Snowflick is an online community for people who “love the snow” whether pro athletes or just friends and family enjoying the experience. It allows people to upload videos which show others their individual experiences of skiing, snowboarding and hiking in the backcountry. It is targeted specifically towards snow experiences in New Zealand or Kiwis who want to showcase their ‘on snow’ activities elsewhere in the world.
Snowflick offers a range of services. Once signed up to the site, members can upload videos of snow experiences and comment on other people’s videos. The site also offers snow reports for ski fields throughout New Zealand and has links to merchandisers of ski/snowboarding equipment. It is a very interactive site relying on its members to provide video blogs.
People choose to contribute to this community because of a common interest in snow related activities. They want to share their experiences and passion for the sport with other like-minded people. It gives them the opportunity to showcase their talents and also keep friends and family connected with what they have been doing in their spare time via blogging. Members of Snowflick are also encouraged to keep participating if they receive good feedback relating to their video post
Video blogs are updated by Snowflick members and cover individual experiences such as the following:
Marc's blog
quick update
Posted by Marc in Untagged on Mar 31 2009
(Retrieved 15 May, 2009 from www.snowflick.co.nz)
So a bit late again to keep my blog updated but beter late than never. This season was good times over in the states again based in Winter Park which is about an hour and a half from Denver. The kind of mountain that once you get to know it can be alot of fun and has some great terrain. Now that is over im back at uni for one last semester to get my degree sorted and finished and then back down for another season in Wanaka. Till next time.........
As Snowflick relies on people uploading videos and blogging about personal experiences there is the opportunity for misuse of the site. There is evidence already on Snowflick of people using it as a channel to sell their own merchandise (not relating to subscribed retailers). There may also be a reliance on this form of communication to keep others informed rather than more traditional and healthy face to face contact with friends and family.
Benefits of Snowflick in comparison to traditional notions of community are that it allows a person to look in detail at the site and what it offers before committing to being part of the community. Information shared is almost instantaneously seen by others so allows for immediate feedback and dialogue with other like-minded people. This type of community is not reliant on being geographically close to another person for dialogue to take place. It also allows for large amounts of information to be shared which may not be possible amongst a traditional community where people often compete to get their point across.
Online communities can lack the formation of real, honest and valued relationships with other people. There is more opportunity to be offensive towards a person that is ‘faceless’ in regard to the material they put onto the site, and this could potentially have serious consequences for an individuals self-esteem. This community cannot be supportive of a person emotionally unlike more traditional communities. Finally as the site grows in popularity there may be unwanted or unperceived changes that are not favoured by its members resulting in them removing their membership.
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