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Quiver: crafting a new home for the surfboard shaper community

I'm totally Psyched ! [OpenSourcery] did some really nice work on the site and I've been nothing but happy with the outcome.
- Michael Paler, owner Swaylock's Surf Shop

For ten years the Swaylock's Board Archive served as a forum for surfboard shapers and surfcraft enthusiasts to share photos, trade tips, and swap stories. Swaylock's Surf Shop owner, Michael Paler, wanted to bring “the art and story of surfcraft to a wider audience” by migrating the Swaylock's Board Archive to a new Drupal-based website called Quiver.

Making the move from a traditional discussion forum to an online magazine format required careful consideration, planning, and implementation. With a clear vision for the new website, Michael needed a team of reliable developers to build the social sharing, discussion, and content display features of Quiver and to simplify the migration of existing user accounts with nearly 2000 user submitted surfboards. He called the custom website shapers at OpenSourcery.

Key Features:

Migration of photos and user accounts
User log-in and sign-up system
Users can submit their own surfboard photos and stories
Categorical display of submitted boards
Custom display of a single user's “quiver” of submitted surfboards
Photos and stories can be shared on major social network sites
User comments system
Site search

The new Quiver Surfboard Chronicles website welcomes a wider audience while enhancing the user-experience for existing members. As Michael Paler explains, “To those who have used or contributed to the Photo Archive, Quiver will seem very familiar and should serve the same function: a place to share and research boards of all shapes, ages and sizes. To those who haven't, Quiver will be an online magazine featuring real boards and real stories written by surfboard shapers, collectors and anyone else obsessed with surfcraft.”

Community and commerce for the #1 progressive radio talk show host: ThomHartmann.com

Building a Multimedia Website as Progressive as Thom Hartmann

When we needed to rebuild our website, we looked around and found at OpenSourcery not only brilliant webmasters and designers but also highly ethical and progressive people who care about the planet and small business. -Thom Hartmann, nationally syndicated talk radio host

Four-time Project Censored award winner Thom Hartmann, named the 10th most important talk show in America by Talkers Magazine, has more than 20 books in print and 200-plus published articles. His daily progressive radio talk show, The Thom Hartmann Program, boasts a community of 2.5 million unique listeners a week and is carried in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and more than one hundred other outlets nationwide. In addition, he produces a half-hour daily TV show, The Big Picture, which is syndicated by Free Speech TV and distributed via Dish Network as well as local cable TV stations.

Clearly, when it came time for OpenSourcery to develop the official site for Thom Hartmann, the challenge would be in building something as diverse and multi-faceted as Thom himself. In response, OpenSourcery designed a site where his vast community can listen to his programs, watch live streaming video, purchase books and merchandise, and subscribe to podcasts.

However, it was also crucial that ThomHartmann.com offer social networking functions to its users. To fulfill this need, OpenSourcery created forums that resulted in an immediate increase in community engagement. Due to OpenSourcery’s efforts, ThomHartmann.com was able to consolidate several different applications into a cohesive site with a single sign-on that was also easy to manage for Thom and his staff. In short, OpenSourcery made ThomHartmann.com a dynamic community where listeners can participate in live chat, post on forums, submit user-contributed content, and get the latest news and information they need.

Key features:

Ecommerce site featuring podcast subscriptions with weekly or annual options
Direct download of podcasts through the web browser or via iTunes
Content delivery network (CDN)
Dynamic member blogs
Highly active message forums
Live chat
Sophisticated moderation and administration tools
Embedded live video streaming of Thom’s daily show
Facebook and Twitter integration
Sophisticated layout and tools to support multiple daily updates and content publishing
SEO optimization

ThomHartmann.com: News. Opinion. Debate. Now Online.

Today, fans of Thom Hartmann can visit ThomHartmann.com to stay plugged in to their favorite talk show host, whether they’re at home, at work, or anywhere they have an Internet connection. Browsing his online store, signing up for his daily newsletter, or creating an online profile is a snap, thanks to OpenSourcery’s Drupal experts.

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