Welcome to the Internet, where everything is permanent for as long as it lasts.
As some of you already know, I received a message yesterday from the founder/CEO of Intranets.com advising me that the "free, advertising supported" format of our Fusor Forum will be terminated by June 30. In its place, we have been offered a subscription based, ad-free "Professional Edition" - provided that we commit to the new service by June 30.
I can't say that this comes as a tremendous surprise. With all the upheaval we have been experiencing on the web in the past year - particularly the decline in advertising revenue and "free services," it really shouldn't suprise any of us that our host has come to this decision.
I'm still digesting the possibilities, considering alternatives, and evaluating the options. None of the choices is clear or easy. Here is some of what we know now:
1) The "Professional Edition" of Intranets.com starts at $14.95/mo for a whole 5 members, and adds $3.00/mo per member for every member past 5 - with a ceiling at $149.95/month.
We have right now 159 members of our forum. If everybody signs on for the new version, our cost would be that $149.95/mo, and we could conceivably charge $12/yr - $1.00/mo - for each member. But it seems unlikely that all 159 of you would sign up for a pay service, in which case a "breakeven" (curious choice of words...) proposition would conform to a sliding scale: if 50 of us sign up, the annual fee would have to be $36/yr ($3.00/mo); if 75 sign up, it could be $24/yr ($2/mo), and so on.
And none of this is allowing for how the actual billing of members would be administered - I inquired, but right now there are no plans for Intranets.com to charge individual members of any group. Somebody (probably me) would have to find a way of billing individual members.
2) If we don't opt for the "Professional Edition" before the end of June, everything currently posted to the site will be lost. That means - again! <*sigh*> archiving all our posts (presently in excess of 1,200) and either storing or reposting them to a new site.
3) The obvious - but not the only - candidate for relocation, if that's the desireable option, is "Yahoogroups." We considered Yahoo groups briefly before selecting the Intranets platform, and would that we had gone that route to begin with. But there is nothing we can do about that now - and, more importantly, there is absolutely NO GUARANTEE that Yahoogroups won't also decide to convert their service to a subscription model. After all, Yahoo! has experienced their own finanical problems - again, largely based on shrinking ad revenue - and they have a new CEO who will no doubt look at the profitability of all phases of their operation.
It seems to me the issue can only be decided on the basis of "how many people in this discussion are willing to pay for it?" Let me see if I can articulate some of the options:
Option #1) We stay put and subscribe to "The Professional Edition."
pros: 1) we keep all the existing material, and the discussion goes on unfettered 2) no more advertising on the site
cons: 1) we have to pay for it, at a annual/monthly rate yet to be determined 2) I, we, somebody - has to adminster the individual subscriptions
One further observation about this "Professional Edition" which is neither a pro nor a con: It appears that, to further entice existing users to subscribe to the new service, Intranets has added some new services, like wireless access, synchronization with Outlook/Palm platforms, and expense reports. It's hard to fathom how any of these new services will be of any value to our discussion.
There will also have to be a way for new members to get a 30 day trial before they are billed for their membership.
Option #2) We relocate the site - again.
pros: 1) members who might not be inclined to pay for the forum could still be part of the discussion. 2) The "obvious choice" (Yahoogroups) has many of the features we use (doc storage, links) and some that might be useful, like individual member settings for receipt postings.
cons: 1) we either lose all our existing material, or have to move it, which is going to be a LOT of work. 2) there is no guarantee that a new site would remain free forever. 3) the "obvious choice" does not permit the kind of segregated, topical discussion forums, with their own individual threads, that we enjoy at our present location
It's entirely likely that there are other "obvious choices" that I'm not thinking of... please feel free to suggest them in the "Forum Topics" discussion.
Option #3) We set up our own site from scratch
pros: 1) I already operate the domain "fusor.net" and that could be used to continue this operation 2) there is a lot of "freeware" for setting up Internet discussion boards
cons: 1) The Perfesser himself does not have the time presently to set such a thing up, nor is he sufficiently well-versed in the "CGI" aspects of web development and hosting; somebody else would have to assume the roll of webmaster. Any volunteeers?
Option #4) I dunno... are there other options? If you can think of any, please post them to the "Forum Topics" discussion on the site.
I do not want to make any decisions on this until I've gotten some feedback from the members of our forum. Accordingly, I have set up TWO new polls on the website. The first is intended to get some read on the willingness of members to pay for the service - which will also be instrumental in determing what, if anything, to charge. The second will help me determine what to do if we can't get enough paid subscriptions to go on with the "new and improved" Intranets.com service.
Finally, I have a personal scheduling conflict, in that I am going on vacation for two weeks at the end of June. So, I will probably go ahead and subscribe to the new service anyway, even if that means springing for the firs $149.95 out of my own pocket. That will give us the month of July to implement what ever decisions we make between now and the end of June.
So, please, visit The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium - http://fusor.intranets.com - as soon as possible, and let us know what you think we should do in the face of this development.
Thanks,
--PS
Created on Wednesday, June 06, 2001 12 PM EDT by The Perfesser