. One group who does that are "search engine optimizers" (SEO's) I do that stuff somewhat). Researchers look for deep results. People unhappy with the results on the first page turn to subsequent pages. But overall its a tiny percentage of searchers. Another reason is that as I replicated your search(s) I didn't see adds. Nobody is advertising on the DR results that I tried. Finally for whatever chowhound is paying google in adwords I suggest its a pittance. For instance Google has special "relationships with auto manufacturer advertisers, that are huge advertisers (ie Toyota, GM, Ford, etc) but not with huge auto distributors that might generate hundreds of millions or over 1 billion in sales and lord knows how much in google advertising. I believe you have to be an extraordinary mega advertiser to have a "special" relationship with google if at all.

Google might treat results on pages after the first page slightly differently from a ranking perspective in that they aren't seen as much. (Parenthetically at this point I'd add that nobody outside of google knows exactly what they are doing...and probably the engineers that develop and alter these algo's don't know either until the results from a change show--> then they evaluate the results.).

But, you were deeply dissatisfied with the results. That is what counts, at least on a one time basis. In the context of wanting to see many references to DR.com and see what the references might be the google results were deficient while Bing's results were more satisfactory.

I'd send this to google. I'd say your results were deficient. Bing's were better. Maybe I'd start using Bing.

BTW: I think its a shame DR.com results don't show better in google. It's a great read!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@jayandstacey: I agree with you in the context that if you look deep into Bing's results for the search phrase donrockwell restaurants they are "better" in that they far more consistently reference something from dr.com. Meanwhile the deep results for Google don't and do reference chowhound among other things...but definitely a lot of chowhound.

If I were researching the depth and breath of commentary via dr.com bing would be a better place to find good results.

I personally don't think its a money thing. I think google's results have sort of outsmarted themselves in this case. Bing's results provide more references to dr.com. Both of the search results have links to alternative searches that seem related. In google's list though it actually includes a lot of chowhound. If I wanted chowhound results I would have searched on chowhound instead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see Chowhound referenced more on other websites than I do donrockwell.com. That's completely anecdotal, but perhaps that might factor into it.

I'm sure it does as far as the google algo works. Chowhound is a big site with a lot more "web power" as far as google's algo's go than DR.com. Google's and Bing's algo's are different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BTW: I think its a shame DR.com results don't show better in google. It's a great read!!!!!

The Chowhound thing happens to me on Google all the time. My usual workaround is to type site:www.donrockwell.com before the search terms. Easy as that!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another way to find exclusive information from dr.com is to use the following method. It will turn up similar results in either bing.com or google.com:

In the search box type: site:donrockwell.com (space) then whatever you wish to search on.

for instance if I want references to pizza from dr.com I'd type

site:donrockwell.com pizza

You'll find hundreds of references....all from dr.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One (hopefully last) comment on this websearch thing. I agree with how JayandStacey described the google search results for the search phrase donrockwell restauants. Go two or more pages deep into the search results and there is all this stuff relating to chowhound.

Well come on....that wasn't the search term.

There are ways to notify Google that you think the search results are bad. I just used their systemic approach. It works this way:

At the bottom of the page with the results there are some more links. First there are suggestions from google called "related to" Those are suggestions by the algo to other possible searches. Underneath that is an option to go to further pages in google's search results. Beneath that are two rows of links. On the top row on the right is a link to "send feedback". That is your opportunity to tell them what you think about the results.

Its a two part process. You can write what you think about the results. After submitting that there is an automated opportunity to highlight results you think are bad and reflect what you wrote.

I used it. I said the results in total had too little about dr.com and too much about other sites. By the time I got to the fifth page of results I had referenced each of the results as each one was about chowhownd.

Now in all honesty I sent an email to an engineer inside google pointing out the bad results before using this systemic effort. His response was "thanks"

Ha ha. how oblique can one be????? But that is the way they work. They won't tell you anything.

So I used the systemic effort.

They do review these things. They evaluate how people see and feel about search results. If they get a lot of complaints, or they are shamed, or they see your points and agree with them they tend to make changes.

It doesn't happen in a day. (unless you manage to publicly shame their results and everyone sees it) But they do respond to finds like the one jayandstacey discovered. It doesn't mean they will make changes to what any one person wants...but they do review these types of things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wanted to also say that the first 12 pages of the Washington DC Restaurant and Dining forum are now correctly titled and tagged - that's the most-current 600 restaurants discussed (we have about *3,000* in total, all the threads created organically due to member visits), all properly titled and tagged. That has been a *ton* of work, and is only one of about 20 projects I have to work on.

Today, Friday, we had 15 different topics discussed in this forum - my benchmark for a good, strong day is 20. Members, would you mind shooting for 20 a day? That's the number that keeps me going strong. I'd like to get that every single day (or at least every single weekday) as a benchmark; then, after that, to make 25 the new normal.

I want 10,000 members here as the next goal. Insanely, I used to prune old members who had never posted or signed on in a year -  I've pruned thousands over the years - I may still do that one day, but I'd rather figure out a way to bring inactive members back. Would anyone like to volunteer for being on a Member Outreach committee?

And, once again, I have a nice surprise for our membership coming in the near future which is going to be a huge step for us - this has been my summer project, and I'm very excited about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I googled Donrockwell Restaurant and my 8th link is direct to Chowhound Manhattan, no mention of DonRockwell in the summary. Even funnier is my search suggestions from Google:

attachicon.gifdonrockwell restaurant - Google Search.jpeg

Bing didn't let me down, though.  All DonRockwell related results.  If you want to throw your hate in the corporate battle, you should contact Microsoft. I'm sure they would love to see how a small upstart is getting hurt by Google.

I googled donrockwell and don rockwell, separately, and got no Chowhound results in the first two pages.  A lot of this is google looking at your past linking, and I never go to chowhound.

I would love for you to open a private window in firefox and see what your results are

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can add one thing I know to be true: although our viewership is as high as ever, our registrations have dropped way down, and we used to get at least 50% of our members via Google searches; no longer. This could be, of course, due to the ascent of Yelp, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. Visit our sponsors' restaurants, and let the manager or server know (after the meal!) that you're supporting them because they support us.

2. Share and Like threads on Facebook and Twitter. Clicking our own "Like" is a beautiful thing, but it stays internal; the only way we'll ever grow is to get the word out on the internet.

3. Recruit a friend to become a member. If everyone did this, we'd have twice as many members <violins play>, and then it would grow exponentially if it kept happening.

4. Post! Post! Post! We all want to chill and read good content, and posting is hard work, but without our members' posts, we wouldn't have a website - it means everything.

5. Spread the word about DCDiningGuide.com. Rich is working constantly to develop this, with the hopes that our websites will play off one another and develop synergy.

6. Thank Pat, Linda, Jackie, and all our forum hosts, again, and again, and again. First there was hillvalley, then mktye, then leleboo - these precious gems have kept this engine running over the years.

7. Help get New York active. I'll make you a deal: if you post about your meals in New York, and tell all your friends in New York about us, I'll have a nice surprise for you soon.

8. Post in the Professionals and Businesses forum. I *know* this forum alone could sustain this entire website, if only people would take the time to post about their friends, family, and business associates.

9. Volunteer. There are so many dreary, monotonous tasks to keep this website operating smoothly that I can't begin to tell you - relentlessly grooming the slopes of our forums has cured my insomnia.

10. Wish our Members Happy Birthday - Privately. I love the thought of this, but don't like the public thread for it because it become cliquish. Everyone deserves to feel special on their day, so please send a quick PM with well-wishes

11. Thank people for particularly well-written, detailed posts. This can be in the form of the Like button, but also with a brand new post expressing appreciation for particularly laudible effort - I wish we saw more of this.

12. Retweet my Tweets. It takes two seconds, and recruits the massive power of the internet to draw attention to our members' posts (only rarely do I Tweet about my own - start with this one?).

Okay, I lied, and I can probably think of 10 more! :)

13. Sign in as a Member; not as a guest. It matters, and it matters a lot. If you enjoy reading the content of donrockwell.com, please sign up and become a Member - it's quick, free, and absolutely private. Even if you never write a single post, please join, sign in, and stay signed on when you read our content. If nothing else, it gives me the mental strength to go on, knowing that we have a community instead of just a resource - even though readership is as high as ever, our member-to-visitor ratio has been steadily shrinking, and I'm going to have to create Members-only benefits if that trend continues - I don't want to do that. There is absolutely *no* downside to being a member here. Please click here to register, and send me a message when you sign in - I'd like to get to know you. Real names are encouraged, but you don't have to use one.

---

Supporting example, Sunday afternoon at 2 PM:

107 users are online (in the past 15 minutes)

9 members, 98 guests, 0 anonymous users   (See full list)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 And this may explain why organizations like Eater, The Washington Post, and Washingtonian go out of their way to almost never mention us (can you think of any Post employees who used to post here all the time before they worked there, but rarely post here anymore?).

I'm not trying to defend Eater, but I saw Don's post and it reminded me that I was surprised to see my name come up in an Eater report on Kapnos.  They mentioned Don Rockwell and had a link to the DR page.   Eater page: http://dc.eater.com/archives/2013/07/22/the-early-word-on-mike-isabellas-kapnos.php

Screen shot:

post-3390-0-26600800-1375110551_thumb.jp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not trying to defend Eater, but I saw Don's post and it reminded me that I was surprised to see my name come up in an Eater report on Kapnos. They mentioned Don Rockwell and had a link to the DR page. Eater page: http://dc.eater.com/archives/2013/07/22/the-early-word-on-mike-isabellas-kapnos.php

Screen shot:

I guess I'm deluding myself in thinking that dr should be on an equal or higher footing than either the Post or Washingtonian - the reality is that Eater is a business, and business is about sheer numbers, and perhaps even more importantly, public perception of popularity - look how many pictures there are of TV chefs; nothing about Ruta et al. We're also often marginalized next to Yelp, CH, etc instead of getting our own stories. Thing is, though, our numbers are pretty darned high; this is my fault for not providing Eater with an easier feed so they don't have to sift through 1,000 posts a week.

Aside from this, please don't forget about this post. http://www.donrockwell.com/index.php?/topic/19488-10-ways-you-can-help-drcom/?p=234802

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not trying to defend Eater, but I saw Don's post and it reminded me that I was surprised to see my name come up in an Eater report on Kapnos.  They mentioned Don Rockwell and had a link to the DR page.   Eater page: http://dc.eater.com/archives/2013/07/22/the-early-word-on-mike-isabellas-kapnos.php

Screen shot:

I've had this happen too and was also surprised.  Don't like it but it is very understandable and just how things work nowadays for the better and worse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 Ways You Can Help donrockwell.com, Triple-Crown, French-Open, NBA-Finals Rendition (*)

1. Visit restaurants with owner, chef, or manager participation, and let the manager or server know (after the meal!) that you're supporting them because they support us.

2. Share and Like threads on Facebook and Twitter. Clicking our own "Like" is a beautiful thing, but it stays internal; the only way we'll ever grow is to get the word out on the internet. The little "less-than" sign on the top-right is the icon for social-media sharing.

3. Recruit a friend to become a member. If everyone did this, we'd have twice as many members <violins play>, and then it would grow exponentially if it kept happening.

4. Recruit a friend to become a member. If everyone did this, we'd have twice as many members <violins play>, and then it would grow exponentially if it kept happening.

 

5. Post! Post! Post! We all want to chill and read good content, and posting is hard work, but without our members' posts, we wouldn't have a website - it means everything, and our members are some of the greatest experts there are.

6. Thank Pat, Linda, and all our forum hosts, again, and again, and again. First there was hillvalley, then mktye, then leleboo - these kind folks have kept this engine running over the years.

7. Help get New York active. I'll make you a deal: if you post about your meals in New York, and tell all your friends in New York about us, I'll have a nice surprise for you soon. (And that nice surprise was the Philadelphia forum. Please tell your friends in these cities to join donrockwell.com and become active.)

8. Post in the Professionals and Businesses forum. I *know* this forum alone could sustain this entire website, if only people would take the time to post about their friends, family, and business associates.

9. Volunteer. There are so many important tasks to keep this website operating smoothly, and hopefully grow into a national force to be reckoned with - that I can't begin to tell you. Relentlessly grooming the slopes of our forums has cured my insomnia, but I'm fading, my friends, and I need help. Badly.

10. Wish our Members Happy Birthday - Privately. I love the thought of this, but don't like the public thread for it because it becomes cliquish. Everyone deserves to feel special on their day, so please send a quick PM with well-wishes

11. Thank people for particularly well-written, detailed posts. This can be in the form of the Like button, but also with a brand new post expressing appreciation for particularly laudible effort - I wish we saw more of this.

12. Retweet my Tweets. It takes two seconds, and recruits the massive power of the internet to draw attention to our members' posts (only rarely do I Tweet about my own - start with this one?).

13. Sign in as a Member; not as a guest. It matters, and it matters a lot. If you enjoy reading the content of donrockwell.com, please sign up and become a Member - it's quick, free, and absolutely private. Even if you never write a single post, please join, sign in, and stay signed on when you read our content. If nothing else, it gives me the mental strength to go on, knowing that we have a community instead of just a resource - even though readership is as high as ever, our member-to-visitor ratio has been steadily shrinking, and I'm going to have to create Members-only benefits if that trend continues (I have already done this again with the DC Dining Guides, even though I didn't want to.) There is absolutely *no* downside to being a member here. Please click here to register, and send me a message when you sign in - I'd like to get to know you. Real names are encouraged, but you don't have to use one.

donrockwell.com is a free resource and community, with no advertising, one employee (me), the most comprehensive single-city dining guide ever written, no expenses other than website hosting and restaurant reviews, an improvement over a proven business model (e.g. Yelp), obstacle-free scalability, extreme flexibility, and no barriers whatsoever to entering a larger market. We have never spent a penny on advertising, but after ten years, hundreds-of-thousands of posts, and tens-of-millions of views, we're stronger than we've ever been, and poised to take the next step and go national or worldwide whenever the right match comes along. Are you the right match?

(*) Okay, I lied, and I can probably think of 10 more!   :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You need to add, and regularly update, the banner image of the Facebook page, dude.

For some reason, just FYI, NOTHING of this comes up in my FB feed - ever. I wished I had more ability to alter my feed contents (or at least customize 'pages I like' feeds.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You need to add, and regularly update, the banner image of the Facebook page, dude.

For some reason, just FYI, NOTHING of this comes up in my FB feed - ever. I wished I had more ability to alter my feed contents (or at least customize 'pages I like' feeds.

Oh, you're right. I need to figure out how to do that.

You have to "Like" dcdining.com for it to show up on your FB feed; there's a FB "Like" button down on the bottom-left, but nobody ever uses it (plus, that one's on a "thread-level" basis; the "post-level" one is that little "less-than" sign on the top-right - it's kind of a design flaw by Invision: They need to put FB Likes and Twitter Tweets RIGHTNEXT to where people are reading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The other thing I would suggest, though how to do this I have no idea, is to make the community TLDR-mobile-friendly. Probably impossible. One of the things that makes other generic stupid ratings sites so used and popular is not that they have better info (they have lousy info IMO), but rather they make finding places to eat easy, and finding information and ratings easy.

Then again, they got millions and millions in funding to do all that work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The other thing I would suggest, though how to do this I have no idea, is to make the community TLDR-mobile-friendly. Probably impossible. One of the things that makes other generic stupid ratings sites so used and popular is not that they have better info (they have lousy info IMO), but rather they make finding places to eat easy, and finding information and ratings easy.

Then again, they got millions and millions in funding to do all that work.

Oh, there's *no doubt* that mobile-friendly is the way to go; the problem is that this website (other than the Dining Guide), by its very nature, is a desktop community, going for fingertips more than eyeballs, and people are simply not going to type on their mobile phones. Ever. Not here; not anywhere. Does that make interactive, two-way websites a dying breed? Time will tell - content has to come from somewhere, so it needs to be either crowd-sourced like we are, or well-funded so you can pay writers. That said, content has nothing to do with being mobile-friendly - I'm fully aware of this, and have been waiting for an investor to come along so I can pay people to design a better front end, make things mobile friendly, etc. etc. Yelp has us beat in every way *except* for quality of content - that's the one and only thing we have that no other website can ever have without many years of existence, and relentlessly disciplined organization. Scattershot forums become worthless over time. You've seen what happens when established websites attempt to unveil forums, thinking that their readers are going to suddenly begin spending their time typing things in - it never works, and they're always unmitigated catastrophes (Sietsema's Table doesn't even exist anymore; Eater is going to have to make wholesale changes to their disastrous forums). I see this as one of the great conundrums surrounding the entire genre of restaurant-oriented websites - running a forum is unbelievably difficult, and companies grossly underestimate how much work is involved in recruiting and retaining talent (and yes, I consider our members "talent") - it's an incredible amount of work, and it's not mindless work; you've got to be constantly thinking, reacting, and working with a proactive mindset. The good thing for us is that content and usability are not mutually exclusive, and we're one of the only websites that has content - really high-quality, reliable, well-organized content - coming out our ears; usability is the easy part that every restaurant-loving Business Administration or Information Systems major has in their Grand Scheme, but it's something I'll never be able to accomplish by myself - forum management is an entirely separate skill-set, and can be as all-consuming as you allow it to be. I've doubled down on content being king in the long-term, and believe that the current crop of restaurant websites are going to fail unless they can somehow grab their readers and carry them along on a brand new ride - at some point in the not-too-distant future, people are going to get really sick of reading about nothing but restaurant openings, closings, and chef changes. That kind of thing has a place here, but it's ultimately so banal that I look at it as nothing more than an adjunct. As the internet slowly replaces television, video content is going to become the most important thing of all because people are going to want to do the equivalent of plopping down on a couch, opening a beer, and watching TV - I also think that, secondary to mobile viewing, larger-screen viewing is going to become more-and-more important as time goes by (people are not going to want to spend their entire lives squinting at a 3"x3" screen). Mobile is fine for reference, or quick web surfing while you're going about your day; it's ultimately not what people want as a source of entertainment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...