My Apologies - Ideas for the future!

[FinHeavenAJ]

I just want to apologize to the few Premium Members that do check out this forum every now and then. I know it's been dead for a while, and that really wasn't part of the "deal."

However, I just want to say that since everything has calmed down (for now), I want to be able to bridge the gap between us so you can get a better idea of where FinHeaven & Co is going.

So, starting in May I will give my monthly reports of how the site is doing financially and what not.

However, currently the site checking account stands at $250, which obviously isn't a whole lot. There are a handfull of members who say that they will become Premium Members again; however, I have yet to receive many checks. Right now, there are 3 premium members that have renewed.

My plan is to wait till the end of the month and then do the following:

Make a sticky in the main forum about Premium Members
- Try to think of a few added benefits that I can now do... such as more PM storage space, etc.

Open purchases of shirts to regular members
Would do this now, but time is very short since this is pretty much the last week or so left of school... then SUMMER! WOOO! :band:

Package THE TON OF FREAKIN WINDOW DECALS that I have with the shirts in yet another measly attempt to get the decals out of my room! LOL...
I haven't completely thought of a plan yet, but I'm thinking along the lines of charging an extra $1 to mail out the shirts, simply covering the postage!

My note: This is truly my first lesson of marketing. I mean, there will always be times when you and a few think something is such a great idea, but it simply isn't! There was seemingly a high demand, but there is not.

In any case, my goal is to get 30 premium members. The site will cost about $1400 to operate AS IS with no future customizations or purchases. I would like to have the site have a +$1,000 for marketing and such. The shirts have already been bought for this year. However, I would like to do the following for the new season marketing campaign.

1. Advertise in the Sun-Sentinel Dolphins Season Preview Section
2. Advertise on WQAM
3. Perhaps advertise on Pro Football Central Radio

This campaign calls for about $600-$700, probably less... but that's the marketing budget I would aim for. Also, I'ld like to look into the idea of buying a whole buncha cheap pens. I was looking through a magazine, and I could get somewhere around 500 "clicky" pens in aqua and orange for just $0.34 each, a total of $170. Obviously, these are give away items. Think about it... I or some other staff member is at school, and someone asks for a pen... you give them one with FinHeaven, and you got them attached to see what it's all about. And then... the word of mouth cycle begins! Obviously 500 may be a little much, but you get the idea. Think further on... if we give a few to the camp reporters, and they go to the camps and use the pens... a conversation may arise... the possibilities are endless! LOL, ok, I'll stop the campaign for pens.

Also, another plan is to finally get a functional commentary script. I know, I know, this has been on the agenda ever since the membership was formed. One must realize that such a script is not something I can just go out and get, this is something that will be a huge part of the site... thus I'm very picky. I'm looking for something that will integrate into the boards, to make the site run seemlessly. I have found scripts that run from $35 - $400... and NO the more you pay doesn't mean the better quality. $35 is from a "home coder" while $400 is some company published thing.

So... that's all on my mind right now. I guess this turned out to be much longer than I thought, but that's good. Everyone is somewhat caught up now.

Please remember - if you have any questison, comments, or concerns... PLEASE let me know!

Sincerely,
Andrew Tatum

 

[Iryman]

I just want to apologize to the few Premium Members that do check out this forum every now and then. I know it's been dead for a while, and that really wasn't part of the "deal."

I am sure i speak for most ppl when i say you don't have to Apologize to us. Specially with all that was going on.

I have one question. I always thought that the photo gallary was for premium members only? There are 88 members that use it currently. Well if it is for everyone what about making it something for all premium members but also have an options for just that. Like a $2 a month for anyone that wants to use it or like $20 a year? Something to bring in extra money. Personally i love it to host my pics. Verry reliable. I have used Imagestation and i would constantly get the stupid Red X pic. Just and suggestions. Some way to bring in extra revenue for ppl not willin to spend $7 a month. What ya think?

Ira

 

[FinHeavenAJ]

Well, a quick feed off that message could be this. "Regular" members could get, for example, 5mbs of space... while a Premium Member could get, lets say... 25mbs.

I mean, I don't want to make it so people that want to enjoy the site must pay dues of sort. The last thing I want this site to be is similar to Dolphins Digest, where in order to even read an article costs money

However, both of our ideas combined sound awesome and may be a new incentive!

 

[Iryman]

OK, i see what you mean about notwanting people to paying for everything. I like your idea! I guess that is why you are the boss!!! :D

 

[fin-atic]

I just renewed! C'mon all you premium members time to pay for the priveledge of having the best fan site in the NFL!!!

Dig Deep and make it fast!

 

[Muck]

One word of advice, fin-atic. I think you should....just once...stop following the herd and offer an opinion of dissent. I mean, you're constant toeing (sp) of the party line really bores me. :tongue: If you do that, we'll gladly accept your offer to re-up. :D

Seriously, thanks a bunch all. I think the image gallery is a good idea (limiting it and charging). Honestly A.J., 5 MB is A LOT of space for photos. For instance, TTT's animated gifs average about 150K each. If he were a regular user "limited" to 5 MB, he could still house roughly 33 of those gifs. That's a lot of space for free.

So perhaps we could limit it to 500K for a normal user....and maybe 15+ MB for Premies...maybe we could attract more. Or perhaps we could charge like you said.....$2/month for 5 MB space. TOS will still apply.

These sizes certainly aren't set in stone. Just brainstorming in hopes of creating more brainstorming.

 

[ZOD]

Actually Muck I was thinking that even your idea was "too big".

I thought of TT gifs when I looked at this thread the first time. I can't remember who implemented the use of the first one but I thought "he got a mod to create something for him and he's using the space for free?".

I don't even think most premium members would even use the space. Muck knows that I've contemplated using my space from Comcast and I've since trashed the idea as being too time consuming. :dunce:

I would use the creations of the site as the enticing measure.
Here is a thought...

Rid the site of the "free" animated gifs.

Members may still have the option of using their own space (i.e. comcast) in their signature and may continue to "house" their still image on the site as they always have.

Increase the quality of the animated gifs and I guarantee that they will spur interest. Members will ask the question of how to get one and premium members or mods will explain. In this case "premium membership" will become a topic more often without a "sticky" at the top. As of now TT is giving away something he took the time to create and has offered it for nothing. It's a nice gesture and it's the general good will that inhabits this forum but why not make it a feature for those who want to contribute?

A word of warning though...

Presently this is the best Dolphin board online. I'm not computer adept so I don't know if this measure suggested is "easy". I think the boards features and ease of use was one of the enticing features that acquired alot of the members. I think now the membership is the most enticing feature and that is the best situation to have. If the animated gifs or any other idea is easy to copy or costs do not prohibit another site from copying the idea and offering it for free, I would abandon the idea. I'd stay away from something that has a cost to participate but really has no cost for the site to endure.

Then again from a marketing standpoint the site is rapidly approaching the time where you can get away with charging for certain aspects as a result of the population attending.

 

[ZOD]

One other note......

Has anyone else noticed that there is no desciption of the members on the left side of the screen?

Since the forum change one does not know who is a Mod, who is a premium member, or anything.

I've noticed that one had "premium member" under their screen name but in the same place mine has "ruler of the universe".

Did I get special consideration? :cooldude:

 

[ZOD]

oooh, ooooh, oooh.......I got another idea.

I use to enjoy viewing the various contents in Muck's web space and I even used them on occasion on the site. Muck told me why he denied access to the public to the site and I don't know how he "allows" the various contents to be used occassionally but that's another feature the site could offer (not just Muck's stuff)

Muck attempted to help me set up my own site in my personal web space for wavs but like I said I'm a :dunce: with computers and the internet.

The site could offer any of the following to premium members. It's nothing that couldn't be found on the internet and still posted on a thread but the ease of access could be an attribute to premium membership. It would also limit "hosting" if the contents were "locked out" as Muck has majically done with his site.

The contents could be better organized than what Muck had :tongue: but any of the following would gain attention to what is shared by "premium members". The "public" premise for limiting access would be hold down costs, the slowdown of hosting, or simply it's something the premium members wished to share with each other.

For appearances sake the contents may be held under a site named for one other than a mod or admin of the board. I nominate Fin-atic :tongue: or it could be under a site property simply labeled finheaven.com/premium or such.

Contents?

wavs
gifs
or any other category

The key to these features is that access can be limited from outside use and theft but still may be viewed in the forum.

How in the hell is that done anyway? :huh:

 

[FinHeavenAJ]

ZOD thanks for the awesome ideas! I'll definitely look into those possibilities...

Anyway, about the "member descriptions" button thing, it's easier said than done to install it. I'm working on bringing that back ASAP.

 

[TerryTate]

You know, I dont check in this section very often but then I realized some peeps were talking about my GIFs behind my back

1) It's easy to steal other users's still images such as JPEGS, still-shot GIFS, etc....but animated GIFS might be a whole seperate ballgame, ill talk to Muckalofogus about it

2) 150k for animated GIFS was even a stretch in space to begin with, therefore thats the best quality that they will get IMO, the Marino fake-spike (As seen in my sig on 5-2-04) was very challenging to do and the play actually had to be sped up to cram it within 2-3 seconds.

By the way, thanks Premium Members for adding some fuel to the Finheaven Engine :)

 

[TerryTate]

Also, another problem with limiting the Animated GIFS at this point is that if we cut off the use of these, it will be like giving candy to a kid and taking it away after the kid removes the wrapper, i dont think it will go too well...

I have a feeling that ESPN Motion on ESPN.com will do something like that very soon, and it will drive me nuts.

 

[ZOD]

Also, another problem with limiting the Animated GIFS at this point is that if we cut off the use of these, it will be like giving candy to a kid and taking it away after the kid removes the wrapper, i dont think it will go too well...

The suggestion was not to cut the animated gifs out altogether. It was a suggestion that the user "hosts his own".

Really, I don't know much about it but it was worth a "swing". Is that strike one? Strike two?

I forget..:huh:

 

[ZOD]

I have a feeling that ESPN Motion on ESPN.com will do something like that very soon, and it will drive me nuts.

naw.......

It's being driven by advertising revenue. That also adds to what is being discussed here. The bills have to get paid somehow or another.

 

[Muck]

The tough part would be limiting access. People could easily just right-click and save the gifs to their hard drives. Or they could just right-click, copy the image location, and simply do what they want from there. There are tons of sites out there that do just that. They use our images, avatars, gifs, everything. There are even a few football boards that link their smilies directly from our site. What I mean is, you know how you click on a smiley next to the box when you submit a new post?? Well, there are some sites that have the same thing (smiley boxes)....except the smiley files aren't residing on their server. They're still on ours. So what they're really doing is stealing our bandwidth and processing power. They get the smiley, while all the overhead stays with us. As A.J. knows, this drives me crazy.

There are ways to combat this (implementing hotlink protection). But it's very hard to do and still be able to allow others to be able to hotlink. We tried it once.....and it was a disaster for the site. So we stopped right there. In all honestly, we probably do not have the capability to do exactly what we would like to do with the software we have. But I'm sure we could do SOMETHING. And I'd love to give it another shot. We'd probably have to try this late at night though.

If we were able to efficiently enable hotlink protection, the number of people saving the gifs to their hard drives really wouldn't hurt us much, because very few people have access to web space. And if people did so...and then uploaded them to the image gallery, it still wouldn't hurt us....because we would determine which sites are able to hotlink and which ones couldn't.

But I like the idea of charging for animated gifs. As you know, I have a lot of game film. And I am able to put all of it on my computer. I also have the same programs that TT has. So I could also create gifs on request. Perhaps we could all charge for them. $2 per image....which could be Paypal'd directly to the site's bank account. If you're caught using one of these gifs on the site, it will be disallowed. Premium Members of course would get these for free.

These are the kind of ideas we need to hear. Keep them coming.