I've recently seen what happens when a web site doesn't make money. The geocaching site dumped all their bench mark data--recovery and photo info for tens of thousands of PIDs: some suspect reports, but some good info not in NGS.
To be blatantly clear about all this, I don't think most people owning/running a site like this would still keep the site going. It's been in the red since inception and has never had a moment in time where it would be considered profitable or breaking even by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm not ready to give up, even after almost 13 years.
I'm a member of a few forum support forums (LOL, how's that for inception) and I see posts about giving up all the time. It's usually about money.
Maybe young surveyors will TikTok/Shorts their way into the future, but the more "traditional" forms of social media (text based) seem to be only for "older folks". (Look at the decline of Twitter and Facebook with young people.)
Not sure how you bridge the gap between the old and the new as far as making money, but social media isn't free. And if the advertisers are out, then the subscribers are stuck footing the bill, unless you turn it into a free-for-all by selling our subscriber info.
Just come up with a completely new revenue model that works across all ages/demographics and platforms, and then you won't need to bother anymore...
I know some of this is sarcasm, but you make some really great points!
The goal of adding social features is not so much to keep up with Facebook or any of the others, it's more about trying to make this site more inviting to all ages/types of surveyors. The forum can still be the forum and we can add other great features in hopes of attracting young'ns. I don't see adding a TikTok-like feature in the near future, but if I did, it would be it's own feature and not a replacement for the forum. It would just be another feature. Use it if you want, but certainly there'd be no requirement and you could still use legacy features. 🙂
But yes, the goal is to implement our own stuff that can potentially raise funds and keep things going. Maybe we'll end up developing our own model that works for us and shake things up a bit. Whatever, I just want to keep the site online and relevant.
which generates an eyebrow lift
I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows on to high...
She looked surprised
TikTok is such a powerful medium
"Powerful" only in the sense that a whole lot of folks watch it. It's just television, but even less useful from an intellectual standpoint (and television barely registers on that scale). Like @bill93 points out, videos are not discussions.
If we have to incorporate more "social media"-like content in addition to these forums, fine. But I would hope that the forums are kept at least somewhat separate from the social media aspects. Because if this forum content goes away, or social media bleeds over, I'm fairly certain that it will lose much of what makes it attractive to those who contribute here.
This seems like it would be a great discussion for a summer forum Meetup preferably somewhere where it's not super hot maybe say the Oregon coast or Salem if you know you want to go out by I-5 and stay away from the ocean crowds.
I had a webGIS development class and we discussed that conceptually the largest sites are free because the users don't have any skin in the game.
they create user IDs etc and they can go about it as they want. That was designed and implemented way back in the day, like when web crawler etc were existent and Google became the next winning version of that.
Gmail and all ll the things that followed behind it essentially took advantage of the fact that free is fast and easy, so people want that and because they took all of our data and turn free into a multi trillion dollar industry of what they do now we pay the consequences for not having regulated it from the get-go...
anyway, LinkedIn is morphed into too much like Facebook, and can't survive unless it's allowed to be like that. Sucks.
Have you considered working with the state boards/societies to find out if this could be an additional platform to get out their quarterly or monthly or once a year because they don't have people that are capable willing to do so or even have the wherewithal to put together those types of things, and this could be a platform so then maybe they could have more information being sent out locally regionally and this could be a form that could help them and it doesn't take a ton of buying for them because most of the people that support that stuff probably participate here at some level.
the majority of state board society newsletters suck because someone that was engaged left and they're left holding this not very useful circumstance of what used to be something great and by having a centralized location I don't know if that's a good option or not I'm I'm just speaking while I drive to a job site.
just free associating while driving.....
I'll throw some more concrete ideas down and send it to you in an email.
It's just television, but even less useful from an intellectual standpoint
I understand what you're getting at, but people younger than Gen X aren't really interested in conversations, discussions, debate, or personal interaction.
If you have kids, or spend time talking to kids, they use TikTok the same way "legacy people" used Google, and it gets far more relevant results. It's quite amazing.
Google has been bastardized by SEO and their pursuit of ad revenue, and really doesn't work in the same way it used to in the beginning.
The way people use online platforms is much more important than the content, and that's how TikTok beat Google, and Reddit is better at returning relevant information for user queries than Google.
If we have to incorporate more "social media"-like content in addition to these forums, fine. But I would hope that the forums are kept at least somewhat separate from the social media aspects. Because if this forum content goes away, or social media bleeds over, I'm fairly certain that it will lose much of what makes it attractive to those who contribute here.
Agreed. Hence why I would want to keep the forums fully intact and the ability to use them without ever stepping foot into the other stuff.
This seems like it would be a great discussion for a summer forum Meetup preferably somewhere where it's not super hot maybe say the Oregon coast or Salem if you know you want to go out by I-5 and stay away from the ocean crowds.
Come on over! It's still wet and colder than normal right now, so definitely no worries about heat yet. And there's no end in sight. We had the coldest March since 1984. Today's forecast: 49° high with rain, damn near freezing tonight.
Have you considered working with the state boards/societies to find out if this could be an additional platform to get out their quarterly or monthly or once a year because they don't have people that are capable willing to do so or even have the wherewithal to put together those types of things, and this could be a platform so then maybe they could have more information being sent out locally regionally and this could be a form that could help them and it doesn't take a ton of buying for them because most of the people that support that stuff probably participate here at some level.
Yes. I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out a good way to make that work in these forums. I think the best route would be better suited to a "group", much like Facebook but without all the stealing and selling of personal information. 😉
So yes, I could see doing something like that after the big pivot.
just free associating while driving.....
I'll throw some more concrete ideas down and send it to you in an email.
I love and appreciate the fact that you are putting so much thought into this!
@michigan-left - totally off topic, but I noticed your icon is a left handed desk! Nice.
Seems you either have to sell ads or sell access. I would pay a subscription for access, especially if it includes access to all of the years and years of bickering/exchange of knowledge. A lot of the non-surveyor traffic to the site is definitely seeking knowledge. I would do a tiered system and try to use cost incentives to encourage posting. $5 gets you in, $10 gets you in the platinum survey wizard club, and onward up to a payment amount where you reach survey Valhalla or whatever. Run it like a go fund me and say you gotta get X subscribers or X dollars to keep it live or whatever. The kids are all on Discord if you can tie that in somehow.
If you're selling ads, you gotta have an ace sales staff and you may have to limit candid discussion of your advertiser's wares.
When the Leftorium finally went out of business in 2018, we were fortunate because we still had Left-Mart, and the Southpaw Superstore.
Dodged a bullet there...
Spent all day getting to, sitting through 8 hours of blah, blah, blah then getting back home to receive 6.5 PDHs towards my CE requirements. Plus $220 registration. I AB-SO-LUTE-LY GUAR-AN-TEE that I get far more useful information here in a week's worth of participation. No doubt whatsoever.
Shoot fire, the people who work in the building I was in today are so dumb (HOW DUMB ARE THEY?) they have to put signs on the inside of the toilet stalls to remind everyone to only flush toilet paper. No paper towels or sanitary wipes of any kind. It goes on to state that the maintenance workers have had to unclog the pipes in that building TWICE in the past two weeks and they are TIRED OF IT.
They also think they are the supreme university in the nation when it comes to men's basketball, which they are not.
I will add that the lunch provided was excellent. So, maybe Wendell needs to start shipping out free lunches to those who keep the home fires burning.
If there was a superthread where users could make product recommendations that could be purchased through some sort of click though to raise some revenue that might be interesting.
I bet the brain trust here has some good ideas on things I could spend some money on, probably even beyond survey stuff.
Not sure if that click though model has any juice, just a revenue idea I had.
I still have never gotten on the facebook or any associated sites, I always feel a little out of touch when the subject comes up.
I love and appreciate the fact that you are putting so much thought into this!
Right back at-cha!
If there was a superthread where users could make product recommendations that could be purchased through some sort of click though to raise some revenue that might be interesting.
Hmmm... affiliate marketing. I wonder if any surveying product/service providers offer affiliate plans. Definitely worth looking! Thanks for the great idea. 🙂
