Are there North American sailors out there willing to contribute to Zulu Waterways?

[Herreshoff]

Australia and other regions are looking so good with great information being added but North America is taking longer. There are other platforms people use for this region but it would be great to see more people adding to this newer platform. How do people find using Zulu compared to the others crowd sourced platforms like AC?

[CaptTom]

With the change in AC ownership, I suspect there are some folks looking for alternatives, just in case. Maybe some promotion on this forum would help.

I notice the web site doesn't do overlays of (free) US nautical charts. That might slow down adoption here.

[Herreshoff]

Thanks Tom. The chart overlay for the US would be easy to add so we might just do that.
When you say promotion on the forum, are you suggesting paid promotion or just putting the word out there in posts?

Thanks for the advice.

[SailRedemption]

We will use it but at the moment we're not cruising. I did a few posts of our local area where I grew up. When we start cruising this summer I'll be sure to add information!

I have the app on my phone and should have it on my tablet soon too. Thanks!

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Herreshoff

Thanks Tom. The chart overlay for the US would be easy to add so we might just do that.
When you say promotion on the forum, are you suggesting paid promotion or just putting the word out there in posts?

Sorry, I was thinking of generating buzz via word-of-mouth. Jeff and Karen of AC were skilled at marketing. I'm not, so if it were me I'd try to figure out how they got AC off the ground back in the day.

But in the end, a loyal customer base is the best marketing tool. I was an early and vocal supporter of AC, and if Garmin doesn't succeed in keeping AC as the industry leader, I'll be doing the same for its successor.

[SV Bacchus]

I'm with CaptTom in that I will spread the word to friends. Since I got clobbered by AC I have been looking for an alternative. I think this may be it if it catches on in this area (Florida Keys, USA).

I registered and am now a user under the name Bacchus.

[Mike OReilly]

Waterway Guide already covers most of cruising areas of the North America, including the Great Lakes, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Caribbean.

It uses crowd sourced input, but also relies on paid workers (cruising editors) who know the areas in question.

Disclosure: I am one of those Cruising Editors.

[SV Bacchus]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Waterway Guide already covers most of cruising areas of the North America, including the Great Lakes, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Caribbean.

It uses crowd sourced input, but also relies on paid workers (cruising editors) who know the areas in question.

Disclosure: I am one of those Cruising Editors.

Mike, I like that as well. I'll probably get signed up tomorrow, the better half says it's time to go eat right now..

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by SV Bacchus

Mike, I like that as well. I'll probably get signed up tomorrow, the better half says it's time to go eat right now..

Good stuff. The nice thing about WWG is you don’t have to sign up to use it.

If you choose to write a review, suggest a change to a marker or offer a nav alert, then it asks for your email address and other details, but that is so one of the editors can confirm things. Unlike a pure crowd sourced service, WWG uses real humans to confirm information before it is posted.

It also has some nice planning tools, as well as weather overlays and easy ways to find marinas or anchorages or some specific services.

[Suijin]

AC benefitted from being the first crowd-sourced platform and it also had decent functionality. As a result, it got to critical mass where there was enough useful information to make it a viable, usable resource.

Being a new entry I think you're going to have to market it fairly aggressively and also recruit some "editors" to help "seed" information. If you can find a few cruisers who are ranging up and down the east coast and through the Caribbean, for example, and compensate them on some level, that would probably be money well spent.

i find the most useful information on AC to be 1) Local knowledge for navigation, including up-to-date hazard/shoaling information 2) anchorage information, and 3) shopping/provisioning information.

[Herreshoff]

Sail Redemption. The information you have shared already is great. Look forward to seeing more from you. I know I say it every time but I love you boat!

Yes word of mouth will be the key as you said Tom. We already have that in Australia and surrounding regions and now thought we would spend some time on the US region. We think our program is nice and familiar to use and it gives a lot of control to the user. There are also more functions on Zulu for posting personal info, adding your location to the map and sharing icon information to facebook etc. So hopefully more in the US take to it if people are looking for alternatives to the current platforms.

Thanks for the interest Bacchus. I will be interest to follow your involvement.

[Herreshoff]

Originally Posted by Suijin

AC benefitted from being the first crowd-sourced platform and it also had decent functionality. As a result, it got to critical mass where there was enough useful information to make it a viable, usable resource.

Being a new entry I think you're going to have to market it fairly aggressively and also recruit some "editors" to help "seed" information. If you can find a few cruisers who are ranging up and down the east coast and through the Caribbean, for example, and compensate them on some level, that would probably be money well spent.

i find the most useful information on AC to be 1) Local knowledge for navigation, including up-to-date hazard/shoaling information 2) anchorage information, and 3) shopping/provisioning information.

Yes we would be interested in some arrangement like that. At this stage we would not be able to compensate initial contributors in any monetary way. It's important to us to keep the site and information on it free from advertising and we don’t want information influenced by sponsoring businesses. We feel it’s essential that what you see on the site is simply the experiences and views of other sailors.

We would be interested in finding local sailors who have detailed blog/log book entries and people who have printed or online cruising guides who would like to cross promote. This could be done by those authors sharing some of their information with a link at the bottom of the icon’s information to their site so their traffic and sales would increase. What do you think about that idea?

I've had some PM's asking for links to the apps and site. Here they are:

www.zuluwaterways.com

iOS
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/zulu...7775442…

Android
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details…

[CaptTom]

For a while AC was offering ball caps after a certain number of entries. Apparently some people actually received theirs. Mine never came. But it seemed to motivate people.

Cross linking might be of value to some. However, the only blogs I've written were for family and friends, with no monetizing expected.

That said, if it's possible to "post date" entries I'd go back through my blogs and photos, and enter some reviews of places I've been in the past. I'd be reluctant to do so if the entries carried the current date, rather than the date I'd actually visited there.

[SURV69]

I was always taught that the first time I want to use a moniker, do not use the moniker ... use the spelled out title, then thereafter use the moniker.

So now.... will someone poleeze tell me what on earth is "AC", ... I always thought it was Alternating Current.

[SV Bacchus]

Originally Posted by SURV69

I was always taught that the first time I want to use a moniker, do not use the moniker ... use the spelled out title, then thereafter use the moniker.

So now.... will someone poleeze tell me what on earth is "AC", ... I always thought it was Alternating Current.

Active Captain