Hi everyone,
Every winter, I generally take stock of BikingToronto and update the design of the site and figure out what's working well and what's working not-so-well.
With the success of the forum, I'd like to add more interactivity to the site to make is as useful for Toronto cyclists as possible... but I need your help.
What do you want to see from BikingToronto in 2010? Is there a feature you wish it had? Have you seen another website (cycling-related or otherwise) with a cool feature you love that could be used for cyclists in Toronto?
Feel free to express and and all ideas here.
If 2010 follows the pattern of the past few years, we are going to see another large increase in cycling on the roads of Toronto... so the more useful BikingToronto is for everyone, the better!
Share your ideas in the Biking Toronto Forum
Posted via web from bikingtoronto's posterous
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Here at BikingToronto, we've decided to add a "How To" section to the site.Lots of sites do this, of course, but we're going to do it a little differently (because we're all a little different, haha). Namely, we're going to let *you* develop the "How To" section.
We're going to do this through the BikingToronto Forum - we've set up a new "How To" section in the forum, and opened the first topic "How to Bike in the Winter" (in honour of yesterday's first snow of the season) for discussion.
Share your tips about biking in the winter. If you have questions about how to do it, you can post your questions in the topic too. It's all about sharing information. When we've got a bunch of information compiled, we'll have a great resource for Toronto cyclists.
Visit and contribute to the How To Section
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We are now halfway through September, so I want to remind everyone about the Community Contest we have going on.It's a draw-type contest, and the more you participate in the BikingToronto Community, the more draw entries you get. It's that easy.
You can win a free, customized BikingToronto T-shirt, a Little Green Book of Big Savings (180 discounts worth over $4,000 in freebies and savings from locally owned and operated restaurants), and some BikingToronto buttons.
All the details are here.
Come to the Community. Win Stuff. :)
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It's time for another Community contest! Over $100 worth of prizes!!!
What kind of contest? How do I enter?
It's a draw. Everything you do in the community in the entire month of September gets you an entry. Post in the forum? Each post is an entry. Share a photo? That's an entry. Write a blog post? That's an entry!
What do I win? There better be great prizes!
The prizes are fantastic. You know they are! We've got over $100 worth of prizes for you!
First off, we've got a free BikingToronto T-shirt for our first winner. Not only is it free, but if you win you get to customize it however you want! Check out "The Anna Shirt", customized by our May Winner (Anna) with a funny Mark Twain quote on the back.
We've got an additional prize this month too... a free copy of The Little Green Book of Big Savings - a great little publication that has 180 discounts worth over $4,000 in freebies and savings from locally owned and operated restaurants, businesses and stores. Thanks to The Little Green Book of Big Savings for the donation of this prize!That sounds great, but what if I post a lot in the community but don't win the shirt or the book?
We've got you covered there too. The top 10 most active members in the community will get a BikingToronto button. Yay! Buttons!!!
I'm not a member of the Community yet. What do I do?
You should join! You know you want to! :)
To finish off, here's a Past Contest Update:
May 2008 - Prizes are being mailed!
July 2008 - The draw is this weekend!
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Here's some updates about the BikingToronto Community for you:
We've broken the 100 member mark, increasing by 34 members (or 50%) in July.
The prizes have been delivered for the May Community Contest, and the drawing for the July Contest is just about ready to go. There will be another contest soon, so don't worry if you missed out on these.
There's a blogging function on the Community - so if you want an easy way to write about biking in Toronto and having an instant audience of 100+ fellow cyclists - then feel free to try it out!
All the best,
Joe.
We've broken the 100 member mark, increasing by 34 members (or 50%) in July.
The prizes have been delivered for the May Community Contest, and the drawing for the July Contest is just about ready to go. There will be another contest soon, so don't worry if you missed out on these.
There's a blogging function on the Community - so if you want an easy way to write about biking in Toronto and having an instant audience of 100+ fellow cyclists - then feel free to try it out!
All the best,
Joe.
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Hi everyone,
So, I'm back from a 2 week vacation in which my wife and I did a lot of relaxing things like go to Wasaga, Stratford, and various parts of the GTA.
I'll be working on catching up on stuff and continuing to make BikingToronto better for you, the reader, over the coming days and weeks. There's some good stuff and improvements in the works, so stay tuned.
All the best,
Joe
So, I'm back from a 2 week vacation in which my wife and I did a lot of relaxing things like go to Wasaga, Stratford, and various parts of the GTA.
I'll be working on catching up on stuff and continuing to make BikingToronto better for you, the reader, over the coming days and weeks. There's some good stuff and improvements in the works, so stay tuned.
All the best,
Joe
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Hi everyone, I'm going to be offline for the next two weeks as I'll be on vacation, but that does not mean BikingToronto won't be updating.
I've set it up so that the Photo of the Day and the From the Archives posts will continue to update every morning - and the top of the main page of the site will have lots of nice automatically updating stuff for your reading pleasure.
If you hear of bicycle related news going on it the city, post about it over in the News Section of the BikingToronto Community Forum, and links to it will show up on the main page as well as on the News page - that way your fellow Toronto cyclists will know about it.
Have a good two weeks. Ride safe, and enjoy the weather. Summer won't last forever.
Joe.
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In case you missed it, there's another BikingToronto Community Contest going on right now. Basically, every time you do anything in the Community - from discussing stuff in the forum, or add photos, or make a Community Blog post... you get an entry into the contest.
What can you win? A personalized BikingToronto t-shirt!
Join the BikingToronto Community. You can win stuff.
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Hi everyone,
I just did the draw for the free BikingToronto t-shirt, using the draw entry numbers above... here's a photo of all the entries in a hat (specifically my Blue Jay hat):
And.... I pulled one out from deep in the hat... and the winner is... *drumroll*.... Anna!!!!!
Anna, you win a free BikingToronto t-shirt, and I'll even personalize it for you if you want. :)
Honorable mentions go to Psyminh, Pouya, Greg Lyttle, Dawn, and Tory, who were the most active members back in May. I'll be giving you guys cute little BikingToronto buttons. :)
I'm not sure the best way to get all these prizes to you... maybe we should start a BikingToronto Community Drinks night? :)
Oh yeah... don't forget I'm planning on doing this again for the month of July... so no worries if you didn't win or just joined the Community... :)
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Hi everyone,
I haven't forgotten about this. :)
I've just tallied up all the entries for the May Contest:
- you got an entry if you were or became a member of the BikingToronto Community in May
- you got an entry every time you posted anything (a forum post, a photo, etc.) in the Community during May.
Each time you see your name, it's an entry in the draw for a t-shirt from the BikingToronto store.
And for those who don't win, or who didn't become a member until June... I'll be running another contest in July. :)
Feel free to join the Community before then though... it's growing slowly but surely... with now over 50 members registered.
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If you haven't already noticed it, last week I renovated the "Maps" section of this site, adding a Bikelane Map to the already well-received Bikeshop Map, and making a nice main Maps Page.This is also part of a BikeMonth campaign between MC Abdominal and BikingToronto to raise awareness of Bicycles Crossing Borders - an organization that donates bicycles to and encourages bicycle use in underdeveloped countries. Their current international project donates bikes to Cuba.
In order to support the work of Bicycles Crossing Borders, Abdominal will be creating a series of public service announcements that will highlight the positive social and environmental impacts that biking can have.For interviews with Abdominal or to learn more about this campaign please contact:
Craig Hill at craig@themusebox.net or 647.436.8423
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I've decided to start a little contest with the BikingToronto Community.
What's the BikingToronto Community?
It's a social network type of thing for BikingToronto. Connect, Discuss, Disagree, Network, and stay up-to-date on what is going on in the Toronto Bike-o-sphere.
What kind of contest is it?
It's a t-shirt contest for the month of May. I'm only one guy (and ad revenue on this site barely covers hosting costs), so let's start out small for now...What can you win?
I'm going to have a draw to win a free t-shirt from the BikingToronto Store. It can be any shirt ... any size and any colour... and I'll even personalize it for the winner if they want.
How do you get chances to win?
Ah, that's the fun (and easy) part!
- Method 1: Join the BikingToronto Community during MAY. Every registered member of the Community gets an entry into the t-shirt draw.
- Method 2: Post stuff in the Community. Discuss stuff in the forum, post bikey photos you may have, even start a Group. Every post you post in the Community is good for another entry in the draw. There's a lot of stuff to do on there, so go nuts. :) This contest runs for the whole month of may, so post away!
Can I win anything else?
Yeah, I'm going to have a couple small bonus prizes (also from the Store) for people who post a whole lot, or those who start discussions / post photos / start groups that get a lot of participation from other members.
Go. Join up. Have fun. Win stuff.
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Hi everyone,
I've redesigned BikingToronto for you.
The goal of the new design is to let you find information about biking in Toronto quickly and easily. After all, there are over 2000 pages (as of May 2008) of information here. They're not going to do anyone much good if no one can find them. :)
Beside the site logo up at the top you have links to parts of the site that will help you find information:
Under that you can see links to the most popular categories of blog posts:
... and a link to the Categories Page.
If you click around a bit, you'll find that each page has different features for you.
For instance, the News Page has links to all recent news stories, as well as news discussion in the BikingToronto Community, as well as links to the News RSS feed and the News Email Newsletter.
The Photos Page has links to all recent photo posts, as well as links to the BikingToronto Group on Flickr, as well as a new feature - Featured Photographers - with our first two - Gabi and Tino.
Look around lots, and do it often. I'll be adding stuff to all the pages over the spring and summer. Lots of new stuff is coming too. Lucky you!
As always, I'd love your feedback on the site. You can leave comments on this post below, or shoot me an email at joe@bikingtoronto.com. Let me know what you like, what you don't like, and what else you think BikingToronto.com should have.
All the best,
Joe.
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