The Ultimate Snow Resource

I recently came in contact with a rather interesting individual who proposed a potential business opportunity that I just couldn't turn down. My new friend used to be a co-owner of a local Colorado Snowboard print magazine which recently closed its doors and distributed its final issue last March after 3 years of business. Although this magazine had intentions of being something great; it had plenty of content, a big name and tons of support and interest from the local scene, it lacked many of the ingredients necessary to create a successful profitable venture. Recognizing where he went wrong with the print magazine, my friend decided to leave the print world behind and is trying to create opportunities in other ski/snow media avenues.

Last week I was contacted by my new friend stating that he was looking to create a website providing the "Ultimate Snow Resource" for the Colorado ski community. Since I'm:

1. obsessed with snowboarding,
2. want to be more involved in the ski/snow industry
3. am trying to expand my graphic design career past only print design
4. am looking for new projects,

I jumped on the opportunity to work on this project. Thus far we have only the basics of the site's idea/ map worked out. We still have a lot of brainstorming to do, but i see potential for this site. We recently had a phone conversation that I conveniently documented here: Google Document: A . This document further explains what the website is going to be/ what our goals are / what we have to accomplish in the next couple weeks.

To give ourselves an idea of how other people organize their ideas and aesthetically present themselves within our field, here is a small list of websites I have gathered. I do not necessarily feel that these are the best websites out there in terms of organization OR aesthetic, but all have qualities that we may be looking for, provide examples we can adapt our own ideas from, and give us an idea of what our market/competition is up to:
TED: Ideas worth spreading
Ride The Beave
Away
Colorado.com
Ahlivv
Frequency Snowboard Magazine
ThinkThank
Transworld


more on this later... just wanted to document for the time being..