Ok. i see a lot of stuff about malken00. who is he? then i read about someone selling this site. and how it was a better when it was a paysite bc of noob questions. and important guys like 71dsp and marcucci? basically, what is the history of this site? my my, so many questions....
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David
01 SSM SH
93 d15 auto del slo gone and FORGOTTENexcept for a few memories....
Read this thread starting on page 2 I think (or read the whole thing). By this time, the conversation starts to go into more details about what actually transpired from the days of when PO was new and then when Malken sold the site. You can glean alot of information from it, but it won't answer everything completely...
You have to understand that once AutoForums took over, all true administrator privileges were removed. I cannot even add/remove sub-forums or add vB mods and the such.
Moderators only have the ability to merge, move, copy, delete, edit and approve posts and the same abilities + stick/unstick to threads.
Major changes are sent for request to Nadeem, the AutoForums employee and designated administrator for this forum.
Propose changes and they will surely be sent to whomever is capable of making them. But sadly, with the consolidation of all these forums these abilities to have major changes will be ignored.
QUOTE=TruNinja619;3053041]I wonder how much Malken got for selling this forum.[/QUOTE]
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Originally Posted by G_Loc
I was wondering that too... Maybe we can buy it back from the overlords since there probably isn't much traffic
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Originally Posted by Joon525
I think it was $70,000 but that could definitely be inaccurate.
Man, as a once heavily involved member here I'm inclined to say a few things about the original/starting post but am holding my tongue for now.
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Originally Posted by ImagePree
I think that's accurate.
There are 70,000 registered members, totaling from honda-acura.net and PO.com. As for active members, it's most likely a fraction of that.
What you should realize is that PO has already reached and has ultimately passed its peak. Since ya know, the car hasn't been manufactured in 9 years (2001 models were made in 2000, etc etc). It is an inevitable slow death, kinda like real life. It is very depressing but yet very invigorating to see how it'll happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Probe 2C
It was a completely different atmosphere, usergroup, and financial setting, but when I was on staff at probetalk.com (at it was then catering to a group about like the newbs on this site) the site was sold for $15k.
PT.com was/is a similar size as PO.com, actually more traffic, but FAR lower income.
Most of the reason PO.com got a huge pricetag was because of the fee-based membership and the greater success PO had selling advertisemnts.
Dan did WAY better than 95% of people who start webforums... and if you think you can duplicate his success I would warn you that nearly every webforum out there is run at a loss... Also, Dan didn't turn a profit on PO after it was around for a year... he ran it for a long time, and a lot of it's popularity came from a forum split.
Paraphrased: The dude that built the site (Malken) saw the numbers explode back in the 2001-2002 timeframe due to the aftermarket coming alive with parts for it and the car still being in production or relatively soon after production ended.
And at that time, the internet was really taking off and car forums became more abundant for every make and model it seemed. So naturally, conglomerated advertising companies saw this trend and decided to cash in on it, and the owner of this site (Malken) was probably made an offer that was too good to turn down (apparently in the neighborhood of $70,000) and he sold the site.
Then the control and direction of the forums that the old members and administrators had (see: OG's) was significantly reduced and there was resentment towards malken from that day forward as being a sellout.
Now administration of the site seems to be controlled (at least the big decisions) from the top by some faceless person or organization.
And I'm just opinionating on this one here, but, it seems as if with all the fallout of resentment for the sale of the site and the lack of a "manifest destiny," all of the OG's have settled in for the long haul to pwn noobs as much as they can to revel in a sense of power. I see a correlation between PO and the OG's to that of Davey Jone's pirate ship "the Flying Dutchman" in the pirate's of the carribean movies
I'm not a paying member and I can view that thread.
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1988 Prelude S - victim of an 80mph backflip
1991 Prelude Si - sold
1989 Accord DX - impounded
1998 Prelude SH - bolt-ons dynoing @ 173whp&140tq
2006 CRF150F - sold
2006 YZ250F
aaarghh! thats kinda sad. im just really curious about how it all started. so, basically, some organization owns PO and probably other forums as well? and why exactly did the site quality "degrade" after the sale?
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David
01 SSM SH
93 d15 auto del slo gone and FORGOTTENexcept for a few memories....
What you should realize is that PO has already reached and has ultimately passed its peak. Since ya know, the car hasn't been manufactured in 9 years (2001 models were made in 2000, etc etc). It is an inevitable slow death, kinda like real life. It is very depressing but yet very invigorating to see how it'll happen.
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Most users ever online was 688, 01-17-2010 at 06:59 PM.
Doesn't seem to me like the forum is dieing yet. Web traffic = $$$ from advertisers, no?
The type of members has really changed. Back when the site was started, the Prelude (5th gen specifically) was still a pretty expensive car. The 2001 was stilling selling for 20k+. That meant many of the members were older at the time, and more "mature." Now that the car is much older, its easier to get at a cheap price. Add that to the free nature of the forum, and the maturity of most of the members has dropped dramatically.
Most of the OGs are 25-40 now. Whereas many of the new members are late teens, or early twenties. The member base is much more like preludepower now, than it was in the past.
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I design the world you live in.... Cheers for Industrial Designers!!
95 Integra LS <<<>>> 99 CBM Prelude SH
Thank you Ludesh for the info. Cool to know but I wonder who owns the site and how do people become admins. I am sure these guys sure are still making money off advertising.
Kraser, you need to understand that's all they are doing with this site, that is it's sole purpose now---making money. It used to be ran for Prelude fans and the members in general; now it's for money.
About who owns it? Autoforums.com. They own many many automotive forums(go figure), and they have employees that they pay just like any other job, to admin for a site, or maybe even multiple sites.
You used to become an admin by being given the power by the owner or other admin from the site, I would presume. But now, you probably need to be an employee of autoforums.com, and they will give you the position.
However, I guess if you showed enough responsibility and maturity--which you completely threw in the trash a couple days ago--I would bet they'd give you the job sort of as charity work if you were willing to do the job, and were up to par(sort of like a moderator).
There is still one or two Admins that are not employed by AF.com, like Vipastyle(Tannie), and I think there is one more. He is the last of a rare breed....
Which you completely threw in the trash a couple days ago
You know my thoughts about you are really changing pIERCE. Complete waste of time posting that. I just wanted to know I don't want to be an admin rofl.
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