If you've ever dipped a fly in the water, or stood on the shore of a river looking for the first hit of the day, you'll know why HOOK.tv was created.
HOOK.tv is a fly-fishing video site built as an online community. It is looking to serve the 18 million fly-fishing fanatics out there. Talk about a built in niche and fan base - this is it!
The founder of HOOK.tv and its CEO is John Dietsch. Most of you would know him from the fly-fishing scenes that were shown in the film starring Robert Redford, "A River Runs Through It."
I like how they welcome you on the site and in their press release by saying that "fishing is religion." The truth is that many anglers feel that strongly about it.
They offer both the opportunity to watch professionally made videos and videos from anglers showing their latest catches. This will be a popular feature, as being an avid angler myself we never seem to be able to get enough of watching video of our sport.
The company has already lined up Suzuki as a sponsor for the site, which at this time caters to the primary young male audience, one of the most elusive demographics to bring together there is.
Their online community section offers a chance for anglers, pros, and guides to exchange information, stories, videos and photos of the story and documentation of their favorite catches.
About the only complaint I have about this is that it looks like they may use this as a launching pad to develop scale, something I think is a big mistake. With the number of anglers out there and the type of site this is, I think they should stick with this, rather than use it to aggregate young males and then try to extend into other outdoors areas. They may be sorry they do that if they eventually implement that strategy.
But for now, this is a great example of the niche social networking trend and where it will be going for a long time to come.
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