Watto's is 1 year old today!

Just to let members know - Watto's is officially 1 today. A year ago the domain name was registered and work started on developing the site.

And to think a little over two years ago, we were just starting out on the Yahoo groups. We have come a long way! Thanks for all the hard work J1m!!! Now, the big push should be PROMOTION!

Congrats.

I think with the stuff we will be handing out at celebration, we will be starting off the next year right. Hopefully some new recruits will come along. I'm sure we will have another great year!

As we come into the home stretch for the second anniverssary of watto's, I see membership is at a standstill, and MANY of our once strong and supportive forum posters and participants have dwindled down to mearly a handful of the regulars.

For those of you who still take the time to post, I want to thank you. If not for the regulars, I fear the site that James and I worked so hard to bring would no longer be running. Now, Most of the credit does indeed belong to James, as he does all the site updates, edits and changes the home page as needed, and funds the site OUT OF POCKET!

Are there and changes you would like to see? Is there something you feel we are missing? Do you think that due to the ecconomy, a lot of members have just given up collecting?

The main purpose of this site DID start out as a place for us to trade and sell with fellow collectors. We have tried to make the changes to incorporate SEVERAL different aspects of not only the hobby, but the movies, the fans and other collectibles as well. I think it is pretty clear that we will never be Rebelscum.com. But, if you are a member over there, like I am as well, we are really not that different.

We have forums for other areas and interests. We allow photo posting. The mods we have are more relaxed, and won't jump on you for small things, like "Your thread has been edited to include the required headding"

I am at a loss. I have promoted, advertised, talked to collectors from across the country at CV. Handed out buisness cards with the site info as well as personal contact info. I have spoken to (albeit BRIEFLY) to Derry DePriest! Nothing seems to be working, so I am looking for suggestions.

I have made some of the best friends ever here and I've only met one of you in person. I appreciate everything you guys have done for us. Honestly, before WOSW and Watto's, I didn't belong to any collecting sites. I just aimlessly surfed the net and had like ONE friend I could talk about this stuff to, and he didn't even really care much.

Even if four or five of us stay on here and talk, it's fine with me. I know everyone wishes it would blow up but without people pushing the site everywhere 24/7, that may never happen. RS and TFN have been there from the beginning of the internet so of course they have been and will always be popular.

You have to remember, the internet and websites are places where people come and go. I've belonged to several different chat sites and don't even remember most of them anymore. I think the best bet is to fully utilize facebook like the rest of the world is. I mean I have people asking to be my friend on there just because I am a Star Wars/Super Hero fan. I'm pretty sure that is the way to go. Pretty much everyone updates facebook and twitter before they even mess with their sites anymore. I think it's just faster and easier.

Maybe we should think of ways to pump up the facebook page? Also what if we hold a couple of simple contests on facebook? I know the 501st and sandtroopers.com get great turn outs at cons basically because they have simple contests and give away prizes. Maybe we could all pool our prizes and give away a bundle of decent items for maybe a trivia contest or something like that. We could brainstorm it and really push it to all of our contacts on FB. We should also tell them to share it with all of their friends. I mean at the conventions, pretty much the main way to advertise anything is to give something away.

Another idea I have is to mail out actual swag to people who show interest. Maybe make some professional magnets and flyers and whatever we think of. Things that won't cost much to mail. Maybe I could do something with my art like, a free bounty hunter print or something like that. We could come up with an idea for a packet of goodies. I know all this costs money, but I would gladly donate to the cause. I am going to look into getting magnets printed for my own stuff so I'll see how much it will cost. I will gladly pay for and give away some more Watto's stuff at future cons. It's hard to time these things because I wasn't sure if I was even going to some of these. I'll try to get a plan together. I definitely want to have something for Wizard World Chicago in August. I will at least get some nice post card flyers made and hand them out. I just got one hundred of these done for free. I'm pretty sure I can get at least another hundred or so done for Watto's. I think these are 4 x 6 cards.

Thanks guys for the positive ideas and supportive comments

Facebook and Twitter are my aims too. It takes a while to create the graphics for the site and update pages. I thought that we move our trading to Facebook - post what is out there to trade it is more instant and global users can see what to trade. The Watto's facebook page is linked directly to Twitter already.

I have put a post up about the BCA too to guage what is happening there too.

Cards look great Adam

Chat soon

James

I am getting ready to post a pretty good trade / sell update. I will get everything ready, and post to facebook as well as the site here.

I talked to Myles, his interent is down again, so that is the big reason he has not been around. We just finalized a trade that will bring a prized Carrie Fisher Autograph to my ever growing wall of signatures and art work! I will post the pic on facebook once I get it, and maybe if people do see some of the bigger ticket items that can be aquired with a little help, more will be interested.

That's a great idea.