Me and My Trees defected from GW

I think it's great if you can set it up! In addition, anyone here who has the private e-mail addresses of those not yet over here might try to contact them directly. I've sent out many such invitations and now have exhausted my own contact info.

Guy S.

How do we do that? Such a thread might be able to get to the people from the old Fruiting Trees listserve too. Many people seem to have been members at both. How about something like a thread that says Calling GardenWeb GW people to Dave's Garden www.davesgarden.com with the first post including the most popular common names as well as scientific names of plants that we can toss in the first thread. I'll start something and maybe you all can see if you can find it. I don't want to go back there because I'll have to clean up my computer again but can anyone go and peek to see the names of plants that show up the most in their threads? I know Lucky was a member of the listserve and GW and I have his e-mail address so I will contact him but I'm afraid I don't know the others as you people with duo citizenship do.

By far, the most common search that lands people at my site, A Tree Grower's Diary, is variations on "purple leaf plum." Seems lots of people are interested in finding out info on that tree.

After that would be variations on October Glory red maple and Red Sunset red maple, then Greenspire Linden. But the plum page gets about twice as many hits from Google searches as anything else. It's kinda fun to watch what people are searching for, actually. I didn't intend for my Web site to be a little research tool, but it has turned out to be, and it's pretty fun!

Joulz:

Swerving from topic...

Not that you are mercenary or anything...since you wouldn't take me up on the "free link" idea before. Seems like that this is a cottage industry opportunity as a broker, just waiting for you to seize it, with customers coming looking for you.

The species you list as getting the most hits? Four for four on overstock in wholesale nurseries around here -- especially the Acer rubrum clones and Prunus cerasifera. In fact, I toured several nurseries in western KY on Friday (big hello out to melody; cruised through Benton coming and going) and during one ride around the grower repeated no less than a dozen times: "Sure you don't need no plums?"

BTW: nobody should pay full price this year on any ash. They are essentially being given away for fear of 100% loss in case the EAB shows up.

I haven't had any problems with GW. Maybe because I have a fast connection, I don't know. I like GW, too.

Dodemarathon, that's great news, because GW gives the rest of us so many fits we don't go there anymore! So we, your friends and neighbors, hereby elect YOU to go back in and take some prisoners!

When you get there, look up some of the old gang like Saccharum, Lucky, Ptero, Beng, and TreeDoc and bring them back with you. There are a few others too, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment -- somebody give me a hand in identifying the other prime targets who aren't already over here.

But before you do, be sure you know how to de-bug your computer afterwards. Your neighbor Equil probably could help you if you need it. And don't go there if you have ever posted anything there for which you don't want to release the copyright to i-Village, because apparently the mere act of signing on now waives your rights in that regard (per Mike's note above).

Guy S.

GW doesn't work any differently for me than it did 5 years ago or more, when I joined. I just don't find the ads that annoying. I have software that takes care of most of that stuff. If I had a dial up, like I did until last year, I would find it slightly annoying, but no big deal. As an experiment, I de-bugged my computer before and after going to GW. There was NO spyware, no ad ware, no nothing from GW. Sorry. I don't even have to log in every time.

I won't poach people from there. If they're unhappy, they can find their way here via any number of means. Equil knows how I feel about it.

If you'll excuse me...I'm going to go plant some oaks and take cuttings from my fothergilla.

Poaching? You're missing the point. No one has been suggesting a boycott of GW to those who really still want to tolerate it. We're trying to encourage our old friends who still use it to join us here, whether or not they leave GW. Most of us are already over here now, with good reason, and we don't want to leave a few friends behind.

But, just so no innocent people out there are given a false sense of confidence by Dodecatheon's lack of problems with GW: The last time I used GW, I had cleaned my PC first. Then I went there, posted one parting message, and spent several "goodbye" hours looking at all the threads I had missed during my several-month absence. (It took several hours because all the stuff on GW slows down my computer.) Then I logged off, ran the spyware programs again, and found several dozen quarantined files! Maybe Dodecatheon has a firewall that prevents all that. Maybe you all do too -- but why risk it when you have no such problems over here?

As far as GW not having changed since five years ago: Five years ago there were no i-Village ads; there were no floaters; there were no insertions of ads hot-linked to our own posted text; and my dial-up connection could handle GW, albeit much more slowly than it handles DG. I'll leave the copyright infringement issue to others to explain, but that's also a new concern if you post over there.

Finally, logging in here is no different or harder than logging in at GW. Once you set your bookmarks up to go directly to a logged-in opening page you don't need to do it again at either place. Then, of course, there's always the "Go Directly to Disneyland"-type stuff at GW. In my view, no contest!

Guy S.

iVillage (which runs GW) was sold to NBC Universal yesterday for $600 million. Look for more advertising than was already there to start with.

Viburnum Valley,
The little idea of nurseries linking to my site has taken off like wild pears. Now there are FIVE of them doing it. (One asked first.) I haven't done anything about it yet. I'm a pushover. I'm poor. I will always be poor.

Hi,

I also have defected from GW, although I still plan to visit all my friends there. :-)
Julie, loved your website. I love trees and shrubs but don't have a large enough property to add more trees without giving up the little full sun I have now. All the more reason I enjoyed your website.

I did plant a few last year. I put in a Rutgers hybrid Dogwood, and this will be the first spring since I planted it so I am anxious to see it bloom for the first time. Strange, I had that chlorosis problem last year. Since you are not going to use the ironite again, what do you do for that? The Rutgers is supposed to be resistant to that anthracnose, so I will be interested to see how that works out.

I also added two amelanchier trees. Again, planted after bloom last year so this spring will be the first year I see a bloom.

:-)

The deal isn't closed yet. They signed a definitive agreement but they still have a few legal hoops to jump through before the transaction is complete.

Garden Web was but only one of iVillage's holdings.

Perhaps this will better enable you to understand where the "value" to NBC is in such a purchase-
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=90802&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=827018&highlight

Not much I can say other than I don't know if their users will necessarily see more advertising as that might defeat their advertising campaign onslaught by locking up computers... just different advertising. There exist other issues of concern that were already addressed in several threads here. Copyright issues being first and foremost in my mind. I suspect they will ultimately see another re-write of the User Agreement over there in the near future.

I knew something was up when I was asked to consider contributing to their plants database a few months ago and started poking around over there. The only positive result I see from this merger is that NBC does do some excellent reporting and they have been in the forefront on Public Health issues.

Here I am, yet another defector from the Gardenweb Tree Forum. I have been watching your discussion on Davesgarden for about a week and have found you all to be a colorful lot.

David

And a very welcome to you David!

Rick

Welcome David, What are your main interests.

DonnaS

A Hearty WELCOME TO DG! David

Come on in, sit a spell! Hope to see you around the site.

Shoe.

Hello David,
Another hearty welcome to DG from me too!

Hi David -- we missed you! I was happy to receive your message last week so we could get you logged on over here at DG.
How's the weather out there in Orwell?

Guy S.