ANTSTORE World of Ants

[Pugberto]

I think we need more members of our community to assist beginners and experienced ant farmers alike. I've noticed that not even the mods seem to be very present here either. Should we come up with some form of advertising? Perhaps gorilla marketing? There are many things to do that would improve a site such as this one. And we need to become the true home of ant fanatics on the internet and we need to do it with force.

[SteveUK28]

I check in a few times a day bud and help out when i can.. This site is very fast and has a brilliant search function that everyone should use if they have a questions... and then if they cant find the answer ask.. But if you can come up with some way to get new members then cool

[Pugberto]

It is a standard search system, the reason it is good is because it is a long running community so there's a high chance that most of the normal questions have been answered.

This site hasn't been made in Micosoft Frontpage or Adobe Dreamweaver it has been done with Nuke PHP. It's like a giant template that you get add-ons for and is very common on to find on the web. The customisation is limited on this site sadly, the background theme is set to default. The reason I bring this is up is because of hacking, it is very easy to acquire the software to hack this kind of website. In fact I have it on my Linux, I don't use it because I'm not that sort of person.

I would suggest Gorilla Marketing if the website is unwilling to define a target audience to market towards.

[damondeionno]

Pugberto

Hi mate. I work in marketing. In fact I run my own marketing agency.

First it's guerilla marketing, as in the style of warfare, rather than gorilla which is a great ape.

Second, while I admire your passion for your hobby, I think it's important to appreciate that high level interest in ants is a niche thing. I can assure you that before the internet came along, there was absoutely nothing like the community here. I would suggest that the vast majority of people who are keenly interested in ants will have googled stuff about ants, and they will most likely have come across this site. It's not as if there are loads of competitor sites (not with an English section anyway) that antstore could attract users from. They are a business after all and will no doubt have thought about this stuff.

I think you need to accept that the people here are the people who are interested in ants enough to talk about it - though clearly there are academics who would likely find that some of the discussion is a bit basic. You, me and the other users here are very unusual. There is nothing wrong with that btw.

[SteveUK28]

lol Damon.. i pride myself on not being as usual as everyone

And i do have to agree with everything you have said.. Pugberto.. everyone gets help here so tbh i dont think there is a problem.. We have a great little community here, everyone is friendly and helpfull what more would you want?

[elmnt]

Though I do not post often I read this site very often. I have been reading this site for over a year, but I never really started keeping colonies until recently. There is another ant site I am more active on though, and it's english and everyone is mostly from america, which helps me out alot more than a european site. Another thing, there is alot of info here that isn't in english and it gets annoying translating everything. But, on the other community I go to many don't have an account here, let alone know about this site. So there are some ant fanatics elsewhere, and a good amount do not know about this site.

[damondeionno]

Ah yes, I have been on that US site.

One of the issues there is that Antstore can't sell to the US and there are serious restrictions on importing ants. As a result the discussion is often about very different ants.

There is also an active French forum, and the Germans, they are the people most interested in ants. It seems to be something in the German mentality that makes them take their hobbies very seriously. Ameisenforum has to be the biggest Ant forum, but hey, I don't speak German and using google translate gets frustrating pretty quickly. Still, I have a logon for the photos.

[Pugberto]

I just believe that this is something that more people need to be inspired to do. A lot of hobbies are out there, some are loved by the world all over and some are hidden gems. I find this hobby to be a hidden gem, the best thing is to introduce into a target market. Some concepts that I can think of seem a bit extreme like trying to launch it into the science classroom.

[SteveUK28]

I must admit i now like where this is going.. and Pugberto i dont think your going to extreme at all.. i think ants colonys in a science classroom is a brilliant idea.. and i believe the kids would enjoy it very much. Especialy in junior schools, i have a few nephews of junior school age and they all love watching my ants and have even collected insects for me to feed them. Last summer they even went queen hunting during the mating flights.

I do believe it would be and amazing project for the school kids, and definatly something i would like to be envolved in

[highered]

The search function is good? Before this forum had its revamp I found the forum search useless. I have just checked and it is the same and in German. Though it is true to say alot of the questions have already been answered. I never mind answering repeat questions, afterall I was a beginner once.

[highered]

I don't mean to be rude though.