Eurobilltracker members - Queries

[Bullmeister]

Hi All,

Long time Eurobilltracker but new to the forum. I have a few questions:

1. Are the number of Euro notes being tracked in decline?
2. Are we losing members? Is the popularity of tracking your Euros a thing of the past?
3. Are there still Eurobilltracker meetings taking place annually?

Bullmeister

[lmviterbo]

The answer is yes-ish to all questions.

EBT is not exactly losing members but its active member growth has almost stalled (I guess). Also, an average of 9 new members every day has been steady in the past three years.

Notes/day is in slow decline in the past nine years. Lithuania and Estonia are the happy exceptions.

Because there are less notes being tracked (but more notes being printed), the hit ratios (both per day and per notes) has been declining too. Some hits are more amazing than ever, though, both in terms of time interval and distance.

There's no study, that I know of, of the popularity of banknote tracking or Euro tracking. It comes and goes depending on the media. In the past 8 years or so, fewer and less active EBTors have been involved in communication with the media, and that could be due just to random (lack of) luck.

At the same time, almost every Working Group of voluntary EBTors has been working a lot less than up to 2009 or so, which means less new features to keep everybody happy, and updates less frequent.

You may want to check these stats:
https://eurobilltracker.com/stats
https://eurobilltracker.com/notes/?command=8&tab=1

As to the meetings, we're back to one international meeting per year instead of one Winter and one Summer meeting that was being held up to two years ago.

[Bullmeister]

How can we promote it? How can we ignite the passion of the dormant past Eurobilltrackers?

[lmviterbo]

Several strategies have been implemented in the past and several other discussed.

A well-thought well-written (annual?) newsletter and press release would probably at least wake up some news outlets, who would then try to schedule interviews and issue some stories/reports about EBT. TV broadcasters reach the largest audience and have consistently brought dozens or hundreds of new users per story.

Social media like Facebook, Instagram or other forums may also work as a magnet for new users, if you're creative and your post is alluring.

Some known strategies are already here: FAQ/How can I help to improve EBT besides entering notes?

Meanwhile, in the past few years, some EBTors have been creating tools that make wonderful statistics, like EBTST, nigmm or the most recent EBTCheck. Some of the personal stats, graphs and maps created on the EBT website or by any of these tools are good visit cards to show to potential new users. The same can be said for a lot of games that you can find under the Statistics subforum or most of the national ones.

[Bullmeister]

Its the interesting hits that I come to look at on here. Unfortunately for me, living in a non Euro currency land, hits are hard to come by!

But less notes being entered .... means less hits .... which in the long term means a decline in interest all round!!

[lmviterbo]

By the way, I understand you're in the UK. But what is your username on EBT? I can't find any Bullmeister. Are you bullock99?

[Bullmeister]

Yip .... That’s me

By the way, I understand you're in the UK. But what is your username on EBT? I can't find any Bullmeister. Are you bullock99?

[lmviterbo]

Yip .... That’s me

[Montgomery Burns]

Re. the promotion: mention our hobby here and there in other forums you hang around in. Maybe start a thread if there isn't one there (use the search function!), but that's not all you can do. You can sneakily mention EBT whenever you feel appropriate, like when bills or money are mentioned or include a link to us in your signature (some forums look down on this, be aware).

[YCNZ]

If every member state was still allowed to print a full set of banknotes, it'd be more interesting and thrilling. There'd also be some enhanced appeal to amateur collectors or to just ordinary people who just have 5 minutes to kill every day and enter a banknote or two, who'd also find a banknote printed in Malta or Cyprus. Now, since there are limited combinations, this appeal was lost to many people. So it's not just EBT's fault. I visit the forum once or twice a week, but haven't entered anything in a month at least.

[lmviterbo]

If every member state was still allowed to print a full set of banknotes, it'd be more interesting and thrilling. There'd also be some enhanced appeal to amateur collectors

There are nearly 1500 possible combinations plate x serial letter, quite enough to keep amateur researchers and collectors like me willing to find them showing up in the wild. Even if you count only notes from the Europa series, you have more than 300 possible combinations plate x serial letters. I still haven't found more than 30 of them even though I already registered more than 35,000 Europa notes.

The problem with Greek EBTors is that they are few and sparse, even more than in Spain, so getting a hit is hard and it must be frustrating. On the other hand, you Greeks have many of the greatest hits. I'm not talking about Mikis Theodorakis, Demis Roussos, Nana Mouskouri or even George Michael. I'm talking about the Hit Score.

(Are you Yiannis on EBT? If you were active, you'd be 40th on the Hit Score list. )

[MDeen]

How can we promote it? How can we ignite the passion of the dormant past Eurobilltrackers?

Part of the steady decline of notes being tracked is also the ever more stringent rules and regulations concerning cash money. A few years ago I could deposit as many notes using the depositmachine that I wanted for free. Now it costs me money. Also changing money ( -> ) is getting more and more difficult, if not impossible.
I've had two years of 100+ notes/day. Now I barely get 10.

[Bullmeister]

Got these made up to do my bit for the cause .....

[Montgomery Burns]

Social media like Facebook, Instagram or other forums may also work as a magnet for new users, if you're creative and your post is alluring.

That has to be our next step, reaching out to "the influencer" how? Well, that's the question. If you personally know anybody with any sort of online clout, try to get them on board.

[Arminius]

Hi,

i found this site during hunting new notes for my Euro bill (picture) collection.
It was a little bit frustrating finding out that older and smaller editions nearly disappeared. On the other hand the possibility of finding new editions in UNC condition from circulation was very motivating and increased my ambition to search for notes.

This year will be a Christine Lagarde year, a new signature series will start.
Maybe we can create a little hype on this to attract new users.

Regards