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What's In a Name?

Posted by John Stuart-Clarke , 30 May 2012 · 2,049 views

wildphotoforum naturephotohub

I am using this blog article to announce that we will be changing the name of this community from WildPhotoForum to NaturePhotoHub very soon. There, I've said it. I'm very glad to have got that off my chest.

Whilst I am very excited about our new name, this decision wasn't an easy one to make: I have very fond memories of launching this community and choosing the name was a key moment in making it all happen. But I am very comfortable with it now, having kicked it around for quite some time, considering the pros and cons in quite some detail with Kiri and the staff team.

Love it or hate it, the truth is that our current community name comes with a few setbacks. I realised that very soon after I chose it. More fool me for being so hasty.

"Wild" is a word not liked by some corporate network security products... I found this out when I discovered I couldn't access the site from my former employer's network. I wonder if any of you have experienced this? Whilst I don't want to weaken the economy any more than it's current state, I don't want to put up any barriers to access to our community, even if you are all supposed to be busy working for someone else. "Wild" also sounds a bit macho, at least to me, and I think there's too much machismo in nature photography. Finally, "wild" also implies "wildlife", whereas I wanted the site to have a broader appeal, drawing in all photographers who have an interest in natural history. The obvious alternative word here is "nature", which has none of these issues or connotations. So "nature" it is.

"Photo"... well that word is fine. That's what we're about, plain and simply put. So "photo" can stay.

This leads to the word "Forum"... where do I begin. Are Facebook and Twitter killing off forums? Some say they are (I disagree strongly but that's a subject for another article) and perhaps as a consequence of this ever-running debate, the word "forum" now sounds somewhat old-fashioned. It's also too narrow a description for what we offer: currently, our members have access to forums, galleries and blogs and integration with the major social networks. I have plans to blend these elements together more cohesively and fluidly and to introduce new capabilities for members to take advantage of. For instance, I'd like to make more of the user profile page, which is functionally rich but not as visually appealing or intuitive as it should be. Wouldn't it be handy if they could serve as a personalised home page, for example? This train of thought led to the word "hub", which is short and catchy. "Hub" was the hardest word to choose but I warmed to it as soon as Kiri suggested it.

"Nature photo hub"... I like it. Kiri likes it (otherwise she wouldn't have suggested it!). And the search engines will like it too because with this name, our community is exactly what it says on the tin. This is a crucial point because the search engines still bring us the majority of our new members and with such a descriptive name, more people will find us and we will continue to grow.
I realise that there are much bigger things in life than changing the name of this community but I'm still quite excited about it. So raise a glass with me, if you will, to toast naturephotohub :cheers

Russell Ellis

30 May 2012 07:52 PM

sounds good to me !!

ChrisKten

31 May 2012 04:55 AM

Erm... I think I disagree with most of what you said, John; especially the bit about the word "Forum". Some of the largest websites on the net have the word "forum" in the name. Internet and forums sort of go together, at least in my mind. If you just want search engine hits then try "FreePorn"; it works every time

StephenJD

31 May 2012 10:43 AM

I agree with what Chris says. Also for me, this website is all about the forums; the galleries, blogs etc are very much secondary. I use this site to interact with other people with similar interests (nature and photography), to provide useful (I hope) comment on people's photos and to get feedback on my own photos. The word 'forum' tells me exactly that it is an interactive site, the word 'hub' just sounds like it would be a collection of links to other sites. At the end of the day, I'll be here whatever it is called, but I wonder if I would have joined if it was called NaturePhotoHub.

Russell Ellis

31 May 2012 01:18 PM

I agree with what Chris says. Also for me, this website is all about the forums; the galleries, blogs etc are very much secondary. I use this site to interact with other people with similar interests (nature and photography), to provide useful (I hope) comment on people's photos and to get feedback on my own photos. The word 'forum' tells me exactly that it is an interactive site, the word 'hub' just sounds like it would be a collection of links to other sites. At the end of the day, I'll be here whatever it is called, but I wonder if I would have joined if it was called NaturePhotoHub.

mmmm.... must admit that if I was trying to find a site such as this I would go to google and type "nature photography forum"

John Stuart-Clarke

31 May 2012 04:31 PM

With regard to the comment about adding porn-related* keywords to trick people into visiting us... why? I wrote about trying to bring more visitors who are using nature photography related search terms to our site, not fooling people who are searching for something else into visiting this site. Such visitors would leave this site as soon as they realised it was irrelevant to them.

The search engine data makes for interesting reading... like some of you, I used to think the word "forum" would carry a lot of value but we only had 60 visits last month from people using any search term that includes the word "forum" and a good number of those were searching specifically for the name of a competitor's site. That number represents less than 0.5% of all our search engine visits in the same period and this is consistent month by month. So the data indicates that "forum" is not a word people use to search for. Even so, it will still feature quite dominantly in our URLs as it is used as a prefix for all of the forum landing pages.

It's true that this site is currently biased towards forums and that's something that will change over time. The galleries are underused, as are the blogs and the user profiles. And we don't make as much use of the images themselves as I would like to. This is predominantly because forum-oriented technology is based around text, not images. But this trend is changing because of the influence of social networks and image-rich sites like 500px, which although phenomenally successful, does not include a forum (I personally think that's their Achilles Heel). None of this downplays the importance of our forums - rather, I am up-playing the growing importance of the other parts of the site that complement the forums.

If you don't like the word "hub", fair enough... the world would be quite dull if we always agreed with one another

* Please bear in mind not all our members and guests are adults.

Kiri

31 May 2012 04:31 PM

I think its a really exciting move. I believe being more explicitly about nature will make us much more relevant and inclusive. It would be great to attract people who are interested more broadly in nature photography, for example landscape and macro where we are underrepresented. Wild always sounded a bit cheesy to me. You can debate personal taste/preferences for the word forum or hub or anything else for that matter but neither have a great impact from Short-eared Owl perspective: I doubt that many people would spontaneously google "500px" yet the site's grown enourmously. The name is fundamentally about representing the spirit of the site and the vision we're aiming for, and that's something I'm unashamedly passionate about

Simon

31 May 2012 09:41 PM

It's all about what works and what will keep this place thriving and relevant. Like it or not, traditional forums are decaying and many will disappear as the online world continues to evolve. I'm a member of quite a few forums but this is the only one I'll use these days as its innovative and becoming more than just a forum. John, Kiri and the mods know how important it is to keep improving and for this reason I think it'll be around for a long time.

Russell Ellis

01 Jun 2012 07:37 AM

It's all about what works and what will keep this place thriving and relevant. Like it or not, traditional forums are decaying and many will disappear as the online world continues to evolve. I'm a member of quite a few forums but this is the only one I'll use these days as its innovative and becoming more than just a forum. John, Kiri and the mods know how important it is to keep improving and for this reason I think it'll be around for a long time.

Agree with this ! And also think that making the gallery section and user profile pages more prominent will help ....

Paul Whippey

01 Jun 2012 09:57 PM

Just my 2p. But sites like 500px are proof that a name isn't the defining factor to success. Its content and knowing what your audience/userbase wants. However, 500px have lost the plot due to poor design changes recently. Its a very fickle business, best to adhere to the old adage - "If it 'aint broke, don't fix it".

In my humble opinion, this site works as is. You need to spend more effort on exposure. Now, thats the hardest part, especially in photography.

I guess my point is: I fail to see what a rename will achieve.

John Stuart-Clarke

01 Jun 2012 10:13 PM

Hi Paul,

The main reason for changing the name is that I think it better reflects what this community was set up for. Any other advantages are very minor (e.g. a slightly improved search engine ranking for nature-oriented search phrases). But given the minimal cost and effort required to make the change, I felt it was a worthwhile thing to do.