UPDATED: Thur. April 30, 2009
The deadline is today for entering your video! Put it up on YouTube and send me your link. Thanks to the contestants who have taken the time to enter. Good luck!
Check out Cutlery News Journal’s YouTube Channel for the entries as they come in. I’m linking them to the 2009 My Favorite Knife Video Playlist.
The rules and instructions are linked below.
Everyone has a favorite knife. And I haven’t met a knife owner who doesn’t get excited and want to tell about it.
One of the benefits of the web is information can be exchanged easily and with just a few clicks you have the opportunity to help shape the direction of the knife collector industry.
If you have participated in a CNJ survey, you know my goal is simply to develop initiatives, topics or, in some cases, platforms to get the Establishment’s attention. And let me assure you the powers that be are paying attention to what you say here at Cutlery News Journal.
I need your help by taking part in the Knife Community Survey, as well as to help make others aware of it. There are thousands of knife collectors who may not be web savvy yet, or a frequent visitor here at CNJ, so please encourage them to come participate in this important survey.
I would also appreciate it if you would post a note and link in any forum you are a part of directing folks this way. I’ve added this survey to the right-side column of the CNJ homepage too. Simply click that page, highlight and copy the address of the CNJ survey page.
The knife collector associations’ leadership wants to better adapt to today’s online knife collector and your information will be invaluable, so please take part and encourage others to also. This survey provides for a comprehensive profile of the knife collector community.
Direct Link to the 2009 Knife Community Survey
Thank you
Scott
Geek Rated: Moderate
First, let me say, “Thank you” to all who participated in our poll. The results are now in and tallied. I know the title of the report sounds a bit “Big Brother,” but the poll questions were general and non-intrusive.
Interestingly, we knife folks don’t follow the typical web-users’ online activities. We are proudly a subset of the general web-users and as a result our activities are different.
Here is a snap-shot our online activities during the fourth quarter of this year.
You are never going to guess who contacted me yesterday … it was Elvis. I promise.
Many of you may already know him because he is active on the knife forum front and is simply known by “Elvis.”
Well, Elvis informed me he beat the CNJ Crossword Puzzle #1. I believed him, but went and checked just to make sure. He did! The record shows 70 folks played it and Elvis is the first to complete it!
Then he proceeded to tell me he made one too. So, in a turn about fair play, if you like word games and crossword puzzles- give his a go. It is identified as Know your knives.
Congratulations Elvis and thank you for your support for CNJ.
OK, I know not everyone is “tech savvy,” but come on…buying knives isn’t only done in person anymore.
Today, most knife dealers and shops are set up to do business electronically. In fact, many are set up for a buyer to “click and buy.” For sellers it is easy money and speeds up the sales cycle allowing them to make sales with less of their time invested in the transaction; for the buyer, it is quick and easy.
Last week I had two non-buyer friendly buying attempts. In one case, I followed through and put the energy into it anyway and bought the knife, but the second one- I never did.
From a buyer’s perspective there are two issues to buying online or long distance- our comfort level with the dealer/seller and the ease of the transaction.
I know we are hesitant to buy when we can’t “see” the knife but there are dealers and other sellers who have built a trustworthy reputation where we are OK buying without seeing the knife first. Also, some dealers are “set-up” to sell online- true e-commerce, where the buyer can “click and buy” right then and there.
I found a knife online. I was comfortable with the seller, his description, and the price. His website was well done and provided me ample photos. I decided to buy it. Then, instead of being able to “click and buy,” I was instructed to contact the seller via email (Frustration #1). The next day I get an email back from the seller instructing me to call him (Frustration #2).
As well done as this website was, I was disappointed he didn’t have it set up to complete the purchase online. I didn’t want to have to call the dealer. So, I emailed the seller back to ask if he was set up to accept online payments. The seller emailed me back later to say, he wasn’t set up for online payments and for me to please call (Frustration #3).
I emailed him back to ask if he accepted credit cards. He replied that he did (why didn’t he tell me that in his earlier email?). So, I asked him if I could email my cc number (and any additional info he needed). He agreed and the rest of the transaction went smoothly. I got the knife in a few days later and it was just as expected and I am happy.
The second situation was more difficult. A dealer had a particular knife I was interested in. A friend sent me the dealer’s email address, so I shot him a message asking if he still had the knife, and if so, would he send me a couple of photos and a brief description.
A couple of days later, I get an email back from the dealer’s wife-
“My husband does have the knife. We do not have any photos but if you are in the area we can arrange for you to see it. Please call XXX-XXX-XXXX for a price and description. My husband does not use the computer.”
I know I may be more of a geek than most folks (I’ll accept that), but my gracious, it would seem to me someone in business today would have made himself learn certain skills to help sell knives.
….In the area…what area? This is the world-wide web, ya know. And I am not going to drive however many hundreds of miles just to see a knife (well, 99.9% of the time anyway) Heck, my dad is 80 years old and gets online everyday. He may not know how to get a picture into the computer, but if it would help him make money, he’d learn.
Tell me I”m out of line here and I’ll back down. Knife buyers are not just down the street anymore; in fact, we’re online and feel it is reasonable to expect knife sellers to be too, and I would have expected a dealer to have already bought and learned to use a computer and digital camera.
Geek Rated: Moderate
We reported earlier why CNJ is different than the typical knife places on the web. As you can see CNJ’s format and stories are more like a publication than a “website.”
As many of you know, CNJ is technically a weblog, or blog for short. Blogs aren’t new to the web, but are to the knife industry.
Aside from there being very few blogs exclusive to the knife industry and collecting, we learned from the recent CNJ poll about 5% of the voters indicated going to blogs (compared with 28% going to Knife Forums and 18% going to YouTube).
Really those results don’t surprise me at this point in the development of online knife resources.
For weeks now I have been pounding the drum about the knife establishment taking the organized knife collecting hobby to the people through online media, specifically the watchers of knife related videos on YouTube.
Well, heck- after talking to YouTube’s Cutlerylover, I decided to go for it too. Jeff inspired me to introduce my favorite knife to those outside of the normal channels. So, I sat down yesterday and put together a basic introduction to the Elephant Toenail Knife.
I loaded it last night around mid-night and was pleasantly surprised this morning to find a nice comment-
“Great review, personally I wasn’t aware of this knife at all but I’m glad I saw the video….thanks and I look forward to seeing many more great reviews on your channel.”
I am not looking for compliments, instead I simply wanted to let folks know about the ET.
If you care to watch a basic intro to the best old pattern, then check it out- Intro to the Elephant Toenail Knife
If you wish to subscribe to the Cutlery News Journal’s YouTube Channel it is easy and free. I do plan on broadcasting CNJ topics, as well as additional toenail videos.
It is a beautiful autumn morning here in the heart of Dixie and as I think about important topics for collectors, I can’t help but focus on an interesting phenomenon taking place 24/7 among knife enthusiasts.
One of the very healthy by-products of the Word Wide Web is Knife Talk. While the Web brings us “together,” it is the sharing of ideas, debating topics, and meeting and getting to know other collectors that is really cool.
Today, the best venue for Knife Talk on the Web is online Knife Forums. And if you take the “seeing the forest” perspective, there are a lot of healthy conversations going on. While I dare not attempt to illustrate the point by counting threads or topics, allow me to say- take my word for it. Knife Talk is alive and well.
If you are not a participant in a knife forum, allow me to encourage you to stick your head in and just listen. Don’t worry about whether or not you have to post, or reply. Far and away, the clear majority of folks simply read and that is just fine.
Coming up here on CNJ will be a review of knife forums. We will be looking at them from a bird’s-eye perspective- the number of members, the range of topics, the forum’s web-page ranking (overall popularity compared with other non-knife websites) and who each particular forum appeals to.
Recently I wrote about the Next Generation of knife collectors and their online presence on YouTube.
Before you meet Jeff, let me remind you the number of knife related YouTube videos at this time numbers into the thousands. Search “pocket knife” and you get 911 videos, while “knife” is 105,000, though I am sure many thousands aren’t related to cutlery. “Knife Collection(s)” has 1080 videos. There is even a category of “pocket knife reviews” with 67.
Allow me now to introduce a young man named Jeff, who is without a doubt the YouTube Knife King. He goes by cutlerylover. Here is his bio and video collection page. You will see he has over 3,100 subscribers to his channel and 127,864 views of his bio on his channel page.
Jeff is 23 years old and has been collecting knives since he was a boy. Today, Jeff has made YouTube his turf- his forum for sharing his passion about knives.
Jeff has produced 230 YouTube knife videos. Most are showing his knives, either in groups, or featuring a certain brand or pattern. Some are purely instructional.
What is also amazing is Jeff’s knife videos have received thousands of views. While he does a good job showing the knives and narrating, let me remind you, these are amateur videos, but even still many have been watched over 10,000 times, and several have over 30,000 views each!
I asked Jeff some questions about his interest in knives, why the YouTube videos, online collectors, and his subscribers. Listen in to his responses. He is knowledgeable and articulate. Jeff clearly represents the Next Generation of knife collectors. They are online and they are watching YouTube.
Thank you Jeff for being willing to share a little about yourself with us here at CNJ. I’m sure we’ll be talking again.
Scott
The Next Generation
There is an ongoing conversation among the knife collecting leadership today about how to find and attract the next generation of knife collectors (ages 15- 25ish). Obviously, because they are the future of our hobby and they are not participating in the organized collecting establishment today.
As first reported here on CNJ, this next generation represents an almost “underground establishment.”
Scheduled to be aired tomorrow in an exclusive CNJ interview is a celebrity among these online collectors.
This 23 year old admitted he has never been to a major knife show. He is not a member of any organized knife club. And he spends hours a day answering knife questions and giving suggestions. He told me the majority of the questions come from “kids” who are younger than him.
I can’t wait for you to meet him in this exclusive interview. You will find him very interesting. He represents the next generation of atypical collectors. These are the collectors our associations are looking for and we didn’t even know they were there.
LINK TO YOUTUBE’S CUTLERYLOVER INTERVIEW
The Knife Establishment had better sit up and take notice because he represents the New Influencers (as defined and written about by Paul Gillin in The New Influencers- A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media).
And, oh yeah, he has over 3000 knife enthusiasts following his online knife activities.
Source for image: Fantasy Art 3D Wallpapers: modern digital art, 3D artists, computer desktop backgrounds.
