Ron Earp
Admin
Greetings All,
www.gt40s.com has been a lot of fun to watch grow over the years and it appears that we’re getting ready to see an explosion in interest in GT40s. I think we’ve got enough forum space to cover all interests here and we’ll add more forums as needed. In the last week we’ve added forums for the new GT due to all the posts on the car appearing in the normal GT40 forums. I’ve also added a special forum for GT40 Look-alikes so that those folks with these types of cars will have a place to call home. In short – we’re growing and I think that is a fantastic thing!
However, after a fair amount of time running the forum and watching how the online community has grown I think I’m going to have to change the way the forum is “run” in a sense. Our bandwidth requirements are beginning to be quite large with the advent of picture hosting and will shortly cost us more money on a monthly basis. I sort of knew it would but I think the utility far outweighs the cost. And, it doesn’t appear the members are limited by bandwidth very much. According to statistics very few are on dialup now so it appears you folks like pictures!
At any rate, the forum has existed in the past on contributions from dedicated enthusiasts. These noble folks aren’t posting the most, aren’t the most vocal, don’t have the fanciest cars, and some don’t even have GT40s. They just want to see the forum continue, as do I, due to their love of the cars. Funny how that works out sometimes, the little guys offer the most support.
However, as pointed out by some members one of the biggest beneficiaries to of the forum are the replica manufacturers themselves. ERA, CAV, DRB, RF, and others are well represented on the forum and certainly have a good captive audience of potential customers. From my standpoint it’d certainly be a lot easier to accept funds from a few interested companies than from many individual sources.
One way to make this situation work for both parties is for the forum to offer banner advertising space to the companies that wish to pay for the service. This helps run the forum and helps the advertising company. However, in the past I’ve been against this type of thing because I hate slow sites and I hate waiting for banners to load. So, I’ve avoided that as much as possible.
Another way to handle it is to offer the manufacturers their own forums on the website for their customers. I’ve done this with RF since the beginning as Robert Logan of paid for the privilege after seeing the utility of it within a few months. CAV has a free section for the moment that serves a similar role.
So, I think what I am going to do is offer the manufactures a forum section of their own for a fee that they can moderate and use for their customers. They can choose to make it fully moderated – that is, only their members can read or it can be completely open. Additionally, we’ll offer banner ads for interested companies but I’ll make this work by pulling some bandwidth on the front page somewhere else – probably with the shout box. I don’t want a banner ad to increase your page loading time – that is a big pet peeve with me so you can rest assured I won’t let it happen. I’ll carefully control size, colors, and content so it makes a point but is non-intrusive. And, no, you won’t be seeing ads for Viagra and other such stuff. Just GT40 car related info, that is it. A very small pool.
Please, any comments on the issue? And before anyone asks we’re fine for cash on the forum right now so we don’t need donations. I’m just trying to cover what I see as becoming a potential issue in the future – funding, time, and interests of the forum.
www.gt40s.com has been a lot of fun to watch grow over the years and it appears that we’re getting ready to see an explosion in interest in GT40s. I think we’ve got enough forum space to cover all interests here and we’ll add more forums as needed. In the last week we’ve added forums for the new GT due to all the posts on the car appearing in the normal GT40 forums. I’ve also added a special forum for GT40 Look-alikes so that those folks with these types of cars will have a place to call home. In short – we’re growing and I think that is a fantastic thing!
However, after a fair amount of time running the forum and watching how the online community has grown I think I’m going to have to change the way the forum is “run” in a sense. Our bandwidth requirements are beginning to be quite large with the advent of picture hosting and will shortly cost us more money on a monthly basis. I sort of knew it would but I think the utility far outweighs the cost. And, it doesn’t appear the members are limited by bandwidth very much. According to statistics very few are on dialup now so it appears you folks like pictures!
At any rate, the forum has existed in the past on contributions from dedicated enthusiasts. These noble folks aren’t posting the most, aren’t the most vocal, don’t have the fanciest cars, and some don’t even have GT40s. They just want to see the forum continue, as do I, due to their love of the cars. Funny how that works out sometimes, the little guys offer the most support.
However, as pointed out by some members one of the biggest beneficiaries to of the forum are the replica manufacturers themselves. ERA, CAV, DRB, RF, and others are well represented on the forum and certainly have a good captive audience of potential customers. From my standpoint it’d certainly be a lot easier to accept funds from a few interested companies than from many individual sources.
One way to make this situation work for both parties is for the forum to offer banner advertising space to the companies that wish to pay for the service. This helps run the forum and helps the advertising company. However, in the past I’ve been against this type of thing because I hate slow sites and I hate waiting for banners to load. So, I’ve avoided that as much as possible.
Another way to handle it is to offer the manufacturers their own forums on the website for their customers. I’ve done this with RF since the beginning as Robert Logan of paid for the privilege after seeing the utility of it within a few months. CAV has a free section for the moment that serves a similar role.
So, I think what I am going to do is offer the manufactures a forum section of their own for a fee that they can moderate and use for their customers. They can choose to make it fully moderated – that is, only their members can read or it can be completely open. Additionally, we’ll offer banner ads for interested companies but I’ll make this work by pulling some bandwidth on the front page somewhere else – probably with the shout box. I don’t want a banner ad to increase your page loading time – that is a big pet peeve with me so you can rest assured I won’t let it happen. I’ll carefully control size, colors, and content so it makes a point but is non-intrusive. And, no, you won’t be seeing ads for Viagra and other such stuff. Just GT40 car related info, that is it. A very small pool.
Please, any comments on the issue? And before anyone asks we’re fine for cash on the forum right now so we don’t need donations. I’m just trying to cover what I see as becoming a potential issue in the future – funding, time, and interests of the forum.
