Offroad-Express

Mike I may be able to help with hardware possibly, what spec is the 5 year old machine you're currently building and what could you do with realistically, more hard disc space? faster processor?

Ok points so far from the posts.

1) Payed memberships is obviously the way most people are thinking.
1a) read access for non paying members
1b) stickers for vehicles (bumper and window)included in membership fee
1c) coffee mugs included in membership etc.

2) T-Shirts, seems everyone is keen for some of these.
2a) personalised T-shirts but with ORE still on there somewhere.
2c) types of Tshirts ie nissans bagging toyotas and vice versa etc with ORE on there somewhere.
3) Offloading parts of the site to other servers. Can be done through some trickery but may add complexity in maintaining the site and upgrading further on.

4) Donations.

5) ORE club completely separate from forums but fee to join includes free subscriber access to the forums. This method of joining allows people access to insurance for trips.
5a) first $25 must goto nz4wda for their membership which covers insurance.

6) sponsored forums where vendors who pay a year fee can advertise in there, have give aways etc

7) competitions, 2-4 per year. Quite a lot of organisation involved with this. start small and see where we get to.

push for more advertisers.

9) Jamboree nth and sth island. whole island one every 4 years?(that was my idea and the result is we found that wopass dont like rubgy )

10) informal committee to help with the organisation of stuff. would mean work for other people but would give a sense of participation perhaps?

11)limit on numbers of pics noon members can view or upload.

12)limited access time frame sort of like a trial membership. maybe a limit on number of posts to start with

13) not showing pics in forums if they dont have membership. A teaser so you can read whats going on but cant see. (I think that photos in the forum make it for an interesting place though, just my personal view)

14) trademe charity auction from donated goods.

15) trip fees goto site

16) Annual ore vid $25 (tried to make this last year but obviously my dvd making skills are not up to scratch and it never happened ) I've seen one of mikes and its primo!

17 ) concerns over ORE club killing the forums and restricting access also killing the forums.

Have a think about these:

My personal preferences are:

1) keep the forums totally open and free to post by all. As good as membership sounds there are only so many active members on the site and we are trying to increase this. I'm pretty sure it would slow the growth of active members down.

2) vendors forums etc this has real potential.

3) ORE dvd, competitions, jamborees are the ones where everybody will get the most out of.

4) more advertisers. This site is a real resource for the industry and the industry cannot ignore it for to much longer.

5) donations for those that wish to donate.

6) trip fees.

I think this should cover it.

Mike



3)

oh forgot also in my preferred list is the T-SHIRTS and mugs! awesome ideas!!!!!!!

awesome news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Just got off the phone with wjw aka bill who works for snap internet. Since 99% of the traffic is national the site will be moving to snap internet premises and sitting in one of the rack units with just the cost of power and a snap banner on the site!. Only thing is now need to get another server that sits in these racks. so maximum is a 2 U server. Needs to be min of 800mhz prefer over 1ghz. Going to start looking at trademe now.

Thats a huge saving for the site and that money can go towards the new server and then on to organising competitions etc. Things might finally start happening around ORE with regards to events and things.

Mike

First up, congrats on the server rack space... let me know if you need anything hardware wise... and I'll keep an eye out with suppliers for an ex-lease 2U server... Think I might know of one...

mike wrote:1a) read access for non paying members

Nope - that will kill the site faster than 2 rusty d-shackles in downtown auckland

mike wrote:11)limit on numbers of pics noon members can view or upload.

Just say unsubscribed members can't upload pics at all... they can still use them via remote linking, just can't have them stored on here. You may need to streamline the process of inserting pics from the galleries as an incentive, as most noobs (and a few old hands) on here have trouble with the concept.

mike wrote:12)limited access time frame sort of like a trial membership. maybe a limit on number of posts to start with

See 1a

mike wrote:13) not showing pics in forums if they dont have membership. A teaser so you can read whats going on but cant see. (I think that photos in the forum make it for an interesting place though, just my personal view)

agree with your personal view on that one, once again see 1a

mike wrote:14) trademe charity auction from donated goods.

Trying to get on the news?

mike wrote:My personal preferences are:

1) keep the forums totally open and free to post by all. As good as membership sounds there are only so many active members on the site and we are trying to increase this. I'm pretty sure it would slow the growth of active members down.

I think membership as an option, with a few teasers thrown in would not slow the sites growth... or the growth of active members... and never discount the "kudos" of being a paying member of a cool organisation as an active stimulant to get people to cash up I'm all for it personally.

mike wrote:5) donations for those that wish to donate.

Don't become a charity... have people either pay and be recognised or stay in the dark...

One last thing... make the use of an avatar a member privelidge... I cashed up $20US just to get my MU on Pirate (well, that and so I could search... something you pay for on Pirate as it chews CPU time on their over-overworked server)

This is all good thinking, and I think most people are happy to pay a membership fee if for no better reason than to keep the site here... you started it, but I think most regulars consider this site to be as much theirs as yours Keep up the good work.

Steve

Steve

mike wrote:awesome news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Just got off the phone with wjw aka bill who works for snap internet. Since 99% of the traffic is national the site will be moving to snap internet premises and sitting in one of the rack units with just the cost of power and a snap banner on the site!. Only thing is now need to get another server that sits in these racks. so maximum is a 2 U server. Needs to be min of 800mhz prefer over 1ghz. Going to start looking at trademe now.

Thats a huge saving for the site and that money can go towards the new server and then on to organising competitions etc. Things might finally start happening around ORE with regards to events and things.

Mike

sweet!

mike wrote:You got any options Bill?

Sorry been to busy to get on... anyway... phoned Mike about something else today and he told me about this thread... have spoken to the director types at work and all sorted.

Mike, I'll email you confirmation tomorrow. Same as what your paying, just need that rack mount.

Cheers,

Bill

Okay just read the whole thread... I have a couple of comments:

Server Hosting

1. Considering if it was my server I wouldn't be charged.. .we have a bit of play in the pricing. I think I will be able to set the plan up for 100-300GB/s per month depending on who I buy a coffee for tomorrow. This is important as it will be contractual with Offroad Express 2002 Ltd.

2. Once I've setup the plan on our internal database, I'll write the contract and post it to Mike. Mike, can you send me your postal address?

3. Once thats done we can create the banner ad. The key will be to log the amount of times the banner ad is displayed, along with the amount of click throughs. Mike if you can't do that, I can.

4. All of you buy your DSL through Snap and tell them its because you saw the add on http://www.offroadexpress.co.nz. Each one will probably add 10GB to the amount of data we can use. Just have to track it.

5. If the data usage gets too high, we implement a members fee. This fee will allow you to view, upload movies and photos in High Quality, it what you see now. If you don't pay it, we write some code that reduces the image quality / denys access to movies thus lowering the data usage.

I think that about covers server hosting.

Other Stuff:

1. I think the site should remain free, but maybe implement the image/movies thing suggested in 5 above.

2. When a Ore club is formed, it is kept seperate, like the Zuk club forum.

Thats my 2c right at this moment.

Let keep it running and lets keep it free for as long as possible. I've done my bit to keep the costs down. So now its up to all of you to push your local 4wd shops/services etc into advertising on this site.

Cheers.

Bill

Let keep it running and lets keep it free for as long as possible. I've done my bit to keep the costs down. So now its up to all of you to push your local 4wd shops/services etc into advertising on this site

If we can get some sort of sales pitch together, I'm willing to hit the shops around Christchurch. Mike we could talk about this over a few beers at the wheatsheaf in Wellington when I'm up there in a couple of weeks. And I am also willing to help organise a sth island jamboree and maybe even some sort of competition.
Al

Hi all
Great site

Great ideas

Great people

Is there a way that we can make donations that would work without the tax man taking too much ??

May be you could set up an seperate account to protect you from internet fraud etc that we could donate into.
May be we could PM a responder that gives this number so we can donate.

What sort of money are you looking for ?? I understand if you cant post this info.


My 5c - (While you can still spend 5c coins)

wjw wrote:

mike wrote:You got any options Bill?

Sorry been to busy to get on... anyway... phoned Mike about something else today and he told me about this thread... have spoken to the director types at work and all sorted.

Mike, I'll email you confirmation tomorrow. Same as what your paying, just need that rack mount.

Cheers,

Bill

Problem with that is it will actually work out more expensive as need to buy a new rack server and also giving away a banner spot for the same price as the site is paying now. If I was able to fill the banner spots then we would come off better.

Will have to think about this some more.

dazza85 wrote:Hi all
Great site

Great ideas

Great people

Is there a way that we can make donations that would work without the tax man taking too much ??

May be you could set up an seperate account to protect you from internet fraud etc that we could donate into.
May be we could PM a responder that gives this number so we can donate.

What sort of money are you looking for ?? I understand if you cant post this info.


My 5c - (While you can still spend 5c coins)

looking for enough to break even. Currently with the internet connection I'm loosing $30 per month personally and ontop of that which is not related to site usage is merchant fees and power usage of two servers. So looking at a downfall of about $90 per month I pay out of my own pocket(not including the 2 servers I bought over the last 3 years) which is about to hit $120 as the traffic is going to make a change of internet plan necessary. It is the actual internet cost thats going to be the killer. If we pay the same now at snap we need to get a new server min $400 I reckon + drop a banner spot. Maybe I'll enquire at telstra if they could ignore the local traffic as they used to......

I think the payed membership thing will happen no matter what now and is probably for the best.

Mike

Mike

the t-shirt, mug and sticker etc thing could be done quickly to help cover costs while the other ideas are worked out for the best.

what about starting a thread for ideas for t-shirts, mugs, stickers etc and one for submissions to the dvd, could just be to say you have some not the footage itself.

the idea of an ore club that covers the insurance and nz4wda and is separate to the site is a good one.

SupraSurf wrote:Charging members for site usage and access would probably kill ORE, although you have a large membership its only really a core that post, organise and chew up all the bandwith. Those that only drop in once in a while would probably not be willing to pay.

i agree

if you're stuck with the hosting or hardware - email warren at Zylex - they do both and look after a lot of car clubs - warren@zylex.co.nz

mike wrote:
Problem with that is it will actually work out more expensive as need to buy a new rack server and also giving away a banner spot for the same price as the site is paying now. If I was able to fill the banner spots then we would come off better.

Will have to think about this some more.

How about I give you a 3U rackmount server.... ????? And ore replaces it with same spec when it can. (which of course will get cheaper and cheaper over time) Its a P3 1Ghz with two 9.5GB Raid'd SCSI drivers and 390MB RAM

Or it can be in my name for the moment @ $30 a month, until the servers paid for.

What's the banner spot worth? I can write that into the contract...

One wat or the other, We'll sort it.

No offence Bill, but you and Mike need to sort those details out in the background... You're discussing business matters that probably don't belong in open forum.

And unless I'm missing something its not crunch time, Mike doesn't need a huge cash injection within the next 2 days or ORE is going to crash and burn. This should be a discussion about going forward from here... how do we keep our forum, and Mike either breaks even, or actually makes some income from this - which is how it should be...

T-shirts and mugs are fine... but I wonder if they are really a good idea, or just a promotional idea. I'd wear one, but I don't know if I'd buy one (sorry, I just don't think I would). Having said that, I pay for advertising, and I'll continue to do so as long as it makes sense to do it - but thats something else that needs to be looked at...

Advertisers will probably need to be capped... I'm not sure people are going to advertise if their banner only comes up one-in-10 times or worse. Businesses will expect reasonable coverage. Maybe move the products at the bottom of the front page to a new vendor area and have a secondary banner there... so you cover two advertisers at once...

I'm looking forward to seeing the way you go Mike, but I think its safe to say you'll have the support of the members here whatever you decide.

Steve

SupraLux wrote:
Advertisers will probably need to be capped... I'm not sure people are going to advertise if their banner only comes up one-in-10 times or worse. Businesses will expect reasonable coverage. Maybe move the products at the bottom of the front page to a new vendor area and have a secondary banner there... so you cover two advertisers at once...
Steve

At 3000 page views per day I had capped the banners to 6 and as there were only 2 they were getting on average 1500 page views per day. Now the site is recieving on average 20,000 page views per day which is 10,000 per banner so you can see exposure is up more than 5x for the same price. Now if I stick with my original capping at 6(which i think i will) then it will bring it back to the original exposure levels as long as the site stays at 20,000 page views per day, but it is growing nearly exponentional so this is unlikely.

Mike

the guys had to shift gps.org.nz to US servers last week - due to excess bandwidth caused by the search bots from Google etc ie 15gb plan vs NZ 4gb for similar price


Put me on the list for $100 of advertising - email me where to send chq

wopass wrote:

jumper wrote:what about selling a ore t-shirt and charge an extra $10-15 for it?
it keeps it simple and could be done quickly, its also advertising the site.

i want an O.R.E jumper ! but with

"WOPASS"

AAA MEMBER

WWW.OFFROADEXPRESS.CO.NZ

PURE MUDSLINGING ACTION

ME TOO, Will pay a reasonable amount, say, $50/year to be a member with all usual 4wd club type priveleges etc.
WANT MY SHIRT TO READ.

"Two Dragons"

AAA MEMBER

WWW.OFFROADEXPRESS.CO.NZ

I am in, I am having far too much fun to see it die, FORM A CLUB!!!!

Charging a memship fee will I believe kill the site.
Using the example of Delphi that used to be the biggest forum provider on the internet (I believe), once they started charging they lost a lot of traffic and many of the forums closed down.

Delphi still have a free membership plan but the ads just make it a pain, and the lack of members they now have make it worthless going there anyway.

I would hate to see this site disappear as I believe Mike has done a great job, and has put a lot of work into making it the success it is today.

motivated wrote:Charging a memship fee will I believe kill the site.
Using the example of Delphi that used to be the biggest forum provider on the internet (I believe), once they started charging they lost a lot of traffic and many of the forums closed down.

Delphi still have a free membership plan but the ads just make it a pain, and the lack of members they now have make it worthless going there anyway.

I would hate to see this site disappear as I believe Mike has done a great job, and has put a lot of work into making it the success it is today.

Hopefully it wont kill the site, the discount card should save you hundreds a year so should be worth it alone. When sites start to get big they start costing alot of money, and I certainly cannot afford to pay for it to much longer especially when there area few people making money of this site through referals or trawling. If it does kill the site then you all have lost a good forum local to nz and I get my LR fund back again. At the end of the day its your choice whether you choose to support something that brings your sport closer togeather and also provides a local information portal etc. I'm not going to carry the burden anymore. I will however put a lot of my time into the site to make it better. I just can't afford both time and money.

Mike

mike wrote: I'm not going to carry the burden anymore. I will however put a lot of my time into the site to make it better. I just can't afford both time and money.

Mike

A fair call in my eyes.

As mentioned earlier you have already put alot of time and money into this site, now its time for those of us who use the site to put our 'money where our mouths are' to help keep it running.
Anyone who spends any time on this site knows how good it is and what sort of information is available to them. I don't know what sort of money it costs to maintain this site, But leaving Mike to shoulder the financial burden on behalf of all its users is unfair. I agree with the point of having a free/open forum in order to attract new members. but this also needs to be balanced against the financial realities of running this site.

Right on, brotha H2O!!!

The information I've got from this site is incredible!! Try getting this sort of information from your local mechanic! I've also met in a very short time some really good people, always happy to advise, (NO I'M NOT PUTTING A SUPRA IN MY SURF STEVE!! ), and to answer questions, suggestions, and just good old fashioned entertainment!! (thanks Leithfield). Not to mention the bagging. Good natured tho.....
Long live ORE!!!!

Power to the people!!!!

Viva le resistance!!!

I'm not putting down any efforts being made. Mike should be happily retired with the amount of traffic this site gets, not scratching to find the money to support it.

I was just trying to point out that membership fees dont necessarily solve the problem longer term. I was trying to be constructive rather than negative.

I have no idea what the discount card is yet, but that may well make the difference.

motivated wrote: Mike should be happily retired with the amount of traffic this site gets.

He cant retire who'd keep this site up to spec?