- Joined
- Apr 12, 2018
- Messages
- 8,591
- Reaction score
- 17,710
- Age
- 32
- Location
- Long Island, NY
- Website
- tacoma3g.com
Quicksand
Every website needs an 'About' page! Being that we are an ever-changing forum and social media group, I'm gonna do this a little differently.
Short version
Tacoma3G (T3G) is an online forum and social media group for 3rd generation Toyota Tacoma enthusiasts. Founded in March 2018 on Instagram, and then May 2018 as a forum, T3G is designed to be an organized and friendly resource for people who own, or intend to buy, a 2016+ model-year Tacoma. The Instagram page showcases the endless flavors we are able to create with our Tacos. The forum is meant to be a one-stop-shop for everything you could need as an owner of one, whether it be product advice, technical help, or meeting people in your area to go wheeling with. It is also a tool for directly contacting or catching exclusive discounts from many of the popular vendors in this industry.
Long version
Tacoma3G (T3G) is an online forum and social media group for 3rd generation Toyota Tacoma enthusiasts. I had recently purchased a 2017 Tacoma and wanted to see what other people were doing in regards to customization. I was using two major sources for this: Instagram and a seasoned Tacoma forum (all years). I started to realize that people have their own Instagram page solely for their truck, which intrigued me. I also noticed that there are many pages that are dedicated to re-posting said trucks, but these pages weren't necessarily satisfying my picky taste. Solution? Do it myself.
I decided to combine having a personal page for my build and re-posting other beautiful builds into one page. The difference would be, I would stick to only the 3rd gen Taco, because to be honest, I was only looking for references to my exact truck. I love almost all trucks from all brands - I grew up in trucks and they've always been 4x4; it's in my blood. But from experience, for a social group to be successful, it needs a good niche. Generic stuff is harder to manage. So, 3rd gen Tacomas are the niche, and the Instagram is meant to showcase my own truck in addition to other trucks that I believe are well done, and with only photos that I believe are taken with care (too many pages mix awful, non-functional trucks and potato photos with the good stuff you want).
The Instagram started in March 2018 and by April 2018, it already had a decent following of good people. I was also spending a lot of time on the other Tacoma forum and began to notice a few things. Before I say what they were, let me mention that I was heavily into forum building/administrating/moderating from 2004-2012. It was always a hobby of mine that I never understood why I loved so much. My personal favorite that I created was called "Badtrucks", which was a forum dedicated to old trucks. Anyway, being on this Taco forum I was seeing that it was very old, therefore it had all the information you could ever need on it, somewhere. The info was there but it wasn't very user-friendly to me. In my case, I only needed info relevant to the 2016+ Tacoma which was often hard to narrow down when searching. The one section dedicated to the 3rd gen was too fast paced and unorganized for me. I love organization and felt I could do better for the community who might have the same issues I was. It was time to bring back an old hobby of mine and create a new forum us.
Launching a forum in 2018 or later isn't easy. Many people say forums are dead, many say the seasoned (ugly) ones from the 2000s are good enough, and I understand why they think that. But it was worth a try, and I knew if it had any chance of working, it needed to be organized, it needed to be modern, and it needed to be friendly! The organizational part was easy, and also my favorite part. We just needed a handful of separate categories to contain the bulk of the discussion topics, and nothing extra. The modern part was fun because the awesome developers at XenForo (the platform T3G is using) are pretty good at that already. Mobile usability here is fantastic and we have a lot of cool features that weren't on forums in the 2000s. The graphic designing was a little stressful because I knew I had to get it right, but my graphic designer was very skilled and had plenty of patience for all the nit-picky (and probably unnecessary) changes I kept asking him to make as he was designing what you see today. I think attention to detail is important even if most people won't ever notice that stuff. And it was worth it, because the majority of the positive feedback I get is regarding the user-friendliness of the design. Lastly, having a friendly community would be completely dependent on you guys and I couldn't be more stoked to say you all absolutely nailed it!
Short version
Tacoma3G (T3G) is an online forum and social media group for 3rd generation Toyota Tacoma enthusiasts. Founded in March 2018 on Instagram, and then May 2018 as a forum, T3G is designed to be an organized and friendly resource for people who own, or intend to buy, a 2016+ model-year Tacoma. The Instagram page showcases the endless flavors we are able to create with our Tacos. The forum is meant to be a one-stop-shop for everything you could need as an owner of one, whether it be product advice, technical help, or meeting people in your area to go wheeling with. It is also a tool for directly contacting or catching exclusive discounts from many of the popular vendors in this industry.
Long version
Tacoma3G (T3G) is an online forum and social media group for 3rd generation Toyota Tacoma enthusiasts. I had recently purchased a 2017 Tacoma and wanted to see what other people were doing in regards to customization. I was using two major sources for this: Instagram and a seasoned Tacoma forum (all years). I started to realize that people have their own Instagram page solely for their truck, which intrigued me. I also noticed that there are many pages that are dedicated to re-posting said trucks, but these pages weren't necessarily satisfying my picky taste. Solution? Do it myself.
I decided to combine having a personal page for my build and re-posting other beautiful builds into one page. The difference would be, I would stick to only the 3rd gen Taco, because to be honest, I was only looking for references to my exact truck. I love almost all trucks from all brands - I grew up in trucks and they've always been 4x4; it's in my blood. But from experience, for a social group to be successful, it needs a good niche. Generic stuff is harder to manage. So, 3rd gen Tacomas are the niche, and the Instagram is meant to showcase my own truck in addition to other trucks that I believe are well done, and with only photos that I believe are taken with care (too many pages mix awful, non-functional trucks and potato photos with the good stuff you want).
The Instagram started in March 2018 and by April 2018, it already had a decent following of good people. I was also spending a lot of time on the other Tacoma forum and began to notice a few things. Before I say what they were, let me mention that I was heavily into forum building/administrating/moderating from 2004-2012. It was always a hobby of mine that I never understood why I loved so much. My personal favorite that I created was called "Badtrucks", which was a forum dedicated to old trucks. Anyway, being on this Taco forum I was seeing that it was very old, therefore it had all the information you could ever need on it, somewhere. The info was there but it wasn't very user-friendly to me. In my case, I only needed info relevant to the 2016+ Tacoma which was often hard to narrow down when searching. The one section dedicated to the 3rd gen was too fast paced and unorganized for me. I love organization and felt I could do better for the community who might have the same issues I was. It was time to bring back an old hobby of mine and create a new forum us.
Launching a forum in 2018 or later isn't easy. Many people say forums are dead, many say the seasoned (ugly) ones from the 2000s are good enough, and I understand why they think that. But it was worth a try, and I knew if it had any chance of working, it needed to be organized, it needed to be modern, and it needed to be friendly! The organizational part was easy, and also my favorite part. We just needed a handful of separate categories to contain the bulk of the discussion topics, and nothing extra. The modern part was fun because the awesome developers at XenForo (the platform T3G is using) are pretty good at that already. Mobile usability here is fantastic and we have a lot of cool features that weren't on forums in the 2000s. The graphic designing was a little stressful because I knew I had to get it right, but my graphic designer was very skilled and had plenty of patience for all the nit-picky (and probably unnecessary) changes I kept asking him to make as he was designing what you see today. I think attention to detail is important even if most people won't ever notice that stuff. And it was worth it, because the majority of the positive feedback I get is regarding the user-friendliness of the design. Lastly, having a friendly community would be completely dependent on you guys and I couldn't be more stoked to say you all absolutely nailed it!