- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 15,226
I'd like to start this by saying thank you to all of the members that have made this site as popular as it is. As you know, we've gone through some significant growing pains and have weathered through all of the difficulties while continuing to provide you with the very best services for the knife community you've helped us create. BladeForums.com is without a doubt the most popular knife related site on the internet, due in no small part to what each of you has put into building this community.
In our efforts to continue to improve the services we provide, we've encountered some limitations along the way, specifically with the capabilities of the UBB software. Let's face it, the software is designed for threaded discussions, not advertising, classifieds, auctions, etc. It functions very well as discussion software, but shoe-horning it into something it's not doesn't exactly produce satisfactory results.
We also realized that if BladeForums.com was to survive, we needed to make it self sufficient. To that end, it needed to provide enough income through the services we offer to cover the recurring expenses that operating a site like this incurs.
So, how do we tackle this problem, using the advantages that we have? The obvious choice was that if we brought buyers and sellers together, then clearly we are acting as brokerage service, and we should try to use that to our advantage.
When Mike and I made the decision back in May to limit the Knives For Sale: Dealers forum to paying advertisers, we realized that it was not the optimal solution to the problem. Though we did see a slight upsurge in the number of advertisers we had, we were singling out the dealers and limiting their options. On top of that, dealers who don't have websites were by default excluded from the dealer forum, since they didn't have any use for banner advertising. In addition, now we had to keep track as to who had access to the Dealer Forum as a paying advertiser, and deal with the fallout that this policy caused.
Finally, we had certain dealers, whether full or part time, try to "get around" our dealer policies by posting their items for sale in the Knives For Sale: Individuals forum. There seemed to be no way to plug this loophole - moderators was a bad idea, as was limiting the number of posts anyone could make in a given time period.
We also had a different kind of problem to deal with - We've been contacted by several suppliers, distributors, and makers who would like to advertise their products for sale on our forums, but we didn't have a section for them, or a way to serve them.
Finally, we were concerned about the inability to ensure that our members were being protected against fraudulent sellers, since with the forums it is easy to create a false identity with absolutely no accountability.
Clearly what we were doing wasn't working. So, Mike and I decided that if the forum software could not fulfill our requirements, we should probably look for something else that would. I did some research, asked opinions, got feedback, and decided that we would probably be best served by opening a Classifieds Section using purpose designed software.
I've been testing and experimenting with the software for the last 30 days or so, and we're finally ready to go live with it.
You can view it by visiting this URL - http://www.bladeforums.com/cgi-bin/classifieds/classifieds.cgi
The benefits were obvious -
The downsides were obvious as well -
I fully realize that some of you will not want to use this service, and probably many of you are not going to be happy with these changes, or will need some time to adjust. As such, we are going to gradually move to this, instead of forcing this on everyone all at once.
We will be making the Knives For Sale: Individual Forum and Knives For Sale: Makers Forum "read only" when we return from the 2000 BLADE Show on June 6, 2 weeks from today. We will be doing the same thing to the Knives For Sale: Dealers forum on August 1st, over two months from now. This is to "grandfather" in the dealers who chose to support us with banner advertising, and give them the opportunity to prepare for the transition. (Dealers, if you are a current banner advertiser and do not have access to the dealer forum, contact me immediately for access privileges). The Trading Post Forum and Knives Wanted will be turned "read only" immediately, so please use the classifieds for those ads. FYI, the Wanted Category in the Classifieds is free to use for posting ads.
Moving on, I'd like to showcase some of the features that the classified software has, and just why it's a better solution than what we have been using up to this point.
Fee's for advertising in the Classifieds section are extremely reasonable - and get better when you advertise more than once. Your initial ad will use the following fee structure -
7 day ad - $1.49
14 day ad -$2.99
21 day ad -$3.99
30 day ad -$4.99
After your initial ad, your rates go down to
7 day ad - $1.00
14 day ad -$1.99
21 day ad -$2.99
30 day ad -$3.99
Any ad can be renewed once for $1.00
There's additional visibility and search ranking priority features that you can add on, but I have written enough for now. You'll see them when you use the software.
Oh yeah, the following classifieds categories have no fees for posting classifieds - Announcements, Personals, and Wanted...
I'm sure we're going to get a lot of feedback out of this, both good and bad, and both Mike and myself, and we're ready and willing to answer your questions, comments, and suggestions.
It's my earnest opinion that this is the best solution for our members, and I hope that you all find this a useful and welcome feature for our community.
Spark
------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
Insert witty quip here
In our efforts to continue to improve the services we provide, we've encountered some limitations along the way, specifically with the capabilities of the UBB software. Let's face it, the software is designed for threaded discussions, not advertising, classifieds, auctions, etc. It functions very well as discussion software, but shoe-horning it into something it's not doesn't exactly produce satisfactory results.
We also realized that if BladeForums.com was to survive, we needed to make it self sufficient. To that end, it needed to provide enough income through the services we offer to cover the recurring expenses that operating a site like this incurs.
So, how do we tackle this problem, using the advantages that we have? The obvious choice was that if we brought buyers and sellers together, then clearly we are acting as brokerage service, and we should try to use that to our advantage.
When Mike and I made the decision back in May to limit the Knives For Sale: Dealers forum to paying advertisers, we realized that it was not the optimal solution to the problem. Though we did see a slight upsurge in the number of advertisers we had, we were singling out the dealers and limiting their options. On top of that, dealers who don't have websites were by default excluded from the dealer forum, since they didn't have any use for banner advertising. In addition, now we had to keep track as to who had access to the Dealer Forum as a paying advertiser, and deal with the fallout that this policy caused.
Finally, we had certain dealers, whether full or part time, try to "get around" our dealer policies by posting their items for sale in the Knives For Sale: Individuals forum. There seemed to be no way to plug this loophole - moderators was a bad idea, as was limiting the number of posts anyone could make in a given time period.
We also had a different kind of problem to deal with - We've been contacted by several suppliers, distributors, and makers who would like to advertise their products for sale on our forums, but we didn't have a section for them, or a way to serve them.
Finally, we were concerned about the inability to ensure that our members were being protected against fraudulent sellers, since with the forums it is easy to create a false identity with absolutely no accountability.
Clearly what we were doing wasn't working. So, Mike and I decided that if the forum software could not fulfill our requirements, we should probably look for something else that would. I did some research, asked opinions, got feedback, and decided that we would probably be best served by opening a Classifieds Section using purpose designed software.
I've been testing and experimenting with the software for the last 30 days or so, and we're finally ready to go live with it.
You can view it by visiting this URL - http://www.bladeforums.com/cgi-bin/classifieds/classifieds.cgi
The benefits were obvious -
- Now we wouldn't have to single out the dealers, we could treat all sellers equally.
- The Classifieds software we chose was designed for that purpose, and as such, would perform that task better than the forums ever could
- The Classifieds software was much more "feature-rich" and was loaded with options that made it a much better solution for our ever expanding user base.
- Instead of trying to have a "one size fits all" solution, we'd be able to offer solutions tailored for the individual user's needs - a "pay as you go" system. We wouldn't need to charge people to post in the forums, just ask for a small fee when they sell a knife through our website.
The downsides were obvious as well -
- The software isn't free.
- Instead of just having unhappy dealers, we'd probably have unhappy members and custom makers, with the resulting problems that could cause
I fully realize that some of you will not want to use this service, and probably many of you are not going to be happy with these changes, or will need some time to adjust. As such, we are going to gradually move to this, instead of forcing this on everyone all at once.
We will be making the Knives For Sale: Individual Forum and Knives For Sale: Makers Forum "read only" when we return from the 2000 BLADE Show on June 6, 2 weeks from today. We will be doing the same thing to the Knives For Sale: Dealers forum on August 1st, over two months from now. This is to "grandfather" in the dealers who chose to support us with banner advertising, and give them the opportunity to prepare for the transition. (Dealers, if you are a current banner advertiser and do not have access to the dealer forum, contact me immediately for access privileges). The Trading Post Forum and Knives Wanted will be turned "read only" immediately, so please use the classifieds for those ads. FYI, the Wanted Category in the Classifieds is free to use for posting ads.
Moving on, I'd like to showcase some of the features that the classified software has, and just why it's a better solution than what we have been using up to this point.
- Useability - The Classifieds provide a sophisticated and intuitive interface that is easy for everyone to use.
- Fee Structure - After you've made one (1) ad, the price for making additional ads drops. Fees are based on the duration of your ad, visibility and priority options you choose, and whether or not you want to include images in your ad. In addition, you can renew your ad for less than it would cost to post a new ad.
- Multimedia upload - If you don't have your own website, you no longer have to go to Photopoint for images to show up in your ads -you can upload them for inclusion with each of your classifieds. The software also auto generates thumbnail images for you. You can upload movies or sound files as well.
- Private Messaging - If you have problems keeping track of who has emailed a response to your ad, you'll love this - you can keep track of all the responses you get through an easy to use web interface. The Personal Inbox feature functions as a full-strength, private, and secure messaging center. When someone replies to an ad, the poster is notified that they have a reply and is given a URL where they can retrieve it. The e-mail address of the person who replied is not revealed. When the original poster retrieves the reply, he or she has the option of sending a reply back, again without revealing his or her e-mail address. That way, the parties can send messages back and forth through this system without revealing their e-mail addresses or other personal information until they feel comfortable in doing so. In addition, your email address is kept private, eliminating any "spamming" concerns.
- Auto-Notify - Though fee based, this is probably one of the best features of this software, since buyers no longer have to waste time searching for that particular knife (or knives) that they are looking for. Instead, simply create an Auto-Notify agent, and any time someone posts an ad with the key words you are looking for, you will be notified, automatically. This lets lets users set up their own personal search agent that will automatically e-mail them periodically with the new ads that match the database search criteria that they specified when they set up their agent. Their search criteria can include not only keywords, but also specific categories, features, or geographical locations, date ranges, price ranges, or any other database criteria. You can even choose to be notified only of new ads with photos, sound clips, and/or video clips.
Users also have the ability to specify how long they would like their AutoNotify Agent last for, and can set up as many as they want for each category (with the appropriate fee's applying).
- Ad Preview - See what your ad is going to look like before you submit it.
- "My Checklist" - The digital equivalent of circling ads in a newspaper, this gives you the ability to track ads for future reference.
- Ad Modification and Deletion - If the item is sold, or something's wrong with the description, you can change or delete it at will.
- Show all Ads by This User - pretty self explanatory, but extremely useful.
- Item counters - Shows how many times the ad has been viewed and replied to, so you have an idea how popular the item is.
- Alert Admin - If you see something illegal, obscene, or just plain wrong, you can let us know.
- Powerful Search Features - Optimized search engine for seven different types of searches: browsing, keyword searches, category searches, retrieval of a specific ad by its database ID number, retrieval of all of a specific user's ads, retrieval of one specific ad for modification, and full database power searches. The search feature is extremely powerful, to say the least.
Fee's for advertising in the Classifieds section are extremely reasonable - and get better when you advertise more than once. Your initial ad will use the following fee structure -
7 day ad - $1.49
14 day ad -$2.99
21 day ad -$3.99
30 day ad -$4.99
After your initial ad, your rates go down to
7 day ad - $1.00
14 day ad -$1.99
21 day ad -$2.99
30 day ad -$3.99
Any ad can be renewed once for $1.00
There's additional visibility and search ranking priority features that you can add on, but I have written enough for now. You'll see them when you use the software.
Oh yeah, the following classifieds categories have no fees for posting classifieds - Announcements, Personals, and Wanted...
I'm sure we're going to get a lot of feedback out of this, both good and bad, and both Mike and myself, and we're ready and willing to answer your questions, comments, and suggestions.
It's my earnest opinion that this is the best solution for our members, and I hope that you all find this a useful and welcome feature for our community.
Spark
------------------
Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com
Insert witty quip here
