SNOWEST FORUMS: Member Comments on "Letter to All Members"

[dustbuster]

Yup...OK, found it in the other thread (178596)

Seems like there will be a lot of bang for the buck paid for any subscription level...the only thing I might question: is there any subset of those features that would not cause the need for the site to go to the subscription model? Live talk, for example, was tested and found to be too heavy a load according to the letter...what else is causing the load, and is everyone sure they need those features, and therefore the need to pay for them?

It's a good thing to move the forum to a separate environment for performance, but is the hardware upgrade the driving force to the subscription model change, or are the new features driving the need to charge?

It seems that:
- feature changes are intended to drive new users to the site
- the features are causing performance issues
- to fix the performance issues someone has to pay
- some people don't want to pay and will leave

Is there an expectation that the number of people that leave will be replaced by new members drawn by the new features? If not, doesn't it follow that maybe the site should have been left alone featurewise, and therefore the performance issues would not have occurred? Seems to me that would have saved a lot of typing...

Again, it all depends what business problem is trying to be solved...performance issues on the site is not a business problem, it is a technical one. If the value of the site is the traffic to content provided by other enthusiasts, then it's a tough call to determine of those content providers (other than manufacturer reps) will actually pay to provide content...

Hoping for the best...at least, this is an interesting process to watch unfold in a forum!

 

[blob]

This the biggest question I have. How can other sites do it? What business model do they use? I have no background to help me understand how websites make money. I would love to know more. I always just thought it was from advertisers. Not trying to be adversarial, just curious.

 

[Steamboat-RN]

For one, those sites don't even tickle the number of active users. Bandwidth is tremendously expensive. The most users Dootalk has ever had online was 1047 in March of 2008. There are that many users on SnoWest right now. SnoWest's highest activity was over 4 times higher at 4,449 in January of this year. Paying for that pipe get's expensive fast. Along with bandwidth, you also need to constantly keep your equipment updated. That means multiple servers and that costs a lot of money.

Well then how about Thumpertalk(250,000 menbers), Ktmtalk(100,000), or at least a dozen other OHV sites that I could list. All free and all have the bells and whistles.
All free and fast with limited moderation. But then they do not allow free advertising in posts and in signatures.
There are countless sites large and small that offer the same types of services that somehow manage to turn a profit. And let's face it, this is all about turning a profit.
Sell more ads!!!!!!!!

 

[rkbrkr]

It's not about the money, it's about the sport. Shoot i pay more to watch one UFC fight. If you can afford to sled then you can afford $9.99 a year. SUPPORT YOUR SPORT!!!!!

 

[Adrenaline Revolution]

Well, Imagine my surprize when I wake up and log on to find that I had started this thread in SnoWest announcements....No I didn't...

Good debate going on here but...I didn't start this.


but I will throw in another $10 dollars a years worth...

How about this...

If a member WANTS all the crap..Er garbage...I mean fluff content ( video conferencing, live charlie chat, flashing smileys dancing merrily across the screen Etc..) then he could become a paying customer of this site.

The rest of us should have the exact same access to everything we have always had prior to the regime change since we are the reason this site is one of the top 3 sledding forums in the universe.

Oh, and please do something about the buzz-kill, over moderating Mods that are killing the fun.

Why would that not work you say?....
NO-ONE WOULD PAY. well, except for a few facebook lovers and most of the mods.

 

[Sturgis Sledder]

This the biggest question I have. How can other sites do it? What business model do they use? I have no background to help me understand how websites make money. I would love to know more. I always just thought it was from advertisers. Not trying to be adversarial, just curious.

Someone around here may want to read this
or this.

 

[Idaho Slim]

OK, Christopher Pay Attention..........

Unfortunately PAYING for a forum based website, where members are supplying 99% of the content and then turning around and charging those members to do so, goes against my grain. We simply come here to share with each other.
SHMO

I cant even catch up with all the activity here, so I wanted to re-cap my (And many others) thoughts;

The issue is not $10/year !

The response to this ISSUE & thread are speaking LOUDLY to You Chris. You best listen if you want this 4M to survive.

1. This forum started & flourished due to US!, 10+ years of comraderie, SHARING our multiple sled related disciplines, and meeting each other to become a quasi Family.

2. YOU are an outsider, yes trying to make it better, but a NEWBIE. You were not even a SNOWMOBILER when you took over. (You said so yerself ) So listen to us.

3. You have no phathom of the meaning of "ANIMALS Ride" and you want to ignore us all ..... Sad

4. There is HUGE amount of stalkers / non posters / newbies posting here, and it speaks volumes about our 4M and that you MUST listen.

My re-cap of some things you had better review & ACCEPT for this 4M to continue, or you have LOST us.

1. $10 / year is fine for a Full membership. Allow veiwing & no posting of non-payers, NO SWAPMEET access. (Look already how many responding said they will pay )

2. Members with Sled industry business's CANNOT be MODS!

3. LESS gadgets, WE DON'T want a MYSPACE-SNOWEST

4. With less gadgets, your profit will go up.

5. With all the advertising profit you already have on the 4M, why is all the cash going to Harris Publishing & not to the upkeep of this forum??????????

PAY attention to this, or you have certainly sealed the doom of this 4M............

My sincere hopes that I am wrong.

SLIM.

 

[Steamboat-RN]

It's not about the money, it's about the sport. Shoot i pay more to watch one UFC fight. If you can afford to sled then you can afford $9.99 a year. SUPPORT YOUR SPORT!!!!!

So what you are saying is that guys like Mountainhorse, Mule, and a TON of others who have been here giving FREE advice and tech support have not "supported" the sport? Now you think they should pay to do it?
The ten bucks supports Harris publishing.......not the sport.
Want to support the sport?
Donate DIRECTLY to SAWS, BRC, your local S&R, or your local club.

 

[GODEEP]

It's not about the money, it's about the sport. Shoot i pay more to watch one UFC fight. If you can afford to sled then you can afford $9.99 a year. SUPPORT YOUR SPORT!!!!!

If thats the case, then donate your 9.99 to SAWS or Blue ribbon where it can be used to actually support the sport. I give my money to those organizations every year. do you?

 

[aksledneck]

<<would guess that their corporate analytics package tells them all of the comparative dataflow from all of the sites that are hosted on the bank of servers we live on.>>

WTF? Are you living amongst a herd of Unicorns?

You've sold us down the road that these lowly "magazine publishers" can't tie their digital IT shoelaces (including the CCIE), and you accidentally overloaded their token server with Rainbow statistic graphs and sub-categories... ..to the point that 30K became a HUGE expense requiring $$$$ from all of the membership.

Once you get to the point that you can't keep the facts (er...?) straight, then you're in real trouble!

I understand you're caught between the the smart and the smarter, but jeez....

MtnDoo said Unicorns heheheheheheheh

 

[Maize]

So after reading page 40, kinda seems like the hand is definately NOT talking to the foot, really makes harris sound like its one hell of a circle jerk over there, not saying christopher is the bad guy but they're either really keeping you in the dark and taking the money from this site elsewhere or your just not trying hard enough to figure out whats going on. I DO REALIZE you are essentially the middle man in all this, however being the middle man you are the one that speaks for the people.

No. That is what corporate management does. They feed you what they want you to hear, they know it is what they want you to hear and they expect that you are NOT smart enough to figure it out. If you were that smart, you would BE the corporae management.

This whole ruse has nothing to do with trying to "put it in the black", make no mistake. It IS in the black, or it wouldn't have been around for 11 years. You can only show a profit loss on taxes for 5 years for corporate taxes.

I would have a LOT more respect for Christopher if he would simply tell the facts. That being that some brainchild got an idea on how to make MORE money off this website and they hired him to do it. Instead, they try to feed us the line that it has NEVER made money and has been losing for E L E V E N years.

It is no secret that written print media is constantly losing money due to internet. Newspapers and magazines have been dropping like flies around the country due to getting the same information on the internet.

Having priced out the sponsorship fees for this site for my shock business, and having set up my own website and direct exposure to companies that do web-hosting there is no way this site has lost money for 11 years.

You get a lot further being honest, than telling people what you think they want to hear. My best guess is that Snowest Magazine is in the same boat. Less sponsors and less subscriptions for the magazine are trying to be offset by charging access fees to their website.

 

[Sturgis Sledder]

Having priced out the sponsorship fees for this site for my shock business, and having set up my own website and direct exposure to companies that do web-hosting there is no way this site has lost money for 11 years.

BUT, they said it has and why would they want to lie?

 

[RXB-1]

One more point I was just on a different sport site forum and noticed an interesting thing... When you click on a topic it does not take you to the top of the page where you have to scroll down through the advertising BS to read what you want. It takes you to the top of that post and that is all. no BS just right to where you want to go. Is that the kind of improvemments we may see in a paid site? I am doubting it. O yea that site has been around as long or longer and is FREE.

 

[Adrenaline Revolution]

Well, Imagine my surprize when I wake up and log on to find that I had started this thread in SnoWest announcements....No I didn't...

Good debate going on here but...I didn't start this.


but I will throw in another $10 dollars a years worth...

How about this...

If a member WANTS all the crap..Er garbage...I mean fluff content ( video conferencing, live charlie chat, flashing smileys dancing merrily across the screen Etc..) then he could become a paying customer of this site.

The rest of us should have the exact same access to everything we have always had prior to the regime change since we are the reason this site is one of the top 3 sledding forums in the universe.

Oh, and please do something about the buzz-kill, over moderating Mods that are killing the fun.

Why would that not work you say?....
NO-ONE WOULD PAY. well, except for a few facebook lovers and most of the mods.

WOW...
Even as I speak about the CENSORSHIP in this post it gets CENSORED.
WTF?
Because I spoke of the good FUN threads?
Tug and Rake.
Highmarking the towel rack.
Countersteering pendulum...
ALL DELETED...ALL CENSORED from the original post.
YOU ARE ALL PATHETIC.
And you have the nads to ask me to become more positive as "One of the more outspoken members" and back this change????

PATHETIC.But I'm sure this will get censored as well.

Thank you for helping us prove our point. Losers.

 

[MtnDoo]

All said and done there is probably 150 original members on here, and maybe a few hundred more consistent contributors at most.

Ill-applied stats are nice, but it isn't what makes this place hum.

(1) I'm amazed how many members are already seeking solace at a open site a few blocks down the road, that was just launched last week. Stunning.

(2) I'm blown away that the ADMIN of this site has registered at that site and taunting members to remain involved in SW. This tells a story.

(3) I'm amazed that the ADMIN of this site, registered at the other site uses the SNOWEST corporate logo in his icon over there, yet has coded a script that changes the other sites's name b**C**R**.**cawm when typed here to "SNOWEST".

I think SW gets the message, but has created the perfect storm seems to have a hard time admitting it - to the point of taking corrective action.

Sell management on Grande Plan 2.0, and then the oh-schidt moment comes start behaving erratically.

If HP Gods are watching: You'll be looking for a new strategy soon.


MD.


BTW - those guys are picking up advertisers already too! ...but I bet they have no idea what they're being paid for ads. Not. hehe.

 

[MPS]

All said and done there is probably 150 original members on here, and maybe a few hundred more consistent contributors at most.

Ill-applied stats are nice, but it isn't what makes this place hum.

(1) I'm amazed how many members are already seeking solace at a open site a few blocks down the road, that was just launched last week. Stunning.

(2) I'm blown away that the ADMIN of this site has registered at that site and taunting members to remain involved in SW. This tells a story.

(3) I'm amazed that the ADMIN of this site, registered at the other site uses the SNOWEST corporate logo in his icon over there, yet has coded a script that changes the other sites's name b**C**R**.**cawm when typed here to "SNOWEST".

I think SW gets the message, but has created the perfect storm seems to have a hard time admitting it - to the point of taking corrective action.

Sell management on Grande Plan 2.0, and then the oh-schidt moment comes start behaving erratically.

If HP Gods are watching: You'll be looking for a new strategy soon.


MD.


BTW - those guys are picking up advertisers already too! ...but I bet they have no idea what they're being paid for ads. Not. hehe.

LMAO....way to point it out. That is what passive aggressive folks do MD....gotta love it! LMAO!


.

 

[MtnDoo]

Gotta thinking, the following list of members aren't just fleeting lurkers, but motivated by hmmm......something. Maybe take 20% off the top to be fair.

If that concept extrapolates out, it spells the trouble we all would prefer to avoid, although SW seems perfectly comfortable traveling that path in a fog of false hope for untold $$$$$. To us: Its not about the $$$$$.


In less than one week:

-Z-, 00buck, 1Fast68, 2000 rmk, 76FoMoCo, 80arrow, 89sandman, ace44, Adrenaline Addiction, Aksledneck M.C.Mafia, AKSNOWRIDER, AndrettiDog, ArcticBoy, arcticcatmatt, bdubs, BearLaker, bfarnden, BigHoe, Blacktooth, Blu Du, boardbysled, Bogger, bonebreaker, Boondock Saint, Boondocker, Boostmonkey, BossRev, BU1, Calvin42, Canuck Hairy Bear, Carpainter29, CascadeRider, catrider, cobbycat, colo black smoke, cool2, copter6, Coptzeer, Cowboysedge, Cowgirl151, coyoteman, craigzz, Crashleroux, CRIX, devilrmk, dice, DKY, dmkhnr, Dobir, Doc, dragon12, Dragonman, DRD, DTrip, dustbuster, enis750, fasta76, flatlander_summit, FLIT, FLYINGM1000, fuji, Get Lucky, GettnUnstuck, GONE SLEDIN, Good to Go, Graveler, happyhour, Hawgman, Headrush, heinracing, High Voltage, HillsRider, hilock8, HOBB-Z, hymark860, Ice Cap, icr, Idaho Slim, IMSICK, island27, jafraune, JBB, Johnnyh, kiliki, koby, kraftymike, LeftyM77, lexy, line100, LiveAlaska, longshot, m7bossman, m8magic, mad1818, Mag, mark, markgarlie, marv, minnesotam7, MN IQ Raw, mn_sled_head_87, moonman, MORSNO, mountain-powder-slut, Ms. Swimmer, msled, MT boondocker, MTm7, MtnDoo, Nolimits, nullski, Oldxman, Ollie, oonighttrain, Orange06m7, OREGON700RMK, Phazer Moon, PIEGUY, Pistonbroke, porkbellie, POWDERHOUND1, Redman, Relentless Rider, REV2XHEART, REV4ARUSH, revpilot, ridealaska, RMK-King, Rob1334, Rx1Mountain, RYDPWDR, samurai, Sapling, SAWYER, sidehill, ski-doo junkie, skidoo, skidoo_03, SKIPPY, sldgy, sled, sledboy82, Sledbunny, sledchick, Sleddin SheDevil, Sleddingmom, sledin, sledmanhof, smittysnow, snowdad4, Snowizard, snowmach, Snowshovel, spook222, stuckone, studsrsx, Sturgis Sledder, Sxrlar, T Carp, T&A1000, team retro *****, TEC, teeroy, thebigtreeman, TheFlyingFynn, Throttle Junkey, Timberwolf, Top Notch, triple7, triplexp, Tuesday, tumblina, tundramonkey, Turtlehead, Twisted Boost, w8tn4u, westmont, WheeledWing, WHEREDAFUGAWEE, whitefish, WHITEOUT, whittaker727, Wickman, Wolfrun, Wonder Bread, WYO, wyoguy, XC700116, xcrash911, xc_rider08, XFIRE800, zal, _AJ_

 

[spook222]

All said and done there is probably 150 original members on here, and maybe a few hundred more consistent contributors at most.

Ill-applied stats are nice, but it isn't what makes this place hum.

(1) I'm amazed how many members are already seeking solace at a open site a few blocks down the road, that was just launched last week. Stunning.

(2) I'm blown away that the ADMIN of this site has registered at that site and taunting members to remain involved in SW. This tells a story.

(3) I'm amazed that the ADMIN of this site, registered at the other site uses the SNOWEST corporate logo in his icon over there, yet has coded a script that changes the other sites's name b**C**R**.**cawm when typed here to "SNOWEST".

I think SW gets the message, but has created the perfect storm seems to have a hard time admitting it - to the point of taking corrective action.

Sell management on Grande Plan 2.0, and then the oh-schidt moment comes start behaving erratically.

If HP Gods are watching: You'll be looking for a new strategy soon.


MD.


BTW - those guys are picking up advertisers already too! ...but I bet they have no idea what they're being paid for ads. Not. hehe.

Exactly! Well put.

 

[MPS]

Gotta thinking, the following list of members aren't just fleeting lurkers, but motivated by hmmm......something. Maybe take 20% off the top to be fair.

If that concept extrapolates out, it spells the trouble we all would prefer to avoid, although SW seems perfectly comfortable traveling that path in a fog of false hope for untold $$$$$. To us: Its not about the $$$$$.

Exactly, but they just don't get that.



.

 

[Ollie]

Its all about perceived value.
Those that see the value will pay.
Those that see no value will bail.

In the end, we hope more will see value than not.

So it is all about greed?
Those that made the site valuable and fun will leave, those that don't know any better will pay.

We know it can't be about the money.
Why?
Because of sites like facebook.
They have MILLIONS of members and don't charge a dime.