[Tyll Hertsens]

If you've read my first thread on this subject, you'll know I've been relieved of my executive duties in order to find a way to focus on the things I'm really good at ... being a headphone geek.

Over the last six months we've been working on brushing up our website, and I've spent a lot of time on the writing part of that task. In the process of developing a strategy for our web content, we find that in making the e-commerce site more efficient we have to make it smoother and lighter weight so that ordinary folks don't have to wade through all the content. You guys don't mind large chunks of info, but it gets a little tiring for the average consumer. So we've been discussing alternative outlets for more in-depth articles, and content not directly related to selling.

I'm very happy to pre-announce the first of these outlets, my blog:

Right Between Your Ears

Our gain is the opportunity to get better indexing on a variety of subjects that may lead people to our website, your gain is that in order to do that it has to be a fun and interesting source of information.

Forums, like Head-Fi are great for community building and developing well thought out opinions. But forums are not very good sources of information for the average consumer --- they're too chaotic and noisy, and one must spend a long time there to really get the feel for what's going on.

We wanted to provide a place with some focused and easy to access information that might tickle the fun bone in folks, and draw them farther into the headphone experience. A mini-headphone magazine, if you will. (Maybe not so mini if all works well.)

We want to pre-announce the blog to enthusiastic "insiders" here to get some feedback. I invite you to visit the blog and have a look, then come back and comment here. We're interested in your comments, criticisms, and creative thoughts.

What do you like or dislike? Which articles and why?

What types of articles would you like to see?

Besides traditional blog postings, what other types of features would you like to see at the site?

We don't want to start an traditional open forum for the blog (Head-Fi is much better for that), but are there some interactive forum-like features that might be useful? (For you Linux geeks out there, if we use Drupal are there some capabilities that might bring interesting interactions with readers.)

How can we make money doing this?

This last one can be a bit of a bugaboo. We simply must make the blog self-sustaining over time. We simply can't burden the products we sell with the burden of the blog costs. (Me mostly, but purchases of gear and music for review, bandwidth, cool media production tools, etc too.) I've been reading various articles on monetizing blogs and it can be done, but there's also numerous strategies I find a bit onerous. How would you accomplish this?

So have at it folks, help me be a fun and beneficial voice for the hobby. I can't tell you how excited (and trepidatious) I feel about this, but I feel like I'll need quite a bit of help launching this well. Our goal is to go public Sept 1st.

One last thing, the timing here is slightly wonky, I'm about to leave for two week on a vacation on my bike to AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days (the biggest vintage bike show and race in the states), WestFest (advriders.com forum western states annual gathering), and Sturgis (a clustercurfuffle of greasy Harley's), so I'll only be able to check in here every few days while I'm gone.

Looking forward to your pile-on of comments, ridiculous or sublime and anything in between.

P.S. Here's a little video clip I made for the ADVrider guys my last trip.

Putts : photos : Nothing in moderation

 

[kboe]

Looks awesome Tyll! Like I need more "crack" in this hobby. Oh well, a bigger high is a bigger high.
Kevin

 

[Uncle Erik]

Tyll, if you'd like some interaction, why don't you start posting reviews, comparisons and some general interest articles about headphones from other contributors in your blog?

Any number of people here would be interested in contributing and creating content for you. Eventually, you could have a directory of useful information for people who want to dig deeper. It would also be a useful reference for Head-Fi'ers, since finding relevant information here takes a lot of time if you're not an experienced member.

A big upside to this is that the reviews and articles would probably be regularly linked to in these forums. You'd get more traffic driven from Head-Fi, and that should push up your page rankings, too.

 

[GreatDane]

Tyll,

First of all, I hope you have a safe trip and enjoy!

I did like that spot on the HD 800 driver/theories. I don't have any ideas at the moment but I think your onto something good. I'll be looking for more...

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreatDane /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'll be looking for more...

Go live date is in a coupla months. I'll be writing mostly web stuff 'til then, so you won't see the content change much from now 'til then.

This is mostly the comment period.

Say, how many of you guys Twitter?

 

[blessingx]

A few of us Tweet, but threads on the subject have mostly been on the negative side here. That may change over time (Head-Fi's account in a short time has already collected a decent following). Will say, especially after talking with another recently, it's probably important to keep a separate fun/personal/whatever account and a lower surface-to-noise professional one at a minimum.

While obviously you want to get everyone eventually to the site to buy, it's usually good to get the data to the viewer however he/she more easily consumes it to generate interest in visiting. So besides RSSing the blog, do all content updates to the site, new sales and products, etc. If you get really ambitious whip up a little mobile CSS version of the site. Easy for me to say, but I wouldn't focus on monetizing the blog yet.

I, for one, would love to see products "cross pollinate," on the blog and in the product pages. Customers who bought this, historically bought that. Headroom recommended associated gear. And if you're courageous, customer recommended equipment you may not even sell. Hey, there's still a connection to at least one product and it's worked for other companies.

And yes, the dreaded customer reviews.

However you were asking primarily about the blog, which I barely touched, so I'll just say it's off to a really great start and I just subscribed.

 

[aimlink]

Tyll,

My first impressions have certainly been positive. Your writing style goes a long way in creating the overall atmosphere of the site. My compliments.

Anyway, I found the already published articles to all be interesting and there were some really useful links there. I particularly liked the 'All Music Online Guide'.

The article that explored the 'flesh and bones' of the HD800 was interesting and I'd certainly suggest that an article along that line be a regular feature with regard to a pair of cans or source equipment.

I'd personally be looking out for blog entries regularly covering not only great cans but:

- Fundamentals of different can types with great examples.

Source issues (with examples)
- amp types - a little on the tube/solid state war.
- portable vs full amps (what's for me and what to expect when using one as opposed to another)

DACs
- DACs out there and what's available at HeadRoom to address the various DAC needs.

Power Supplies
- the power supply issue and how to ensure good power to your amps and dacs

Music
Why have all the equipment and then no good recordings to really show up its splendour?

I suggest featuring a particularly great recording for making a good headphone rig shine and where the recording is available.

If the site is to attract and induct the average user, then organising entries so that it's easy to separate the really technical entries from those not so technical.

A 'portable gear' category may be useful since it's a growing market.

As to assessing the usefulness of the site in advertising your products, you could track the hit rate for HeadRoom product pages linked from the blog. You could even provide direct links to the order page and track those?

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Thanks guys, great comments!

We'll be talking about some of them here at HeadRoom, that's for sure.

I'm out tomorrow, o-dark-thirty. Please keep the comments coming, this is a good chance to influence what's going to happen.

 

[erikzen]

I'm a bit of a Tweeter and I like to follow a few people. I find that some of the tweeps I follow almost become part of my routine, for lack of a better word. (I wanted to say part of my life, but that sounds either really geeky, really pathetic, or both.) Fairly regular tweets with interesting insights and links to cool things keep people interested - headphone related or not - and can be helpful in building a relationship.

Stay away from tweets that say things like "Beautiful day in Montana. Just mowed the lawn and ready for a bike ride." A little of that is sometimes good but there needs to be focus. Probably completely obvious but thought I'd mention it anyway.

You can use Twitter to announce new blog postings or new website content, but it shouldn't just be that. The more you tweet, the more followers you get so keep that in mind. Again, probably really obvious but that doesn't stop me from blabbing.

Another obvious thought is using email marketing to drive website traffic. I run a couple of email newsletters and it really boosts traffic. Shoot out a newsletter with a couple of in depth articles, but only publish the first paragraph or so of each and link back to the website to read the article. You can put the articles on a page that is out of the way of the e-commerce flow. Use the sidebars of the newsletter to highlight products or specials.

Facebook is another way of building community outside of the traditional sales channel, but like Twitter, you have to be prepared to make regular updates, build up your base of friends and enjoy interacting with them. You're an interesting guy that writes well so you should be able to build up a good following on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook, Twitter, blog and email newsletter should allow you to get some in depth info out there, while engaging the audience in a non-sales (or long term sales?) way as you continue to build your headphone community.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing how all of this continues to unfold.

Edit: I'm now following you on Twitter. If anyone else is interested:
HeadRoom (HeadRoom) on Twitter

You need some updates though

Also, if you do start using Twitter, try the desktop application TweetDeck. You can use it to update your Facebook status at the same time as well. Some like Seesmic Desktop (basically the same thing, but, er, different) but I prefer TweetDeck. It sets everything up in columns so you can see tweets from all friends, @replies, direct messages and search terms all at the same time. Makes it really easy to add shortened links, retweet and reply as well.

 

[GreatDane]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens /img/forum/go_quote.gif Say, how many of you guys Twitter?

I joined but after 2 days I simply didn't see a use for it...deleted. I'm not knocking it but it did nothing for me.

 

[n_maher]

Yeah, I just don't get twitter at all. For following a live event (like the meet twitter coverage that's happened at least once) I can see it being a fun thing but otherwise I just don't care what random people are up to at random times. I also don't see it as a particularly effective way of getting information conveyed given the limited content each message can contain.

 

[erikzen]

There are some good tweeters out there. I've gotten some good links to info on media (my profession). My the same token I tried following some of my close friends and got bored with notes about him cleaning his yard, etc. Although, when he tweeted from a good restaurant it was nice to get his first hand instant review.

I like John Mayer and definitely felt like I had made a connection to him on some level by getting his tweets. I responded to some questions posted by David Pogue and ended up in his new book "The World According to Twitter".

I work for a magazine and monitor any mention of the magazine on Twitter. This has given me some insight as to what the readers are thinking (and linking to).

Bottom line is I've experienced both the good and bad of Twitter.

 

[cooperpwc]

Tyll, the blog is great. It's freed from being direct product advertising and instead allows you to venture into analysis, speculation, subjective joy sharing and all that good stuff. I'm leaning towards the HD800 as the follow on to my DT880s and the compliments/blame are all yours.
Cheers,
Paul
PS Enjoy the trip and the bikes.