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ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Just six months ago, three major dotcom ventures - HardCloud, Bluetorch, and the newly launched Swell - were vying for the attention of an estimated 1.7 million surfers (the kind who wear wet suits) in the US. Since then, HardCloud has done the dotcom glub glub, and Bluetorch has slashed its online staff from 40 to 3. Swell, however, is riding a monster wave, logging 10 million pageviews per month from more than 600,000 users.
Such loyalty is rare among this bunch, generally a skeptical lot. "Surfers can smell a rat; their bullshit meter is pretty high," says Swell CEO Jeff Berg.
Swell (www.swell.com)has managed to live up to its name by staying focused on what the Web does best: presenting data-rich, up-to-the-minute information its audience values - in this case, where the best waves are breaking. It does this by drawing on data from weather satellites as well as video cameras positioned at key beaches. The site currently monitors 50 surf spots worldwide, and expects to stream 100 locations by the end of the year.
Prior to launching its surfing operation in October, San Juan Capistrano, California-based Swell - which also runs skateboarding and snowboarding sites - upped its cred by acquiring the popular Surfline, cofounded by 48-year-old Sean Collins, whom Surfer magazine dubbed "one of the 25 most influential surfers of all time."
Surfline began in 1985 as a call-in service that offered reports and forecasts for the California coast; it went online in 1995, and eventually added streaming video from more than two-dozen surfcams to illustrate local reports. It became a staple for serious boarders, who registered their favorite breaks and received email alerts whenever killer waves were headed their direction.
Swell is now pushing the technology envelope further with innovations such as HAL, a proprietary software package that lets the site crunch weather data and ocean-floor topography to provide surf forecasts for underreported areas outside the US.
Collins figures going international makes sense, because no matter where they are, surfers always chase the best waves. "From using satellites to stringing T1s onto beaches," he says, "it's all in the name of surf." -
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