How would the Koi Hobby be without the internet?

[luke frisbee]

Koi club's monthly meetings would be cool places to go.

[Charlespear]

Key West is 200 miles from Miami, 90 miles from Cuba by boat. I bought my first 5 $20. (domestic koi from a guy in Denver) over the internet........ $50. shipping. Still have them. I now have 3 ponds, and I just realized I buy all my fish over the internet, From Kevin in Calif, or Carl, or Mark, Wait, I guess I live on this thing!...

[junglegeorge12]

There are no clubs down here, so I used to rely on several very knowledgeable dealers, and they relied on the breeders they bought from. None of them did alot of traveling to Japan, maybe once or twice. They found out about breeders from other dealers and the grapevine, and got their info from them. The internet has connected all sorts of info dots and helped bring it all together for alot of things. It also stimulates interest.

There is an aquarium club here, maybe one day we can 'expand it' and have a koi and pond club too. That sort of thing is gaining interest down here. As the economy improves and generational wealth enables them to be more entrepreneurial, ponding is growing. We just had the first spanish speaking water garden show done locally this year. The 'big demo' was on a 250 gallon little tank with a neat waterfall design, and some baby koi in it. Maybe I should contact all those folks who do ponds and see what we can get going here.

I used to be on constant chill mode with my ponds, everything went slow and I liked it that way. Now the net has me hopping.

The problem with having a show here is is obvious, not enough high end koi to make a decent one, and how many would ship their koi here from the states to go to a show? Most of them would want to stay and vacation for a week or so if they did come, so we would have to have accomodations in place for them and their koi. There is a large garden nursery here with a few ponds and koi in them, who would probably be willing to put on a show, and they draw thousands of folks a day just due to location. It might be a great way to intro the hobby more here.

[maryland_ponder]

I think for many it would mean much more regionalization of information. More pockets of experts in concentrations as the better breeders & koi keepers willing to share information locally would increase the local knowledge. For areas where there was not a local source to speak with or buy from it would reduce the ease of purchase of quality fish and first hand knowledge levels. I have learned much here in my short time reading posts & asking stupid questions. I read quite a lot but sometimes its nice to get the first hand experiences of those here. What i dont like are the sardonic comments & belittling things that are said here sometimes. A good "disscussion" is healthy & I'm glad the moderators watch what is posted here so no one gets offended.

[Steve Nguyen]

that's a lot of dedication. I don't think I have the patient for the snail mails.
the first time I used email was on Jan 6 1991. most was for biz related communications within the company, plus outside companies that have email servers which not many companies have. email then was mostly handled text messages.

Steve

Quote: Originally Posted by Bern Tonio, let me give you an example of the old days. I corresponded with a guy on the West Coast of the USA. His name was Stan Ranson and he was a member of the Ventura County Koi Club. Stan used to get a copy of the BKKS Magazine ( a private mag in those days). Stan might read something that required clarification or explanation. He'd right me a letter. The letter would take 3 to 4 days, he generally got the mags 2 weeks later than their issue in the uk. Give me a day or two to find out the answer and reply, and 3 to 4 days for it to get there. For Stan, he was always about month behind on any info available in the UK, and the same applied to me in reverse. If there were more people involved, you could add several more days to keep the info-flow going. Nowadays, I can exchange e-mails (multi-addressed in need be) in 24hrs. One of the greatest assets of the Internet for me is the revolution it has brought to the International side of the hobby. rgds BERN

[Kohaku]

Would not be as widespread. Info harder to find/access/annex. Koi hobby slower and less understood.