The Upgrade from CF3 to CF4
The new Climbfind - in its entirety - was coded by a single coder. The site (+ mobile app next month) took 11 months to write and is a work in progress. It is a much bigger site than the previous version and may take a bit of getting used to. We all love Climbfind and that's why you may be concerned if something on the new site doesn't feel perfect or you don't figure it out immediately. Please be proactive by writing in to contact@climbfind.com with feedback and suggestions. We listen carefully and move on things quickly. We're psyched about the new site - it is more complicated, but also exponentially richer and more powerful. If you loved CF3, we promise you will grow to love CF4 a lot more. With that in mind, here's some context:
Short falls of CF3
CF3 was a proof of concept. Before we invested insane amounts of time an energy trying to fully realize our vision to help you "Find someone to climb with on any given day, anywhere around the world", we basically built and grassroots promoted a really nice prototype. It turned out that you responded really well to our idea and vision:
Whilst the growth is impressive, the user engagement (time on site) and returning visits were not. CF3 basically did its job in partner matching too well in high population density areas. By matching people so efficiently, it did not retain user attention or foster repeat usage - once you made climbing friends, you stopped participating in the Climbfind vision until you needed another partner. At the same time Climbfind did poorly in less dense areas and most outdoor climbing areas because the database was inadequately structured and lacked 'spatial intelligence'. The most significant short fall of CF3 is that it only works when 2 people in the same area both need a partner at the same time. Our vision is to help you hook up and climb with others even when they are not in the position where they need a partner - but they understand in the future they might - so they take you climbing based on "CF Karma" which they understand will come back to them in the future.
Thus we had to solve 2 problems. (1) Get people to spend time on Climbfind, even when they are not 'desperately seeking'. (2) Improve the probability of getting replies to PartnerCalls by growing a much bigger community by also appealing to climbers that are not in need of a climbing partner.
New features
We have gone about solving these hurdles by adding new features. It will take you multiple visits to the new site to become familiar with and appreciate the extend of much of the coolness in the new version.
Check-in, visits & climbing history
The most notable and obvious new feature is "Check-in" from the climbing feed (and very shortly Climbfind Mobile). In CF3, you used to state on your profile where you have climbed. This was troublesome as (1) most users only did it once, and then it stayed stagnant, not accurately reflecting your climbing history as you visit new places (2) there was no time component, so we had no way to more actively start to suggest and introduce you to you other climbers who were actually active and hanging out at the same places. Enter "Check-in" and your "Climbing History". Each time you check in a visit gets added your Climbing History. Here is an example of climbing history including photos & climbs begin logged. Not only will you be able to track your progress and easily recall and enjoy memories of the places you've climbed, when you view a visit you will notice down the right Climbfind shows you others that were climbing at the same location around the same time. This helps your become familiar with your local community as you can see who climbs where you climb and even take interest in what climbs others are trying.
PartnerCalls & PartnerCall Subscriptions for AREAS (multiple destinations)
Another short falls of CF3 was that you had to be familiar with a climbing place before you could find a partner there. This is simple for an indoor rock climbing gym - but with outdoor climbing or if you want to climb somewhere foreign, it is VERY limiting. In CF4 you can say something like "I want to go climbing anywhere in my city" without even knowing the outdoor spots, and someone else who wants to go to a particular outdoor boulder that you've never heard about, will receive your call and can show you new climbing there. The advantages of this scenario while wanting to climb when travelling or if you're new to climbing is amplified greatly. Put one way, CF effectively teaches you about climbing geography while you use it. If you are also flexible on where to climb, it also means you can post a single call instead of a call for each place you'd be happy to go to.
Logging climbs & adding climbs to our database
Adding climbs to our database was a tremendous increase in complexity that trickled all the way up to how places were stored in our database. Ultimately the way CF3 was structured was completely inadequate and the quality of content poor. 2 years of thought went into CF4 in an attempt to make it the foundation for a comprehensive world climbing database which you will be able to accesse on the go through CF Mobile. CF4 is a little complicated at first but when you appreciate the differences between "Areas" and "Locations" and begin to browse around a few places and notice things on the right like navigation hierarchy and "areas within 2 and a half hours" (see an example of Vancouver, Canada) you'll start to appreciate the breadth of data and the power you have to navigate through right from the country level down to a single climb.
Opinions
You can read a detailed explanation about opinions, but in short, Climbfind aggregates community opinions and uses them to 'bubble up' higher rated content/places & climbs to push you things that the community feels are the best quality.
The CF4 Climbing Feed
With these new features, much more content is hitting the feed compared to the old CF3 feed. To get the most out of the climbing feed, you should spend a couple of minutes understanding how to customize the feed so you can quickly access the exact information you want and tailor it to your locale.
What we could not carry over and why
Places you've climbed on your profile
Because the places database has completely changed and many places have been "lost" in the transition from CF3 to CF4 (and need to be re-added) we could not carry over "places on your profile". We feel that the CF4 Climbing history feature is a much richer and powerful expression of the same concept and encourage you to start retroactively logging places you've visited throughout your climbing life. Within minutes and minimal effort your will have something more valuable than the old "list" on your CF3 profile. It's worth pointing out, as soon as you add a photo/movie to your visit Climbfind automatically adds this photo/movie to the place profile page of the place you visited. We are hoping this will quickly populate the database with media tagged to specific destinations, greatly enhancing the 'where to climb' research application of the website for other users.
Your partner calls subscriptions
Again, because the places database has changed we could not carry over your subscriptions. With the power to now create an area subscription as opposed to many single locations - it should only take a few minutes to set up you CF4 subscriptions. We have put together screen cast walking you through PartnerCall Subscriptions and explaining the process.
Your extended profile (Questions & Answers)
Put simply, we ran out of time and this fell of the list. The data is still available and in the foreseeable future we may migrate this to your new profile.
Your CF3 messages
The CF3 messaging system was horrible... We received many complaints over the years and we are the first to admit we didn't invest enough time as we had no way of knowing Climbfind was going to grow so big. We have since invested the due effort and rebuilt it to be much more fluid and easy to use in CF4. You will see that you like using it both through the site & on Climbfind Mobile.
We apologize for the CF4 'Slow Boil'
Because a lot of the data is not carried over, it's possible that data may not be available for something that you are personally interested in, for example partner calls in a specific area... within a few weeks we expect CF4 to shadow CF3 in terms of content it is generating. The first few days live are already showing the data produced by each user is significantly greater. The website is not "Broken" it just needs someone to re-start the conversation. Please go ahead and make posts, or add climbing places to the database in your area if necessary.
Why there is still a link to CF3 and the site remains accessible
We left CF3 up in case you do need to track someone down, refer to old messaging or look up some information. The messaging and email system remains intact - but please do not post new PartnerCalls™ on the old site.
Thanks for stopping by
We appreciate you taking the time to familiarize yourself with the changes. We're positive once you become familiar with the new site you will enjoy it and gain much more value from it than CF3.
We look forward to seeing you on the new site,
The Climbfind Team
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