why is dod so silent....

[sushiosushi]

on the whole mycoupons subject?

Before we are given a referral contest to bring in new members, yet DOD doesn't do any recruiting itself? Seems like DOD wants members to do all the work. The whole mycoupons fiasco starting last friday was a great way to bring on new members to DOD, yet it seems to me that DOD dropped the ball.

Oh well, just my $.02 anyways. Time to get back to enjoying my Friday.

[Louann]

What I've been wondering is why people would pay to stay on a board. THEY are the board! If they would leave, wherever they went could be the same board. Why not all come over to DOD and increase the number of informative posts here? DOD has great deals and freebies boards, but hardly anyone posts on Rewards. No Netflip or Searchcactus lists, mostly trivia for Milesource and Memolink. In one hour on MyCoupons, people post more than during the whole day on DOD. When you look at the 10 most recent posts on the DOD homepage, mostly what you see is Chit Chat.
I don't see anything wrong with checking different boards on many sites. I think by now anyone who has found one site like DOD, knows about all the rest of them. So why be forced to spend money on one, when you can just go to another? But no one on MyCoupons can post a message telling people to go, so we have to rely on them figuring it out for themselves. I don't know how DOD itself would be able to recruit. Not like they can post on MC, saying "Come on over to our site!"

[mayor]

I feel terrible for MyCoupons. It could happen to any of us. What do you want us to do Sushi?

Mayor

[sushiosushi]

well i know DOD is tight on money so I would have at least made a post welcoming the new members. If they are not liking to pay, then they'd look around for a site to be a member of. I guess at least a minimum a welcome message would have worked. After all, ya gotta give them some incentive or reason to sign up and post, not just lurk. yes signing up is the first step, but how many of the 122k members actually have more than 1 post in the intro forum? I am in the belief that if they post, whether it be a thanks or whatever, it'll encourage them to post more and more. and i had suggested before to get rid of the daily winner. if you want a daily winner you can have a thread every day where someone replies to it. that way they have to at least come to dod and hit the reply button instead of just lurking or not coming at all after signing up. I wonder how many unique users there even are here?

What could happen to any of you? Are you saying you're gonna start to claim to need money for reason and then say no thats not what the money is for (i.e. bait and switch)? hmmm...

BTW, I don't feel terrible for MC at all. I hope those censor happy fools go bankrupt. Whats the point of posting on a board where every post has to be read by a mod first before being allowed onto the boards. sheesh.

[freesurfer]

hmm, good conversation here, but I have nothing really important to offer except it took me forever when I first joined to post....

[Corganiacs]

I dont know whats going on with mycoupons?

Im just sick and will be lurking.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Corgie

[mayor]

Hey Sushi,

Thanks for the suggestions. I appreciate them!

We do send a welcome message when someone signs up. And we do give incentive to sign up.

Regarding the daily winner, they still have to come to the site to claim it.

Originally posted by sushiosushi
well i know DOD is tight on money so I would have at least made a post welcoming the new members. If they are not liking to pay, then they'd look around for a site to be a member of. I guess at least a minimum a welcome message would have worked. After all, ya gotta give them some incentive or reason to sign up and post, not just lurk. and i had suggested before to get rid of the daily winner. if you want a daily winner you can have a thread every day where someone replies to it. that way they have to at least come to dod and hit the reply button instead of just lurking or not coming at all after signing up. I wonder how many unique users there even are here?
What could happen to any of you? Are you saying you're gonna start to claim to need money for reason and then say no thats not what the money is for (i.e. bait and switch)? hmmm...

What do you mean? That we are going to start charging? No plans for that at all.

BTW, I don't feel terrible for MC at all. I hope those censor happy fools go bankrupt. Whats the point of posting on a board where every post has to be read by a mod first before being allowed onto the boards. sheesh.

I don't think you realize how difficult it is to have an internet business in this day and age. Things are not always as they appear.

Mayor

[sushiosushi]

Originally posted by mayor

I don't think you realize how difficult it is to have an internet business in this day and age. Things are not always as they appear.

Mayor

You're right I have no clue. I have no problem with MC or DOD or anyone charging. Website owners are free to do as they choose. Members are free to stay or leave.

Maybe you can enlighten us then on some of the hurdles?

[mayor]

Originally posted by sushiosushi

You're right I have no clue. I have no problem with MC or DOD or anyone charging. Website owners are free to do as they choose. Members are free to stay or leave.
Maybe you can enlighten us then on some of the hurdles?

I DO have a problem with charging! I don't want to have to do that. But MC is being sued, and it costs a lot of money to go to court. What would you do if you had a site that cost you more money to run than you were bringing in?

The hurdles are time and money. It takes a great deal of both to make a site run smoothly, if at all. Despite the appearances of DoD, we are not a huge corporation of some sort. It is just a few people working out of their homes attempting to provide a valuable service and make a living doing it.

Right now, our income and expenses pretty much cancel each other out. It costs money to advertise and market web sites. We don't have it. In other words, I don't make squat doing this right now. I haven't taken a salary or draw from my company in over 6 months.

I am not complaining. I still love what I do, and I have hopes that things will get better.

Time is the other issue. DoD is just one of my sites. I have always had several sites and each one places demands on my resources. There are always fires to put out.... ie: this server is down, this one is being hacked, the isp had their power go out, the email service is down, people can't get to the site, a merchant wants a coupon taken down, a member forgot their password, someone is cursing at me for spamming them, i need to buy a gift certificate for today's winner, there are messages for me to answer in ask the moderator, and these are just SOME of the things I deal with regularly at DoD. This doesn't even take the other sites into consideration. And this is just in reference to problems... I haven't started talking about the regular maintenance I have to do daily, let alone that which I need to do in order to grow the sites.

I have a wife and kids, and they get tired of me being in my office all the time.

So, there you have it. It ain't easy. It's fun. But it ain't easy.

Mayor