Fake News Stories And The Election Cause Issues For The Classic Boat Community.

fake-news

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You have no doubt heard by now of the issue on Facebook and Google regarding Fake news. News that is written on various websites spewing un truths about all sorts of things. From Election stuff to grow hair in a second. Well, during the election, Facebook and Google started trying to figure out how to weed such things out. And the way they did it, especially on Facebook is to adjust the algorithms so that small news stories are held back, or not shown to everyone on your likes. As in, if you are a small website on Classic Boats lets say, and do a link to your story to drive traffic, Facebook says no. Because it sees it as possibly fake News. And they want to encourage friends connection with friends. If you want to boost a story you can pay. And thus, we are spending money to create content for Facebook, not us. So, this is happening all over the place, and if you are a small boat restorer and wanted to do a story on your boat repair, because of the election, that has been deemed. bad. Sorry. And it is entirely possible that I am not getting the facts straight, making this more fake news. But I can say for sure, about 3 months ago, it was like someone flicked a switch..OFF. The issue here is that Google and Facebook are so huge that they in a sense can control what you read. Little guys like our entire lifestyle can get caught up in the wave of others crap. So you need to stay on top of whats happening out there if you are trying to get the word out.

fake-header

Woody gal on the left. Larry and is “Angels”

Hopefully this little insight helps you out in promoting your Classic boat business or Club. Its a new world out there, which changes weekly it seems. Stay tuned to Woody Boater to find out what the latest news is in the culture of Classic Boating. We may not spell stuff right, but we sure try and make sure its the truth! And yes, Larry is alive and has Alex Watsons Penguins as security!

29 replies
  1. m-fine
    m-fine says:

    Facebook is a horrible platform for most of what people try to use it for. If you are a standard user, you are the product not the customer but don’t expect to get paid for being the product.

    If you are a business trying to maintain customer relationships, you can expect to lose control over the communication process in exchange for turning over your most valuable data to them. Even when you pay, only some of your customers will see your posts and you have no idea how many or why or why not it gets seen. They do provide some great metrics, but they are of course completely fraudulent so they are of little use.

    With so many better options available, I just don’t get the continued obsession with Facebook. It s a deeply flawed platform, move on.

    • Matt
      Matt says:

      Yes it is. I hate it but respect it as a media channel. But still hate it. We are on Instagram more and more because it reaches a new audience. If you are not familier with Instagram, which by the way FACEBOOK owns. Its a cleaner simpler platform and more visual. Join teh Woody Boater instgram account. Its simple and we feature all sorts of stuff not on Woodyboater.

  2. Kerry Pope
    Kerry Pope says:

    Some people think John Stewart is a newsman. Unfortunately , it’s those people who rely on fb for news and information. There are only 3 reliable news sources on the internet: Zerohedge, Brietbart, and the BBC . I have seen some stories posted and later disappear. I do enjoy all of the Woody posts.

  3. Matt
    Matt says:

    Thanks Kerry, you bring up a good point, that we read or watch the news that fits our vision of what we want to believe. Thus the news may not be fake, but slanted towards your vision. People fall into these groups. Sadly the election made this more clear. The difference between Fox News and lets say MSNBC are clear and paint a different vision of the truth. By the way this is as old as time. Its all a sort of Propaganda. Thats not a bad thing by the way, it just is what it is. Controlling the media, and conversation is part of life and the hardest part of writing news and information. For example, here at Woody Boater we filter everything through the eyes of Pro Classic Boats. nothing else matters. If you read us on a regular basis, you would think that owning a Pontoon boat is bad. Where as they are great, and many Woody Boaters own one, for family stuff and they are great party boats. But that sort of thing doesn’t back up our position of Classic boats. So in a way, we too are un balanced. In more ways than one! HA.

    • Jim Staib
      Jim Staib says:

      I never much cared for pontoon boats. But as I get older tastes change. Then the week before the Gull Lake show there was one tied up at the Bar Harbor pier with TWIN 300hp outboards for sale. I wandered over and seen a tag in the $150K range. That cured me.

      • Wilson
        Wilson says:

        Jim:

        Have you seen the pontoon boat story in the current issue of BoatUS magazine.? One with three 250 hp ( That’s 750 hp) Evenrude engines and multiple pictures of boats rated at 250 to 400 hp . A pontoon boat passed Terry and I on Lake Harris two weeks ago during the Sunnyland gathering and Terry’s StanCraft will get up and go.

      • Paul H.
        Paul H. says:

        I made an offer on one of these 29′ Premier’s with twin 300’s and a tiki bar last year but the dealer and I could not come to terms. They are a lot of fun…..

  4. m-fine
    m-fine says:

    I am looking into the penguin idea but I have a few questions. Perhaps most importantly, how does Alex keep them from crapping on the bright work and upholstery?

  5. Warren
    Warren says:

    Penguins are a great idea, but only for the colder northern climates……wouldn’t work down here in the sunshine state

  6. John Rothert
    John Rothert says:

    Like Jim Staib and MFine…I will NOT do the fakebook thing. Just don’t have the time or interest…..rather GO BOATING!

    Sad to see someone put political crap on here today….I agree with the followup post “really?”…….let’s keep this about varnish and engine alignment…other alignments not appropriate.
    Great to see Woodygal posting…been a while …hope to see you in Tavares?

    Happy Thanksgiving to all
    John in Va.

  7. Rick
    Rick says:

    Just so I keep up.
    Wooden boats are and always have been good.
    Fiberglass was bad but some are getting better.
    Pontoons are getting marginal but it’s bad to admit you own one.
    Facebook is bad but we use it.
    Instagram is ok but owned by bad Facebook.
    BBC is good.
    Breitbart is. well depends on who’s speaking.
    Woodyboater has always and will always been good!

  8. m-fine
    m-fine says:

    BBC is not great either. Ask Jeremy Clarkson…oh wait, he is too busy counting all the money he is making after the BBC sent him packing.

    Maybe we can get the Grand Tour guys to do a shootout show with a woody, classic glass, and a pontoon. I see May as the pontoon driver for sure.

  9. Terry H.
    Terry H. says:

    The owner of Premier pontoons has a place on our lake so we the latest and greatest(?) first….This summer was a a 25 footer with three 300 HP Evinrudes on the back..

    I am in the media/digital business and yes I hate FB too..and I do not use it..

  10. Matt
    Matt says:

    We are trying to bring back Walter Cronkite from the deep 6 so we can all watch the news together again! HA.

  11. Scott K
    Scott K says:

    Matt,
    All the more reason to have content on WoodyBoater even if it has been posted on some Facebook page.

  12. Rabbit
    Rabbit says:

    OK, the news discussion is getting dangerously close to violating your no politics policy. That said, Facebook is painful. Instagram rocks. And a confession: I have a secret hidden love of pontoon boats. Ours is technically a deck boat (i/o fiberglass hull on the bottom, pontoon on the front… or like a mullet, half party and half business.) We prefer woody boating by a wide margin, but when you have twelve people and you just want to putt, they have their purpose.

  13. Matt
    Matt says:

    Yes it is, I almost deleted some comments over it, but it was razor thin line. Of course pontoon boats and your confession of Pontoon love is so much more explosive. HA.

  14. Dan T
    Dan T says:

    I prefer to keep it simple. I have a wooden boat made out of wood so when I use the InterWebs I look at WoodyBoater. What’s a pontoon boat?

  15. Kentucky Wonder
    Kentucky Wonder says:

    When most of our woody boats were built, there were very few channels of communication. For anything local, it was a newspaper. For anything national, it was radio, or maybe a couple of television networks, plus a few select magazines. Each channel was important because a high percentage of the intended population could be reached through that channel. Now, there are literally millions of channels. Which is great, because it is so easy to get an enriched message out there to your audience. Text, photos, video, links, high definition, etc. It is truly amazing. Even the classic boating community is split between traditional magazines, both public and club-based, WoodyBoater.com, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, or NONE AT ALL. (Amazing how many people with wood boats never receive any outside communication about “the hobby”)

    The downside of the communication explosion is that each available communication channel has a limited audience, along with tight controls on just what will be communicated through it. There really is no place to reach a majority of us anymore. The whole West Coast could fall into the ocean, and many people in the East would never know it because they are not listening/watching/reading a channel that would broadcast the catastrophic news. So, in some ways, we really are no better off than we were 150 years ago. Those of us trying to advertise our businesses, or to simply get out the news of a fun weekend boat show, are forced to choose through which channels to send that message, because it is too exhausting and expensive to send it through the myriad choices available.

    Bottom line: There is no single, effective way to put out a broad message. You must transmit on as many channels as you can, and hope your audience is there to receive the message.

  16. JFKarlson WF Account
    JFKarlson WF Account says:

    (With all due respect Rabbit) Pontoons? Really? This is dangerous, soul-sucking territory and has no place on a forum devoted to charming yet often impractical forms of floating amusement. I propose a pontoon filter for WB!

  17. Paul H.
    Paul H. says:

    Facebook was quaint and useful when it first got going, but it has morphed into a disgusting slough of re-posted dreck, politicized rubbish and I am not willing to become their “product”. I am unwilling to let their algorithms determine what I see and from whom. I am capable of that myself and I won’t advance their agenda by participating. That’s that.

    I don’t use Instagram because I just don’t care about 99% of what is there and if I care about a certain thing, I can sate that curiosity by simply reaching out. Is it a crime to not really want to see every little photo or whim in your “friends” lives posted on some feed?

    Twitter is the worst of the bunch. It appears by looking at their stock chart that world has figured this out. Most regular people figured it out a long time ago.

    I go to WB to see hobby related stories, and I don’t care if they were on FB or Instagram previously, as I’ll never see them there. WB saves me from having to go to those execrable locales to see hobby content, so keep doing what you’re doing, but drop the exclusivity. The fact that these algorithms have dropped the “reach” of the hobby pages indicates that the need for exclusivity is diminished, as the reach of these pages is apparently reduced, anyway. Maybe the algorithms are giving you the exclusivity you wanted, but in a backhanded way, through choking off the viewership of these small pages?

    Happy turkey day to all my American friends!

    • Paul H.
      Paul H. says:

      PS – I like any classic boat that an owner takes pride in, irrespective of construction material. His pride of ownership and connection is good enough for me. Doesn’t mean I want to own every old boat I see but that’s not the point.

      I also own a pontoon boat (have done for 16 years) and love it. Like John Rothert says, go boating!

    • Chris
      Chris says:

      Ever seen a wooden pontoon? Alan Jackson has one! OK, OK, it’s not entirely made of wood, but enough that it gets points at our house.

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