Do you think we should
- Make people from other countries feel welcome, maybe by identifying and displaying which country they are from? 'We welcome visitors from Greece' for example?
- Help people find other people from the same country?
- Have a search to show threads/posts by people from the same country? Specifically threads with zero replies?
My actual answer to this is quite lengthy but for the New Year I am going to start being more short with words so I will get a bit of practice in now.
You ask 'Do you think we should' and list some options yet when you ask me to think, I get philosophical and I am left with the idea that the answer to this is more a 'practice and preach' than is a 'solved by code' thing.
Sure a custom widget which grabs threads started by people from X region will help them find other folks with easy access to the same components but I don't think this would necessarily help with answers to a specific (regional) issue nor stimulate growth and traffic for that region.
The search by region would surely help in your site's case but it itself may not be of great benefit if there is not a lot of product reviews ,guides, questions (etc) for products and suppliers of that specific region.
I say this from the perspective of an American with a possible AV issue about a specific product I purchased from a store not located in the UK as well as someone who could make a widget which functions similar to what you speak of and personally profit off of it so my points actually cutting out my only possible viable interest in this.
I will refrain from going any further into my ideas as an American consumer of electronics goods here and just say that if you are going to cater to specific parties, don't bring takeout. Either cater to a region and try to boost that area or just worry about your bread and butter. If you want to cater to the US you'd need a staff member from the US to manage that segment; doing research for answers and things of the like for products which actually pertain to the market readily available to them.
The same would go for any other country as well though for the most part many of the same things which are available in the US are also available in Canada though many times at at later date (things like cell phones and such) and as a result a person from either country would be suitable to manage most product concerns for North America.
It's not that you couldn't pay someone from any country to do such a thing, but I feel like if you want good work you would have to pay someone more if they have to do research on things that have no bearing on products which are actually available to them. If you are getting lot's of 0 replies in regional areas but lots of visits and questions in same region it may make people in that region feel that there is nothing for them there and move on so in that case it may be worth getting someone in there to handle regional product questions to make that market segment feels more welcome and invited or even at the most selfish level like there is something in it for them there and then once you have a flow of people getting info relevant to their region you will eventually start picking up people who are from that area who can and want to help and I believe that based on the principle that it is easier to get people to join something in motion than it is to get a random crowd to push a train for you starting from a dead stop.
Like I said this is mostly my own personal philosophy but you did ask what we think and while I could go on and expand quite a bit more, this is my shortened response to your question which overall suggests a different view of the problem at hand and the approach to solving it.
