SK8 Insider: Our new iPhone Application

I came so close with the folks in Sweden at TouchGrind. I think they’ve probably hit over a million downloads…that would have been a very cool platform to sell advertising on!

Yesterday, I signed up for a iPhone template. It’s pretty simple and within 24 hours I got approved from Apple. So now that I have this new app to play with, what do I plan to do?

IMAGES!

When it comes to art and photography, we can’t duplicate the same experience on an iPhone that we can in a magazine. That’s why I LOVE print….BIG GLOSSY PRINTED PAGES!

The fact remains however, that iPhones and other types of social media are great exposure. So rather than try and compete with mags who are sending all their material to the web and iPhones, we’ll create something that helps get exposure for skate photographers and artists.

It’s all about images…text will have to wait for the apple tablet

We plan to feature as many artists and photographers as we can.

If you are interested, email me…

Shops…don’t you get it?

This is from a the homepage of a skate shop in the eastcoast…It sounds pretty promising…

We are here to help out the beginning skater as well as the pro. It’s all about the enjoyment of boarding. We have a wall full of your favorite decks display cases of trucks, wheels stickers and more.

This is why it comes as such a disappointment to find out the following conversation went down.

Today was talking about spacers to the owner of the local skateshop and the owner said he just through them away and that they were useless… I said what about kids who come in for sliding wheels etc… they will want spacers… He laughed and said “if anyone wants any of that longboard crap I just steer them towards something legit“

Wow, with this kind of attitude, is it any wonder WHY:

1. skate shops are dropping like flies…forgetting that the most important thing they can cultivate is a CUSTOMER, not just a reputation for hating anything unique or different

2. internet retailers are CLEANING THE CLOCKS of skateshops.

3. many in the skate industry are puzzled

This just reeks…and shops that don’t practice what they preach will find customers voting with their wallets.

Inclusion and variety - this is what will move skating forward - skate shops who fail to service ALL types of skateboard customers will find they might hit some rough spot.

FYI: Tempest in a teapot (in American English) or storm in a teacup (in British English) is an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion

So, it occurred to me last night as the reaction to the shopkeeper story moved from a “so what?” to “it’s the shopowner’s store, he can choose to make money however he wants” that perhaps I had over reacted.

I mean, it’s just one skate shop owner dismissing longboarding. It’s just one shop owner closing his eyes and mind. It’s just one skate shop owner marginalizing a fellow skater.

But then I thought about how many times a day skaters who don’t conform to what the majority says they should do. I started to think that maybe there were probably millions of moments like this. Sure, it’s no big deal…I mean, it’s just a tempest in a teapot, right? I sense that people are voting with their feet and wallets. They are sick of no choice. They are sick of feeling unworthy simply they don’t ride a conventional skateboard. They are sick of shops making them feel like crap when they ask for something out of the ordinary. So, they are going on line, getting wiser and ordering a TON of stuff.

Watch out for tempests in teacups…sometimes they group together and morph into tidal waves in stadiums….