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This is the third article in the series on my journey in developing downwind.com.au. You can read the previous articles by clicking on the following links:
Part 1 - Development - the business model
Part 2 - Development - getting users
While I was conducting this market analysis I began building the site. My system of choice for the content management system is Joomla. I’ve used Joomla for whizzbangsblog for quite some time and it was ideal for Downwind.com.au for the following reasons:
1. It costs nothing – this is always a good price.
2. There are so many plug-ins that the capabilities of the site can be quickly developed with user demand.
3. It had a number of key plugins that were readily available that would work directly with my strategy. The first was a social networking system and the second was a directory application for recording information about airfields. This same software could later be used for building a directory for the aviation industry.
4. There were some great templates that I could purchase and adapt for downwind that would take away a lot of the developmental cost. Gotta save those dollars!
I dusted off my photoshop skills, put together a number of graphics and began working away at the look and feel for my new endeavour. The site obviously had to have an aviation theme and I wanted to place a heavy emphasis on community while at the same time show that there was a lot of valuable content.
I ended up choosing the Chromatophore template by Rocket Themes as it provided a sliding feature that allowed me to promote the various Downwind services as they were developed and launched. After a few late nights the site began to take shape and I added a few easy to put together sections for articles and aviation links to help provide a sense of substance.
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Articles on my own and other pilot's flying experiences will be a critical part of the site appeal.
Getting writers onboard should relieve some of the strain on self-content generation.
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The biggest challenge was integrating the social networking software JomSocial. It’s fairly new software and there were a number of bugs that required reading the support forums to solve. JomSocial provides much of the same functionality as Facebook and only costs $250 so from my perspective it was a real bargain. I’ve contacted the developers and they are moving full steam ahead with some great new features that should be very advantageous to growing the pilot community.
To get some additional content up on the site I contacted a few of my flying instructors at the local aero club and invited them to contribute articles of a more technical nature. They were more than happy to do this as it enhanced their profile in the aviation industry. They also had a number of products that were looking to sell and I could help facilitate this as a part of the next steps for growth. It is a great win-win for all parties.
In addition to my instructors content I wanted to create a database of information on airfields that pilots would find really useful. The goal here was to add the content and then contact the various airfields inviting them to keep the information up-to-date. This has the benefit of providing content to users as well as engaging the main source of new customers at the airfields. My guess is that only a small percentage of airfields will take part but hopefully it will get downwind.com.au's name around with my target market.
In a similar fashion I’m finalising the formatting of a template that can be used for creating an aviation directory for Australian aviation businesses. There will be free listings available and like the Yellow Pages I will be offering featured spaces for an annual fee. Once the companies are entered into the directory I’m having someone contact each of them and inviting them to take an upgraded listing. This will be one area that I hope will start to generate significant amounts of revenue across time while providing a great service to users.
In the next article I'll go through how much this has all cost and what are the potential revenue lines. This is one of the major reasons why people attempt the developmental Mount Everest!
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