PlanetMountain at University!

December 2004

On Tuesday 14 December at the Italian University of Padua the websites Planet Mountain and La Sportiva were the protagonists of a university thesis entitled "Web Marketing and community management in mountain products: La Sportiva and PlanetMountain.com".

The thesis was written by Dr. Maria Maistrello and was awarded maximum points by the university professors. It examined PlanetMountain.com as a leader in a niche market, and attempted to attribute an economic value to its large web community.

According to Dr. Maistrello, PlanetMountain is a reference point in the mountain world which "has managed to resist online, maintaining its broad spectre of content, information and experiences to be shared by all, and in doing so overcoming the most difficult stages in the evolution of the Web, which saw thousands of websites disappear together with the first illusions of the New Economy... PlanetMountain did not come to light as an economic reality, for no authentic virtual community emerges with the idea of making a profit; PlanetMountain was created, as the editors sustain, by and for the users, and its entire operations rotate around satisfying those who join its community and want to share the same passion and values."

At this point there is little left for the Planetmountain team to say except for: thank you, to both companies and, above all, readers and collaborators, who represent the fundamental ingredient for this great community.