About GoFISHn and Go Sportn Inc
We started Go Sportn Inc to invent new ideas in online marketing and media for enthusiast categories. Our goal is to create rich experiences that serve the small business owner and the amateur enthusiast equally well. Our belief is that the pro is a natural media and marketing machine. He has the stories, the know-how, and the experience that the amateur hungers to hear. With the right help, he can quickly find a willing and engaged audience of potential customers, who, in turn, are potentially prolific media engines in their own right. The result is lots of good information created by people who know distributed to people who care. We think of all this as "where enthusiasts connect," and that sums up the Go Sportn idea pretty well.
GoFISHn is our first launch, and we started here because fishing is a major past time in US, and millions of dedicated anglers across the country spend billions each year on travel, gear, guides and so on -- all for the love of fishing and the outdoors.
We designed GoFISHn to address two of the most common complaints we heard from pros and amateurs about their experiences online. For pros, the problem is the cost and complexity of maintaining an effective presence online -- constant updates, Google optimizations, distribution via RSS, Facebook, Twitter and so on. They don't have the time or expertise for all that. For amateurs, the issue is the chaotic nature of finding and sifting information about fishing -- gear, locations, fishing guides, charters etc. -- on the Web. The information is splintered and the conversations are fragmented.
It happens that the technology and concepts are here today to solve those problems. What we offer pros on the GoFISHn platform is a dramatically more powerful -- and far easier -- way to tell their story, find new customers and stay in touch with existing ones. What we offer amateurs is an easy way to track what's happening with their favorite waters and favorite anglers, whether they are pros or fellow amateurs, as well as contribute their own knowledge and fishing reports. We also make it dead easy to research that next trip. In other words, GoFISHn is "Where Anglers Connect."
We hope we're on to an approach that's genuinely useful, and with luck, GoFISHn will revolutionize the way we use the Web to support our offline passions.
To read about our features, check out our FAQ. And if you're inclined, let us know how we're doing.
-Ned Desmond, President
Go Sportn Inc.
Ned@Gosportn.com
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New Online Firm Launches Website to Help Fishing-Related Businesses and Connect Anglers
New media entity, Go SPORTn Inc., unveils its first site, GoFISHn.com, to revolutionize how anglers and the angling business connect
GoSportn Inc., a start-up social media and technology company, today unveiled its first product, www.GoFISHn.com, a Web platform that aims to establish a large, inter-connected audience of anglers and the angling businesses by making innovative use of Google and Facebook, as well as other online technologies.
GoFISHn is a social media and marketing platform that invites businesses, such as guides, charters, lodges and gear makers, to create powerful, Google, Facebook and Twitter-connected profiles that enable self-publishing of fishing reports, photo galleries, video posts, gear reviews, question and answers and more. Those profiles and updates are highly optimized for search results, which helps businesses get discovered in Google. The updates also pass into the profile-owners Twitter and Facebook feeds. Non-business owners can set up lighter-weight “angler” profiles, and any member may follow any other member’s profile updates. All the information published on the platform is public.
“Fishing is one of America’s greatest pastimes, and the more than 30 million anglers in the United States alone spend $45 billion a year of gear, travel and related services,” says Ned Desmond, President and founder of Go Sportn. “We believe there is an opportunity to create a really large scale site online that reflects the enormous scale and passion of the angling world.“
In addition to profiles, the site offers a deep database of fishing-related businesses, such as guides and charters, and lists those both in a map view and in search results. There is also a special question-and-answer area and gear-review section. The site also offers thousands of pages of detailed, authoritative information from a variety of licensed sources on fish species,
fishing destinations, gear and technique. The design of the site is simple, intuitive and reflects the norms social-giant Facebook has established for social interactions online.
Among the premium features on small business accounts are a custom url, profile analytics, a larger branding area, a “services” section for business details, preferred listing in a variety of ways throughout the site and assistance setting up an account. Business profiles are available on a subscription model, beginning at $24.99/month after a two month free trial. Non-business, “angler” accounts are free.
“What we’ve done,” says Desmond, “is apply elements of Facebook’s success to the marketing challenges of small businesses in the fishing world, and at the same time drawn in a non-business fishing audience to participate alongside the pros. We believe this will create an efficient way for businesses to get more marketing leverage online and for all anglers to tell their stories and show their pictures, too. If in the end we get everyone out fishing more often, GoFISHn will be a success.”
Prior to forming Go Sportn Inc., Desmond was the president of Time Inc. Interactive, the team that conceived many of that publisher’s biggest online successes. He has also held leadership roles at other divisions of Time Inc., Disney and Infoseek.
GoSportn Inc. is a start-up social media and technology company based in California and Maryland. For more information, visit blog.gosportn.com
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