Premium Membership
- Thread starter mmmfan
- Start date
I'll have an official write-up in a couple of days.
The short and sweet:
A number of people have asked about donating funds to help pay for the website. I have put together a "Premium Membership," in order to facilitate this, like many other websites have done. It's a $10/year subscription (you can cancel at anytime) that helps pay our bills, but that also provides Premium Members with a number of enhanced features. Among other things, subscribers gain 4x the storage space for private messages, attachments, Gallery images, etc., access to a private members only lounge, and the elimination of all advertisements.
A big heartfelt thank you to those of you who have already purchased a Premium Membership!
Jay
Interesting info - even so I must say, that I am not a fan of your decision to pester non premium members with extra ads as a result of creating the premium membership despite the fact that - as you state above - the premium mebership was created as a reaction to users wanting to donate money only. Seems odd to me ... as if you want to make that membership a better value by creating artificial disadvantages for non-premium members. Why couldn't you just add extras for premium members instead of taking something away from non-premium-members (being able to read a thread without ads in-between)?
Since I love this site I keep my fingers crossed for you that this concept works. As I may add: it didn't work for me, actually it put me off buying the premium membership. Sorry. And yes, I do know what hosting a site costs - I am one of three members of a team operating (and paying for) several non-profit-fansites related to Disney and Disneyland Resort Paris which we try to support via google ads and amazon links.
I wish you all the best and hope the site continues to flourish and grow!
Dirk
P.S.: you don't seem to like Stitch - or why else did you choose him to automaticaly post the ads. Personaly I would recommend not using a Disney copyrighted drawing as his avatar, since using it to identify an automatic ad-posting bot is in the (at best) legal grey area...
Since I love this site I keep my fingers crossed for you that this concept works. As I may add: it didn't work for me, actually it put me off buying the premium membership. Sorry. And yes, I do know what hosting a site costs - I am one of three members of a team operating (and paying for) several non-profit-fansites related to Disney and Disneyland Resort Paris which we try to support via google ads and amazon links.
I wish you all the best and hope the site continues to flourish and grow!
Dirk
P.S.: you don't seem to like Stitch - or why else did you choose him to automaticaly post the ads. Personaly I would recommend not using a Disney copyrighted drawing as his avatar, since using it to identify an automatic ad-posting bot is in the (at best) legal grey area...
The three ad spots that you see today were always the plan. The header and footer ad spots have been in place for a little over five weeks already as they were much easier to implement. I had to wait until I had the free time to write the code necessary to place the ads inside of topics.
Ads in topics is a built-in feature for vBulletin, and therefore quite common among forums using that software, but I had to figure out how to do it for IP.Board. I also had to figure out how to implement a system for turning the ads off for certain groups so that I could offer that feature as a bonus to Premium Members. I only got the completed ad system up and running two days ago.
The ads aren't there to pester anyone, or to force anyone to become a Premium Member, they're there to help pay for the costs associated with maintaining this website. Most of the websites that I visit on a daily basis have many more ad spots than this one does.
Everything associated with the Premium Membership is an extra: additional storage space for private messages, attachments, Gallery images, etc., and access to a private members only lounge. Or did I create the lounge just to take it away from everyone else?
Premium Members do not see any of the ad spots. Does this mean that I also put ads in the header and footer to pester non-Premium Members? Again, the three ad spots were always planned. Most other websites have so many ads that you often can't find the actual content.
I spent $500 during the transition from old website to new. Many more changes/enhancements are planned for the future. The internet radio station that is part of the plans could end up costing $1,000 a month or more. At present, this website receives only 275 visitors a day on average. The Google AdSense spots generate a combined total of about 80 cents a day right now. I can assure you that no one is getting rich here!
Actually, I do like Stitch. It seems that most others, however, are tired of seeing him popping up all over the place in the parks, etc., so I thought it was a cute idea. I am sorry you do not agree. As with most things in life, there is no pleasing everyone.
When Disney Legal decides to go after Dave O'Neal's bootleg business, or the hundreds of other websites that have Disney graphics in their actual logos, banners, content, etc., many for-profit, I will start to worry about avatars.
That being said, all three ad spots are still visible for me, so that I can monitor the types of ads that are being displayed by Google, and I may end up deciding that I don't like the present look of the ads in topics spot. Stitch could easily give way to the narrower banner-only ad spot that I was using earlier.
Thank you! I will continue to try my best.
Jay
superdave913
New Member
Side note...
He apparently requires "David."
(While he and I share a first name... I personally think "Dave" is less pretentious.)
I think they are more likely to go after him SELLING the copyright property of Disney as his own, than his ads/graphics.
You better be careful... I've heard he gets mad when people call him "Dave".
He apparently requires "David." (While he and I share a first name... I personally think "Dave" is less pretentious.)
I think they are more likely to go after him SELLING the copyright property of Disney as his own, than his ads/graphics.
Actually, without the Stitch posting, I didn't even notice the Google ad stripROFLMAO! I removed Stitch for a bit, as I try to decide which format I like best for the ads in topics, and now someone has sent me an e-mail saying they miss Stitch. Like I said, there is no pleasing everyone!
angiehashemi
Member
I only noticed the ads once before Stitch's appearance. Glad to purchase a membership, and I think it is very reasonably priced. I have no problem helping out since I have gained such great information from this site and its members.
Hmmm. So would this count as a vote for or against the Stitchbot?
Thank you for your donation, Angie! It is greatly appreciated!