Friday, July 5, 2002
Site evolution & a true mobile version
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 04:02 PM
This could be potentially the most controversial post I've ever written, but here goes. I'm planning on introducing a significant change to this site quite soon, and I wanted to start some discussion on it. Last year I had a "subscriber" option, but I didn't offer the subscribers any added value for their money. Needless to say, I've re-thought that concept and came up with something better.
Since moving to real forum software, I feel this site has taken great strides in becoming more useful...to everyone except those on a Pocket PC. The forum templates are certainly not Pocket PC friendly, and for those of you who want to read and respond to comments both offilne and online, it's not ideal.
I love spending my days working on this site, but I have to find a way to keep up the level and quality of content, but also pay my bills doing so. The various affiliate programs we've tried have thus far have been a little underwhealming (though I dearly appreciate your patronage). All the content on this site has always been free, and once you're used to having something for free, you won't want to pay for it. I'm also reluctant to turn the entire site into a "subscribers only" offering becuase I'd really like to keep evangelising the Pocket PC and "hiding" information from people isn't a good way to do that. Guess where I'm going with this yet? I thought you would.
We've been working on a mobile version of this site, and it's coming along really nicely. The plan is to charge for access to this mobile version of the site. You can visit the desktop version of the site with Pocket Internet Explorer, or sync the site with AvantGo or Mazingo, but to get the optimised version with full mobile forum access, you'll need to subscribe. Access to the mobile version will be tied to your profile, not some strange URL or a username/password.
So there you have it. Is that something you'd be willing to shell out a couple of bucks for a month? Is the mobile version of the site in an optimised fashion enough, or would you also need to see exclusive content that the desktop browser visitors wouldn't see? I'm somewhat reluctant to create an "us and them" site, but I'm open to feedback. I'm including a poll on the page to see what price points you'd be comfortable with.
Since moving to real forum software, I feel this site has taken great strides in becoming more useful...to everyone except those on a Pocket PC. The forum templates are certainly not Pocket PC friendly, and for those of you who want to read and respond to comments both offilne and online, it's not ideal.
I love spending my days working on this site, but I have to find a way to keep up the level and quality of content, but also pay my bills doing so. The various affiliate programs we've tried have thus far have been a little underwhealming (though I dearly appreciate your patronage). All the content on this site has always been free, and once you're used to having something for free, you won't want to pay for it. I'm also reluctant to turn the entire site into a "subscribers only" offering becuase I'd really like to keep evangelising the Pocket PC and "hiding" information from people isn't a good way to do that. Guess where I'm going with this yet? I thought you would.
We've been working on a mobile version of this site, and it's coming along really nicely. The plan is to charge for access to this mobile version of the site. You can visit the desktop version of the site with Pocket Internet Explorer, or sync the site with AvantGo or Mazingo, but to get the optimised version with full mobile forum access, you'll need to subscribe. Access to the mobile version will be tied to your profile, not some strange URL or a username/password.
So there you have it. Is that something you'd be willing to shell out a couple of bucks for a month? Is the mobile version of the site in an optimised fashion enough, or would you also need to see exclusive content that the desktop browser visitors wouldn't see? I'm somewhat reluctant to create an "us and them" site, but I'm open to feedback. I'm including a poll on the page to see what price points you'd be comfortable with.
