BikingToronto: Information about Cycling in Toronto

posted by Joe on Friday, July 25, 2008 - Permalink

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.

Labels: bikingtoronto, sitenews

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

The BikingToronto July Contest - It's not too late to win something

posted by Joe on Friday, July 25, 2008 - Permalink

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.

Labels: bikingtoronto, sitenews

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

May Community Contest Winners

posted by Joe on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - Permalink

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... :)

Labels: bikingtoronto, community, sitenews

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

May Community Contest Update

posted by Joe on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 - Permalink

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.

I'll be doing the draw soon - but if you're interested in how many entries you have, there's a list posted (fittingly) over on the Community...

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.

Labels: bikingtoronto, community, sitenews

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

The New Maps Section!

posted by Joe on Friday, May 30, 2008 - Permalink

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

Labels: bikingtoronto, sitenews

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

BikingToronto Community Contest!

posted by Joe on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 - Permalink

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.

Labels: bikingtoronto, community, sitenews

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

The New BikingToronto Design

posted by Joe on Thursday, May 01, 2008 - Permalink

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.

Labels: bikingtoronto, sitenews

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

2000 Posts on BikingToronto

posted by Joe on Friday, April 18, 2008 - Permalink

This is post #2000 on BikingToronto!

Whether it's a post on Main page, part of the Photo pages, or the new Events page (along with all the other parts of BikingToronto), I hope you're getting as much enjoyment following the posts on this site as I am compiling all this information for you.

As the about page says, BikingToronto is:

the best place for Toronto cycling information
a positive outlook on all cycling-related events and news in Toronto

If you're new following the site, check out the site map, the blog archives, the categories, the community... there's a lot to see and do here. :)

Post #1000 went up back on August 30th, 2007.

Stay tuned - there's always more good bikey stuff coming on BikingToronto. :)

Happy Biking,

Joe.

Labels: bikingtoronto

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

BikingToronto passes 100,000 Pageviews

posted by Joe on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - Permalink

I knew back in December that the 100,000 mark was coming for BikingToronto, but now that I've gone back and looked at the stats - the site actually hit the mark on or around Christmas Eve, 2007.

This is just a rough guess, as I have a few statcounting programs tracking visitors here and while different, all their numbers are roughly the same. :)

Oh, and I should mention that these 100,000 pageviews are real HTML pageviews - someone actually loading a page in a web-browser. A lot of sites include things like RSS, PHP, CSS, XML and Javascript files being accessed, which pump up statistics a lot but give a very inaccurate view of how much a site is being used, as many of those things (don't worry if you don't know what the acronyms stand for - it's techy gobbledygook) are parts of a larger page.

Anyways - thank you, BikingToronto visitors, for being part of that 100,000.

Joe.

Labels: bikingtoronto

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

BikingToronto's Second Birthday

posted by Joe on Saturday, January 12, 2008 - Permalink

Today is the 2nd birthday of the start of this site. :)

Yesterday I posted a "Looking Back at 2007, Looking Forward to 2008" post that talks about how the site has gone, and gives a glimpse about where it is going.

Labels: bikingtoronto

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

Looking Back at 2007, Looking Forward to 2008

posted by Joe on Friday, January 11, 2008 - Permalink

Tomorrow, January 12th, is the 2nd birthday of BikingToronto. From it's small beginnings to what it is today, it's been online for 2 years.

This works out well for those looking at statistics - comparing 2006 (year 1) to 2007 (year 2) as we begin our 3rd year (2008).

How 2007 stacked up to 2006:

Posts: +100%
(yup, there were exactly two times as many posts in 2007 as in 2006... it wasn't planned that way or anything...)

Unique Visitors: +40%
(Visits, which counts you as one person if you visit, leave and then visit again)

Page Views: +40%
(The average visitor viewed 2 pages on BikingToronto)

Search Visits: +121%
(People who got here after searching for something on Google, Yahoo, etc.)

All these numbers are increasing, which means that you are enjoying what I post on BikingToronto - which leads me to plans for 2008...

Since tomorrow is the 2nd birthday of the site, we're celebrating by improving the site - you'll start to see visual changes when you visit next week, and as time goes on you'll see a bunch of new sections and features on the site that have been planned and thought out over the past couple of months.

I don't want to be too mysterious, so I'll tell you to expect more of everything you expect from BikingToronto, with more ways to search and find all that content. :)

Happy Birthday everyone.

Labels: bikingtoronto, yearly

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share:

Post a Comment

Bookmark/Share: