You and the rest of the guys have done a tremendous job on the site! I flip back and forth between the site and the emails all day long. The outline of the club and all the facets that it covers was timely as I had forgotten(or had not used) some of the things that are available on it. Since i am into a number of differnt makes I have looked at many other clubs. With out question this is the best one I have come across.
I do have some questions.
Do you update the repair section with additional info as it comes on the regular emails? Or do you just let the additional info be found through the search function?
Is there a way to see if the AUTOBiographies in the Imperials By Year section have been updated? For example: I'm interested in all Imperials but specificaly 64-66. I go into the Imperials By Year section , click on 64, then would have to click on each person in the AUTOBiographies to see if they updated or photos added, etc. Then I do the same for 65 and 66. Is there some place that I could see that tells you that something has been updated or added?
How do you come up with the member highlights? Do they contact you or do you look for volunteers? I would love to see more of these.
As long as I'm asking questions, how about linking the sections that show photos and stories of Imperials that are undergoing restorations and are restored into a RESTORATION ARCHIVE?
Thanks for the compliments, guys. You almost made me
blush.
Half of going through Doc's place was an excuse to get
to the buried treasures before anyone else could, and
the other half was about financing my projects while
getting stuff out into circulation.
---
The club website group wasn't aware of the article in
Hemmings unless someone else from our crew was
contacted/quoted and didn't speak up (I have not seen
it yet), but it's nice to be noticed.
---
Speaking of the website,
I'm not certain how many folks are aware of the
tremendous breadth and scope of the work that's gone
on, but I'd like to mention a few points that might be
interesting.
The website is at least 30 gig. Maybe more by now? I
don't know all that much about computer memory, but
that's supposedly a LOT of information:
We have over 300 Imperial magazine articles spanning
70 years
http://imperialclub.com/Articles/index.htm
We have almost every ad ever published that has an
imperial mentioned or pictured.
We have a vast majority of the dealer brochures and
other literature.
We have photos of every bizarre Imp that we've been
able to find in ODDITIES
http://imperialclub.com/Rare/index.htm
We have almost every year's FSM already scanned,
although each is a real bear and takes serious time to
process, so they're not all up yet. Remember that
each one is 400-700 pages, and there are about 40 of
them, so that's about 20,000-30,000 pages of
information. All of it will eventually be available
to any person on the planet with an internet
connection!
We have almost every MTSC booklet from 1947-1973 -
they published one per month during that time, and
each is 16 pages, so that's another 5,700 pages of
information about fixing your car
http://imperialclub.com/Repair/Lit/Master/index.htm
We will soon publish the attendant monthly training
stop-action filmstrips in FULL MOTION, with SOUND -
they're about 100 slides per month, covering 30
years....
We are now publishing FULL MOTION VIDEOS of vintage
films as you've seen appear recently - wait till you
see the one with Uncle Tom and the desert torture
testing! See that and you'll think twice about buying
a late 1950's Cadillac, even if the test was a bit
biased.
We have great parts-number reference material
http://imperialclub.com/Part/Lit/index.htm
Our site is so complete that we often get messages
from people that fail to read or actively think before
writing, who mistake us for a "company" asking to buy
what they see on the site. -Ford pickup truck people
wanting to know more about propane conversions for
their vehicle are a perennial favorite, based on the
article that we have about the one or two people that
have converted their Imperials to propane.
We have tremendous archives that can be searched,
including most of the past IML messages. Now that's
the impressive part, since generally speaking, there's
nothing new under the sun, and somebody's already
dealt with "your" problem before - this is a
tremendous, and perhaps under-utilized asset:
http://imperialclub.com/Search/index.htm
Each item on the club website goes through a
relatively long process to be visible. It is first
bought on eBay (there's at least $20,000 of material
already posted) or donated by a club-member, then it
is scanned, then it is uploaded to a temporary holding
place on the club's server. It is then downloaded by
a different volunteer and electronically massaged so
that it looks like a smooth computer-screen image, and
not like a photocopied/scanned print image. The
difference is striking and you wouldn't notice it, but
every image on the website is processed to a degree
that is several steps beyond what is required (and
it's so good that nobody even knows its there!). It's
also important to recognize that many of the images on
the site are large-format illustrations that won't fit
on a scanner all at once, get broken up into multiple
scans, and are then electronically re-assembled in
photo-shop. Check this beauty out - it was several
seperate scans, and you can't tell!:
This item is about 2'x3' when laid out
http://imperialclub.com/Yr/1952/52FoldOut/Page03-04-reg.jpg
Can you see the seam on this one?
http://imperialclub.com/Yr/1942/42FluidDrive/Page01-02-reg.jpg
The item, once processed, then gets it's own web-page
and is graphically laid out, and in the case of
multi-page booklets, gets its own navigation bar that
points to individual sections. Most items are done in
two or three formats, by the way. Note that there is
a tiny TN or "thumbnail" image, a larger readable
image that pops up on your screen, and a full-blown,
hi-res copy that we have put in place for unknown
future use so that the original item can be re-created
in its original format and size.
I'm the blabber-mouse around here, and the rest of the
guys
http://imperialclub.com/OIC-specific/TeamOfVolunteers/index.htm
sorta roll their collective eyes when I'm out stumping
for new material or pointing out their work in the
WHATS NEW section,
http://imperialclub.com/new.htm
but they're in there all the time, working through all
of our collected material. Thanks for the
sweat-equity, guys!
The end goal is to create an encyclopedic,
reference-grade resource for all things Imperial that
will hopefully last as long as there's someone around
to pay the bills on our server.
At this point, we're well on our way.
How deep are we?
Page-rank in a search engine is a hot topic in
internet conversations, that commercial businesses
spend lots of money on so that they come up as close
to the top of a given search as possible.
Try this: Go to Google and think up three or four
common auto components. Type "engine mount" or
whatever and "chrysler" into the search box. That's
not even within our specialty (Imperial) mind you.
There's a good chance that our club website will be on
the first page, if not the first 5 results. That's
across the entire stinking internet!!!
Maybe I should be more excited about politics or
curbing world population or something, but for
whatever reason, this is what gets me charged up, and
the info above are some of the reasons that I get a
bit nutty about cheering on the team and askingfor
help to support the site. Thanks for reading this
far, anyway.
---
OK - I'm done.
Back to your regularly-scheduled programming.
Kenyon Wills
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