Coa$talWatch$$$$

I brought up some issues with CW just after CW+ went "live" a few months back.

Their virtual wind/wave buoy was so far out of kilter with "real time" weather patterns at the time that it rang alarm bells. "How could something so hyped by their own marketing gooru's be released to the market with such major flaws?", I asked via their feedback section.

It was clearly obvious I struck a nerve at CW HQ. They denied any faults and dismissed my feedback as if I was the one out of kilter with reality. I paid my $70 yearly subscription, received my legrope, FCS tool and 6 issues of SW magazine but haven't been back on the CW+ site since and won't be renewing my subscription.

If you ask me they've tried too hard and failed immensely.

*this comment has been deleted - we won't allow personal attacks of this nature*

Yep thats pretty disappointing, they miss the mark a lot of the time on the Qld forecasts, only the VirtualBuoy and tides seems to be worthwhile. The cams seem to be down half the time. I dont see why they think people will pay for what they can get in a dozen other places for free, this is the internet after all and its the age of free information. The banner advertisers pay their way, if they want to increase advertising fees then start by improving the functionality, services and forecasting accuracy and the traffic will flow.

What? And you blokes come to SW for forecasting? I come to this site to check the pics, like todays sick sequence of that draining left. Maybe even post a stupid, lame comment every now and then.

Then I check CW for some of their sick vids. For surf forecasting, I use the BOM. I got to say though, The Surf Journals at CW and some of the articles are also worth a squizz...like checking the Maldives, Indo, standout sessions etc...etc...

But both sites are good in their own way. One has more of an all-round Aussie & international flavour, the other mostly has an east coast perspective

Gideyup.

Good luck to Coastalwatch in this endeavour, not hard to see that times must be tough with most of ther cams coming down and ad revenue dropping, mountainwatch was a bomb as well. Pay for view has only ever worked on the internet for pornography sites, even surfline cant make it work. The challenge has always been to bring enough to the table above and beyond the free offering to get people to cough up a buck, I'm not sure I saw anything on the plus site to encourage me to do that, maybe more will be rolled out over time. Thank god there was a shit eating grin picture of Sean Dohety, Tim Baker and some uni student that works at Surfing World to tell me why I should sign up immediately and just how much I'm missing in not doing it, someone impartial and not on the CW/SW bankroll may have been a better choice...thanks guys...I'm gonna pass all the same.

Not a bad little piece written by Doherty on the Pipe Masters today on CW. It's good when articles are written about surfing that are not designed to segregate people and play on the emotional factor.

Cheers CW!!!