Adagio overtakes Steepster ?

User avatar
aet
Vendor
Posts: 409
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:56 pm
Location: Kunming ( China )

Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:33 am

User avatar
Bok
Vendor
Posts: 5782
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:55 am
Location: Taiwan

Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:33 am

Yeah I read that as well... seems like that is going to be sudden death for Steepster.

Adagios latest strategy of revival of Teachat seems to have failed spectacularly, even fake accounts and a super motivated marketing person could not reanimate it.
User avatar
klepto
Posts: 488
Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:24 pm
Location: Floridaman, USA
Contact:

Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:14 am

Do they need this much marketing/assistance selling tea, they are becoming the Amazon of the tea world :(
User avatar
hopeofdawn
Posts: 75
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 4:56 pm

Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:20 am

lol, the statements from the Adagio rep: 'misconceptions about Teachat' and 'we would never remove any tasting notes or existing content from Steepster'. Yeah right, and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you ....
User avatar
mrmopu
Posts: 269
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2017 5:48 am
Location: Blacksburg Va.
Contact:

Sat Jul 11, 2020 8:31 am

I am keeping a close eye on the site. That was the first site I ever joined. I hope Adagio doesn't do to Steepster what they did to Teachat. It sucks because I still have a lot of friends over there.
User avatar
Bok
Vendor
Posts: 5782
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:55 am
Location: Taiwan

Sat Jul 11, 2020 8:34 am

hopeofdawn wrote:
Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:20 am
lol, the statements from the Adagio rep:
If I am not mistaken that was the boss :mrgreen:
User avatar
klepto
Posts: 488
Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:24 pm
Location: Floridaman, USA
Contact:

Sat Jul 11, 2020 1:19 pm

I don't know how much tea is selling because of visitors to TeaChat, but its sad when people want legit thoughts on various teas they snatch up the site and slap their ad banners every where and phase out the competition.
Ethan Kurland
Vendor
Posts: 1026
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2017 1:01 am
Location: Boston
Contact:

Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:25 pm

I suspect that about half of online marketing lacks ethics that I think should be commonplace. (For all products.)

The first site that I visited for objectivity regarding tea was Teaviews. Commercial involvement & influence was obvious; yet, reviewers of tea & accessories seemed interested in free samples & diversion. As l came to suspect motives & the usefulness of the opinions on Teaviews, I sent a few questions to the site which were not answered. (It closed soon after.)

In my own life, one of my nieces to whom I was not close (she was born & lived abroad for most of her life before coming to the Boston area several years ago), began to set up a business for me on Facebook. Before everything was already in gear, she had a network of friends praising me. I did not realize this immediately, but when I did I told her to tell them to stop it. Not long after I abandoned the project & decided to just to sell to the few people who know about my tea & the members of teaforum.

Nonetheless, I was punished. My niece had also signed me up with Bigdaddy which cost me some $ at once & one year later because we could not prove that we had disallowed them from automatically charging me for a second year. My credit card company did not take my side at all.

During this period a friend told me to put myself on another host's system which was free. One could work with them for free; however, all the difficulties, limitations, & work involved in using the free option rather than taking their suggestions for doing better by paying a bit; I returned to my life of very little involvement with business & life through the internet.

There is a world where a search for the phone number of Amazon leads to a few scammers with toll-free numbers. How can such frauds be at the top of a list for more than a few hours? Policing the internet takes work & $ I suppose without a direct profit from it. Thus, no ethics....

I was not able to remove myself personally & business-wise from Facebook on a couple of attempts. I feel this is how that greedy business likes it.

Thankfully, not everyone here will abandon us for a bigger audience.
User avatar
klepto
Posts: 488
Joined: Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:24 pm
Location: Floridaman, USA
Contact:

Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:53 pm

Ethan Kurland wrote:
Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:25 pm
I suspect that about half of online marketing lacks ethics that I think should be commonplace. (For all products.)

These days the sockpuppets are out. There's lots of software out there to make it look like you have a large following that loves your products. Adiago's tactics are a bit different but none the less irritating.
User avatar
aet
Vendor
Posts: 409
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:56 pm
Location: Kunming ( China )

Sat Jul 11, 2020 2:58 pm

in my experience it doesn't cost more than 100$ / year to operate such a website with it’s own domain. Decent anti-spam login module is a question of 20-40$.
For keeping away the trollers and maintain the topics out of bad language 1 or 2 mods are enough , and I believe no problem to find 2 trustworthy people for free in such a club.
In my opinion they were just waiting for the best offer , or for any offer at all.
So I would just wonder how much they sold it for?
User avatar
Victoria
Admin
Posts: 3043
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:33 pm
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Contact:

Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:34 pm

Posted a reply on Steepster. There were so many incorrect statements being made that I couldn’t let them slide without clarification.

p.s. I took screenshots of my replies over at Steepster in case the thread disappears.

Noonie
Posts: 360
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:30 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Sat Jul 11, 2020 6:17 pm

Lots of great points @Ethan Kurland and others regarding online business.

I work for a large company with long track record of brick-and-mortar and growing internet presence where a lot of time, money and effort is invested in developing and maintaining an appropriate culture, in particular with regards to selling and marketing to customers. I feel like we’re sometimes raked over the coals for things that when compared to some large online companies are more minor in nature. All business need oversight bodies that are appropriately funded with sound frameworks from which to review the companies they oversee.

The internet is one large, very sharp double-edged sword ⚔️
User avatar
hopeofdawn
Posts: 75
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2018 4:56 pm

Sat Jul 11, 2020 6:38 pm

Wow. 'un-American'? 'Illiberal'? WTF?

And great replies, Victoria--you were a lot nicer than I would have been in that situation.
User avatar
Victoria
Admin
Posts: 3043
Joined: Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:33 pm
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Contact:

Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:38 pm

hopeofdawn wrote:
Sat Jul 11, 2020 6:38 pm
Wow. 'un-American'? 'Illiberal'? WTF?

And great replies, Victoria--you were a lot nicer than I would have been in that situation.
Thank you, just wanted to set the record straight publicly, and hopefully have Steepster thrive. Adagio’s comments were incorrect and misleading, not sure though if that was intentional, or just poor management and lack of oversight of staff by owners, leading them to not really know what was transpiring at TC.
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:06 pm

That might not actually be a bad fit if they can tackle Steepster's spam problem, especially if they can preserve the archives. People will need to keep an eye out for dodgy reviews, of course, but this may actually be an improvement over Steepster in its current form.

For folks who want a Steepster without Steepster, the early schism RateTea is still up, I think.
Post Reply