0
sangiro

D4DR Media Acquires Dropzone.com, BASEjumper.com and Rockclimbing.com

Recommended Posts

Heya all,

It's been a while. Those of you who are older than Justin Bieber may remember me... ;)

I have some exciting news to share today. We’ve entered into an agreement to buy back Dropzone.com, BASEjumper.com and Rockclimbing.com. See the official PR below. There are several factors that played in on this decision and that got us to this point. Bringing these sites back into the D4DR Media stable at this time provides us with the best opportunity to improve on what’s been created here over many years and ensure their longevity.

So what will happen next? Right now I don't have a long list of plans lined up to execute. We've been managing these sites as a partner and more recently as minority stakeholder since the day we initially sold them so while the ownership just changed, our involvement really doesn't. I think the moderators and Bryn are doing an excellent job at being available to you guys to help steer the ship in the forums and they will continue to do so.

On a personal note, I’m pretty thrilled about this. I'll be around a little more often again now and I'm looking forward to catching up. :)
Press Release:
------------------------------------------
D4DR Media Acquires Dropzone.com, BASEjumper.com and Rockclimbing.com to Refocus on Adventure Sport Communities

Somerset West (South Africa) August 20, 2012 - D4DR Media announced today that the company will acquire and operate three of the leading sites in the adventure sport category: Dropzone.com, BASEjumper.com and RockClimbing.com.

Willem Grobler, the CEO of D4DR Media, originally founded Dropzone.com in 1994. Dropzone.com merged with Rockclimbing.com in 2005 and in the year after these two sites started operating under the banner of D4DR Media. In 2007 BASEjumper.com was added to the portfolio of leading adventure sport sites .

"I have a personal history with Dropzone.com spanning almost two decades" Grobler was quoted as saying. "Bringing Dropzone.com, BASEjumper.com and Rockclimbing.com back to D4DR Media will give us the opportunity to refocus on the adventure sport niche and reconnect with some old and new friends."

D4DR Media will continue to build on the success of these sites by providing a platform for members to interact, share knowledge, experiences and ideas. Focus will be also be brought to efforts to help introduce new members to these sports by leveraging the reach of new and existing online channels.

"These are well-established communities and the company understands the strong underlying cultures and the industries that support these sports. Social media, new web and mobile platforms and technologies, application based interaction and different form-factor handheld devices have changed how individuals and businesses find and share information," said Grobler. "D4DR Media is looking forward to exploring how to solidify the foundations of these sites but also reinvigorate them to grow these great online communities."

------------------------------------------
About D4DR Media:
D4DR Media CC is a privately held company based just outside Cape Town in Somerset West (South Africa). D4DR Media owns or operates a portfolio of leading adventure sport portals which include Dropzone.com, Rockclimbing.com, BASEjumper.com and Divetime.com. These sites serve the skydiving, rock climbing, BASE jumping and scuba diving communities world-wide by providing platforms for sport participant and industry interaction.

Contact:
Charl Liebenberg
D4DR Media - Marketing Lead
[email protected]
10 Lourensford Rd
Somerset West
South Africa
7130
Safe swoops
Sangiro

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

Quote

hopeful a technology upgrade is coming



With what features?



smartphone friendly
ability to embedded media
new content feature



Content is written by the users... Feel free to write something!

Embedded media and smartphone friendly are oxymoronic. ;)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
:D

no content here is great, just think the technology behind it

by new content I ment like click a button and shows you the new content on the site since your last visit, maybe here just cant find it yet

smartphone friendly I guess is similar to tapatalk forum runner type app support

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the kind words everyone! It certainly is exciting to be focusing on Dropzone.com again. As you'll pick up from the press release, I agree that that devices (phones, tablets etc) have moved on since we were last at the helm here and I agree that we will have to do something about making the site a lot more accessible on those.

Also, the underlying packages used to build these sites are outdated and stale. Chances are we have a pretty big re-platforming exercise somewhere in the near future to set up to make improvements faster and at a lower cost.

As for content - the forums are buzzing, but the editorial content not. It's up to us to change that. If you can or want to write you are more than welcome to PM me. I will however bring somebody on board in the office here who will spend a considerable amount of his/her time focusing on that again.

I'm feeling like a kid with a new (old?) toy and can go on and on about everything I'd like to do but right now I'm a little buried in the transition from NameMedia. The ad server, billing, tracking everything that happens in the background has to come over to our side - for all 3 sites - and that will probably keep my busy for the next week or so.

In the meantime as you may have noticed, we have been doing some template changes on the Dropzones, Gear and Photos section. There's more to come on that and I'll keep you posted.

Drop in on the Feedback and Suggestions and leave me your thoughts on what you'd like to see on the side, changed or added. We're unlikely to implement all of them but I can assure you we will shortly start going through that forum post by post to see what you've been talking about and where you'd like to see us improve.

Keep it coming. :)

Safe swoops
Sangiro

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
0