Invitation and terms of use

[Antigen]

Just wanted to thank you for dropping in and sort of lay out what I'm planning here.

I'm inviting anyone who's currently admining a web forum that I hang out in to set up camp over here. The main reason is that I'm just tired of waiting so long for each page load and of those pop-up javascript ads that sometimes crash my browser or freeze my system.

There will never be any charge for hosting or using these forums! I may put a 'sponsored by' ad in a footer or header or custom theme or something. But I promise no animations and no annoying pop-ups.

The other benefit is that I have access to the raw data. So, in the event that we ever have to shut this down, it'll be very easy to recover the data.

Register a username and let me know wich one so that I can upgrade your access and you can play with the admin features. Leme know what you think. If there's something you need that this gizmo doesn't do already, there's a good chance I can make it work.

[theswampfox]

Hey, Ginger:

This thing has Forums which are private??  Darnest thing.  Hopefully I will be setting up 'The Council of Seven' here pretty soon.  Details to be published later, but it's supposed to be seven individuals who write an article addressing the same topic, but the articles are to be submitted without discussion with the other council members.  All seven articles are to be posted at the same time, and only then will the members be aware of the other members' views.

Might be something which could be posted here, perhaps a restricted post forum.

theswampfox

[Antigen]

Cool idea, Swampy. You always come up with some interesting stuff. I'd be pleased to host a forum for you.

BTW, I took a look at Mighty Words just awhile ago. One of those things I never got around to participating in very seriously. They're shutting down on the 12th; lack of funding. It's been my theory all along that the only value added by these freebie services is that of the sponsor demonstrating their ability and inclination to get something done. No one's going to pay to provide content and no one's going to pay to have access to it, except where the content has some unique value to the reader. Solon.com, for example, provides a valuable service that people will pay for. If you can compete on their level, you might get up the moxie to charge people to read it.

What people WILL pay for, otoh, is the ability to get their message out or to collect, store and process information that's not of interest to anyone else. And these volunteer projects are as good a way as any to advertise the fact that you're capable of helping them to do that.

[theswampfox]

Antigen:

I am more than sure the net is having a major decline right now.  Number of domain names is dropping, even with the rash of private names being used.  Those people still using Microsoft servers are switching to Linux or Unix systems because of security issues and cost.  Net traffic is down, down a significant amount since the middle of December.

A year ago, I could go to a major search site and get a reasonable set of search results, but now most (barring perhaps Google.com and a few others) all I get is buy this here, buy that there, and much sales garbage, too much to sort through.  I, too, am fed up with banner ads that crash my browser and take all day to download.

I'm getting darned picky on what sites I do visit, and I am not alone in this.  Pop-ups which you must move to get to the 'X' where the screen has been resized intentionally to put the 'X' completely off screen, like the annoyance of the pop-up itself were not enough.  Cookies flying across cyber space to land splat on my drive, not to store defaults for a person's viewing pleasure, but to track where I serf.

The goose that laid the golden egg has been plucked of all it's feathers and it's turning winter in cyberland.  One thing is sure in this, Microsoft servers are on the way down.  

Hosting 'product' sites, sites which have something to sell, is the only true business opportunity.  People put sites up as a labor of love, universities, organizations, and those with a point to make.  Some develop useful 'products' which can be turned into cash as a sideline to their passions.

Most gain skills which companies are willing to pay reasonable salaries for.  Something along the lines of selling services, perhaps private secure e-mail accounts, perhaps a private secure forum and chat board for discussion and documentaion of business concerns, could bring in a little bit of revenue.

Woops, rambled on there.  Antigen, I'll let you know how the Council of Seven develops.  If it actually gets off the ground, I'll at least try to mirror it here with your permission. Some of your posters might very well enjoy reading these posts.  One of the members is the foremost system administrator in West Virginia.  One of them is a Priest. One of those chosen passed away last week, one of the best analytical chemists in the State. All will hopefully provide unique perspective on the topics chosen.  

Ramble on more later,

theswampfox

PS:  Hey, the link worked - (check out the source doc)


[ This Message was edited by: theswampfox on 2002-01-04 17:15 ]

[Antigen]

Oh, and video conferencing. Especially now that air travel is such a huge hassle. Also enterprise data warehouseing and reporting. And then there are books. Ever try to read a decent length book online? You'll burn your eyeballs out. I've seen ppl enjoy great success with putting their whole book online with a generous sprinking of links to buy the hard copy. Also lodging has done alright, especially if the inn-keeper goes to the trouble of providing lots of local info.

No, it ain't dyin at all. There never was no golden egg, at least not daily. I think what's happening is the shakeout that must neccessarily follow all the overblown hype that we've seen here lately. We're just scaling back to reasonable expectations.

And I'm pleased to report that I still haven't lost a customer, except one who had a site related to treatment abuse, and he just had to get some distance from the topic. We haven't had to drop rates, either. We pegged it at just about exactly what the real market will bear.

[Anonymous]

To be honest there does not seem to be much of a declinein domain regristration as  there were 11,885 new domain added yesterday alone!

No I did not pull that number out of the air, I have my sources!



[ This Message was edited by: SysAdmin on 2002-01-05 08:22 ]

[Antigen]

5,619 deletions yesterday. I don't know if that's up or down from previous trends. I suspect it might be up because of all the spam I get for .biz and the other new top level domains becoming available.

I'm advising customers to not invest too much in the new top level domains. This ain't Tee Vee land, folks. It doesn't matter how many people accidentially land on your site looking for something else. The people you really want to reach are those with a genuine interest in what you've got going. They don't care what the url is. They just want the goods, so concentrate on that.

[theswampfox]

Someone look up the figures for *.com, *.org, and *.net for the months of October, November, December of 2001.  My sources has a significant decline in registered domain names.

When I speak of dying, golden egg, I am looking at it from the perspective of a web serfer.  Hosting a freebee site and depending on ads is out, all those pop-ups and activeX banners are good for crashing your browser and taking weeks to accomplish catching a wave.

If I am looking at making a moderate to high value purchase, I do a web search.  One can generally save a few tens of dollars on a few hundred dollar purchase by utilizing the web.  The problem is finding what you want, most search engines have gone nuts.

Case in point, I wanted to find out the molecular structure for urea, so I did a web search on infoseek.  Got a bunch of ads to buy urea from waldenbooks and etc.  Let's get real, waldenbooks doesn't sell urea.  It's a fertilizer which I use to melt ice on pavement so the salt doesn't destroy the concrete.

When was the last time any of you readers clicked on a banner ad and filled out the questionare?  When was the last time you clicked on a banner ad and purchased what was being advertised?  'freebee' sites to entice visitors so they can put up with the banner ads is a thing of the past.  A product or service properly indexed in a popular, decent search engine is how one can utilize the web to make a profit.  

Having your servers indexed by the popular and good search engines is a value added for your clients.  Google religously goes through my server once a month, following 'robots.txt' restrictions.  fastsearch.com goes through my site once a week and does not index it in their search engine (damned if I know why they take the trouble to pull every document on my server out and ignore the 'robots.txt' restrictions if they are not going to index it).

No, the fun and games is declining rapidly, and an example of why is the ads for hair regeneration products on a site dedicated to the Native Americans.  Geez, did you ever see a bald Indian?  Not even targeting their audience with the damned activeX banners.

The 'web' is going to become a sterilized, controlled tool used to market goods and virtual private networking.  Companies large enough to have masses of data requiring large database capabilities are going to have their own servers, so that one is kind of out.  

The Feds will take control of the net in a pretty big way in the next few years, no doubt about it.  Monitoring of net activities has become a major objective of our government.  Controlling portions of it will be the next big step, probably licensing people like they license businesses, electricians, and ham radio operators.

Money to be made, yes, but the heyday is over.

theswampfox