As I’ve said before one of the best parts of this project is the connections we’ve forged with people around the world. If you’re out there lurking (and we know you are) we hope that you’ll jump in and join the discussion on places like Twitter and Facebook. Climbing skills are not required!
I’m going to lead you through a few of features of the site, and tools we use, to help you get started.
Social Media
Our Never Stop Connecting social media toolbar at the bottom right side of each page is your primary gateway to the community features. One of the really cool things about these tools is that they not only help you track our progress but through them you can establish your own connections to climbers and other cool people worldwide.
If we have a favorite networking tool it would have to be Twitter. You can see our most recent updates there in the section immediately above the social media toolbar. Twitter allows us to socialize and learn from cool people like @alan_arnette, @helenebarrette, @selves, @kittell, @theclimbergirl, and many others. Sara Lingafelter (aka @theclimbergirl) just posted an excellent piece called Twitter 101 for us outdoorsy types which explains why this relatively small community finds tools like Twitter to be so useful. If you haven’t tried it yet now’s the perfect time. It’s super easy to get started. If you’re still hesitant check out Twitter in Plain English for a super fast, non-technical, video overview.
Flickr is awesome as well. There are so many great climber-photographers and many of them host their work there. Great photography is the draw here but do not underestimate the greater Flickr community – it’s amazing! Climbing, gear, and photography advice started flowing in as soon as we started posting photos. We’d love for you to connect with us on Flickr so that we can see photos and videos of your adventures too. Online Photo Sharing in Plain English provides another great video overview of Flickr and similar services for those of you who are new to the topic.
Our Facebook group is another great way to stay connected and make new contacts. We’ll push some of our photos and videos through the group but it’s also a place where you can discover people who share your interest in climbing. You can even share your own content with the group. Join our group, start connecting with the other members, and you’ll find your personal network growing as well.
Subscribe
You’ll find a link to our Twitter updates here again but there are some additional features. One is the standard RSS feed for those of you who would like to be kept posted through your favorite RSS reader. Our RSS feed collects updates from the website, and our Flickr site, so subscribing to it will keep you pretty well informed. If you don’t already use an RSS reader Google provides a pretty good free one. There is, of course, a great introduction to RSS concepts in the video RSS in Plain English.
We also have a FriendFeed account. The cool thing about FriendFeed is that it allows you to see virtually every update we make anywhere right away. It even, like almost every service we’ve mentioned, has it’s own RSS feed for those of you who really want to stay on top of everything.
Your Stories
Never Stop Climbing is not just about us. We really want to hear about your adventures and successes. We created a section called We Never Stop just to collect those stories. We’ve been blown away by the initial contributions and we hope that they continue to flow in.
Contributing a story is as simple as using this form. Once received, we’ll review it, and let you know if it can be added to the mix.
Start Connected
We haven’t covered every possible way to connect here but this list should be enough to get you started. All of this can seem a bit daunting if social networking concepts are completely new to you but jumping in headfirst is actually the easiest way to get comfortable with the tools. Embrace them, make your own connections, and you’ll quickly understand their popularity. We look forward to seeing out there.
