Dory36 demoted!

[sgeeeee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laurence Andy has also promised to triple all the moderators salary, so he bought us off and we're happy! Now let's see, 0 time 3 equals....doh!

You moderators deserve every penney of it.

[lswswein]

Hi Andy
Nice meeting you and lots of intersting stories there. Since you are the Colorado Ski bum you should tell where to hang out in summit county. I am going there next week and looking fwd to Breck and Keysytone and all that snow the east coast never got.
I got a question for you - apologize if it sounds rude. What is the business plan behind all the forums? How do you make money to pay for all the servers and software? Just curious

-h

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I've got nothin'.

Hey Larry, should I send you a couple of bucks, or make you a ham sandwich or something?

[Andy R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lswswein Since you are the Colorado Ski bum you should tell where to hang out in summit county. I am going there next week and looking fwd to Breck and Keysytone and all that snow the east coast never got.

Well not knowing what you are looking for, all I can really recommend is what I like, which is live music. There is a place in Keystone called The Goat and I think Johnny Lee Hooker Jr. is playing there, here is a link to music in Breck.

In Breckenridge, there is a place called Sherpa & Yeti's that I have seen some great shows at. (Pollstar Music listing for Breck)

Also, the Summit Daily News has a schedule of events (click here) and you can pick up lots of local fliers with "what's going on" when you get there... Have fun, I miss Summit County!!! Oh yeah, I used to ski mostly at Arapaho Basin to stay away from the crowds. I am not sure what the snow conditions are but sometimes a mid-week day at A Basin can be very nice...

Quote:

Originally Posted by lswswein I got a question for you - apologize if it sounds rude. What is the business plan behind all the forums? How do you make money to pay for all the servers and software? Just curious

Well my theory is that online forums are very unique places. I actually always refer to them as online forum communities. My theory is that birds of a feather flock together. People do the same thing online as they do offline. People from similar geographical areas , people from the same socio-economic backgrounds, people who like the same type of music, or people who like the same hobby or topic. So I think these types of sites are very special because they are where we gather online.

The way we stay in business is with ad revenue. It's a good thing I moved out of the country because I wouldn't have been able to afford my expenses in the States when I decided to take a professional approach to fostering forum communities. Since then things have grown and we are able to grow our revenue little by little (which we keep re-investing into the next acquisition). The big issue is that forums communities are high page view and very low click through. That means lots of bandwidth, powerful servers to run the sites and less income then content sites. The fact that people are in interactive mode on forums (discussing things) reduces the propensity that they will click on an ad (you get blind to them).

The plan is to upgrade our software to what I consider the best commercial forum software (which will give us a lot of new features). At that time I will introduce some nicely blended ads. Don't worry, there are no Pop Ups, or bouncing smilies that will be invading E-R. Membership will ALWAYS BE FREE!!!

I also have some other ideas on ways to reduce ads for highly active members but I don't want to promise anything at this time. The way I see this is that members who post quality content are like writers and they create content which is indexed by search engines. The more content gets created the more pages are index and the more visitors we will have. It's the visitors (random surfers) who click on the ads. So with time I hope to find a way to reward our best posters with an interface that has less ads. I cannot make any promises about if/when that will happen but I am very aware of this and will try to find a solution that works with time...

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Just to be clear, there should be absolutely, positively, no "punch the monkey"!!!

Wow...post count might finally mean something

[grumpy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy R After 4 months in Buenos Aires I went to an island I heard about in Southern Brazil called Florianopolis. It's an amazing place, about the size of Maui but 1/6 the cost and a very laid back vibe.

Andy,

Welcome and thanks for relieving Dory from some of the tedium. I noted your reference to Florianopolis. My son's girlfriend is Brazilian and they just returned to the US from three weeks there visiting her family. I thought you (and the rest of the crazies here) might enjoy some pictures my son posted:

http://flickr.com/photos/jeffweiss/s...7594471681683/

We are hoping there will be a wedding sometime in the near future and we will have a good excuse for a trip there.

Grumpy

[Andy R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grumpy Welcome and thanks for relieving Dory from some of the tedium. I noted your reference to Florianopolis. My son's girlfriend is Brazilian and they just returned to the US from three weeks there visiting her family. I thought you (and the rest of the crazies here) might enjoy some pictures my son posted: http://flickr.com/photos/jeffweiss/s...7594471681683/ We are hoping there will be a wedding sometime in the near future and we will have a good excuse for a trip there.

Wow Grumpy, what a small world! Very few people in the US have heard of Florianopolis. It really is a special place (safe, relaxed, inexpensive - relative to the US, nice weather and 52 beaches) and I am planning to go back for most of March (when prices drop, peak season is January/February). I have a Brazilian girlfriend (that's why I am going back) and they sure do know how to relax and enjoy life!

[Removed Link with personal info - Andy]

[Sarah in SC]

Welcome, Andy! What a coincidence, as the other forum where I read a lot, post very little, is the Airstream forum. Found my rowdy old girl there, but I'm a MHer! The Basher is a Airstream Argosy Motorhome, 28' 1976. She's truly awesome--I bought her from one of your VERY prolific writers on that forum! Such a great knowledge base there!

That is a well run and well attended forum. Good folks and gives me a good feeling about you moving in on us over here.

Again, welcome!

Sarah

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy R The more content gets created the more pages are index and the more visitors we will have. It's the visitors (random surfers) who click on the ads.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny Wow...post count might finally mean something

These concepts are preferable to no E-R.org at all, but that doesn't mean I think they're a good idea.

Perhaps the first thing the new software could do is get rid of the post counts. Dates to distinguish the long-time posters or stars to distinguish the high-volume posters, sure-- but no scorekeeping.

[FinanceDude]

Brazilian women are hot............

[Danny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinanceDude Brazilian women are hot............

They wouldn't be if they lived in a cooler climate...

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords but no scorekeeping.

Totally works for me. Then all I have to do is get rid of these giant bunny ears and there'll be nothing to make fun of...

[obryanjf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy R Wow Grumpy, what a small world! Very few people in the US have heard of Florianopolis. It really is a special place (safe, relaxed, inexpensive - relative to the US, nice weather and 52 beaches) and I am planning to go back for most of March (when prices drop, peak season is January/February). I have a Brazilian girlfriend (that's why I am going back) and they sure do know how to relax and enjoy life! [Removed Link with personal info - Andy]

My wife is from Brasil and her family now lives in Floripa. Before our last move I was trying to talk her into moving there but too close to the family.

job

[haha]

Since I'll be getting no cash for this, this will be in conflict with my goal of never being anyone's "uncompensated asset". Therefore, going forward my posts will be even more useless than before.

Ha

[Caroline]

Quote:

Therefore, going forward my posts will be even more useless than before.

When do you start this policy, Ha? It wasn't with THIS post - it made me laugh out loud!

What is more, it did so a mere 5 minutes after I hung up with AT&T, who used my request for a repair to my non-functioning land line as an opportunity to SELL ME SOMETHING ELSE that probably won't work either.

Thank you kindly for the mood-breaker!

[lswswein]

Hi Andy
I was looking for pubs/places in Summit county with cheap beer and good food and where maybe the locals hang out instead of all the tourists. I have heard good things about Abasin and will check it out on a friday. Thanks for the music links.

Your business plan looks interesting. If you don't mind a few questions - I see you have bought a few forums. At what member base do you break even - did you break even on the first ones? I am asking because it is really difficult to break even with ad revenue only. We have see it at the fool.com message boards. Also to attract newbies you might need some more original content articles. I understand you costs are low because you are in South America, but still you would need bandwidth and storage along with servers right? Just curious because a friend of mine is working on online learning stuff which also relies a lot on message boards etc.

-h

[Andy R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lswswein Your business plan looks interesting. If you don't mind a few questions - I see you have bought a few forums. At what member base do you break even - did you break even on the first ones? I am asking because it is really difficult to break even with ad revenue only. We have see it at the fool.com message boards. Also to attract newbies you might need some more original content articles. I understand you costs are low because you are in South America, but still you would need bandwidth and storage along with servers right? Just curious because a friend of mine is working on online learning stuff which also relies a lot on message boards etc.

there is not a certain membership base that I have been looking for. I have been looking at sites that have active users, good management teams, topics I enjoy (mostly) and potential. it's really hard to say what size things get going, I have started forums from scratch, acquired ones that went from 6,000 members to 60,000 members in 18 months and some that have been flat to small declines in traffic and new registrations. There are definately cycles but I have yet to determine how to predict them...

Having self funded everything, I had to make wise economic decisions along the way. That includes watching Dell.com for server sales, leveraging economies of scale on data center space (bandwidth), etc. I did a lease vs buy analysis to determine which was the best choice, I choose to buy servers and collocate. This also has downsides, like when a chassis fan went down last year in a server and I had to get Dell to replace it before the server would reboot. We were down for 18 hours and I was coordinating repairs from Brazil. In that case it would be nice to be leasing it from a company who had techs and spare parts on hand.

[Eagle43]

Hi Andy,
Glad you're here; you seem to know your stuff and have led an interesting life. Congrats to Dory who needs the break.

Yep, birds of a feather flock together. These birds soar when discussing retirement, getting to retirement, and making money while enjoying life.

Somebody said something about "hot Brazilian girls." Where's the data on that?

[kcowan]

Andy
Please help us with the change in forum software. We don't like surprises!

Let's make sure Dory still has a special place in this new environment.

While in BA have you ever visited Punta del Este in Uruguay? It is one of the fallback locations for us in case Firecalc or the markets let us down!

Keith & Faye
Retired in 2002 and still doing fine...
Typed using free WiFi from our penthouse balcony in downtown PV MX

[Andy R]

Keith & Faye,

Dory will always have a special place here on E-R!!!

I have not been to Punta Del Este yet but I hear it is amazing. I hope to go sometime soon for a weekend.

As for the software we were hoping to convert to vBulletin which is a commercial forum software. It's more expensive but well worth it. You have probably used other forums running on vBulletin and will recognize it when we convert. We will give you plenty of notice and post lots of tutorials on how to utilize all the new features. We are not exactly sure when the upgrade will take place but we will let you know long in advance...

I use a Buffalo wifi card in my laptop with an external antenna. It's amazing how many free wifi spots you can find. Last year when the Mavericks were in the NBA Championships, I watch the games streaming from my Slingbox (which send your TV from your house to you over the internet) on a free wifi connection in Cairns, Australia. It had a group of people standing behind me watching the game and amazed that it was being privately broadcast from my house in Texas!

Have fun in PV, that's a great town!