>>The scenario being addressed is lights out for SI.
Ah, I missed that part. The SI Bubble Days Revisisted. On an inconvenient set of 100 CDs - all yours for the low price of $9.95 plus $289.95 shipping and handling in the lower 48.
Don't throw dirt on it yet. All of the declining metrics bottomed out a while back and are back on a growth curve. Granted they are not anywhere close to the 99-00 highs, but the site is profitable and still commands good ad rates. Page views, the primary revenue generator, continue to show decent growth.
We have very solid growth in both new account registrations and reactivation of heritage accounts. Getting more of them to start posting has been the challenge. Allowing free users limited posting on Investment boards has helped, and the inevitable incidents of spam are a tiny fraction of the new accounts and are dealt with immediately.
Interestingly enough, the past couple of weeks have witnessed a sudden spike in the number of new accounts that are posting, even more notable since we are still in the seasonally slow summer period. iHub is setting new all-time posting highs weekly, and between the two sites are close to matching the all-time SI highs.
So, keep your shovel dry for now. I don't foresee any scenario where SI will vanish; there is far too much value in the historical database and user base and the amount of traffic it can still generate.
In terms of unlocking some of that value, I'll pose a scenario and question here:
I've been hassling Bob for some time to give grandfathered users the ability to selectively turn on the ad spaces on the message boards. They way I envision it working is that the user could turn on or off each of the ad spaces (the top banner, text ad, and/or main body ad) in their account's interface settings. They would also have a global on/off toggle at the top of the page in order to provide complete flexibility to both where and when ads are shown.
Would you (anyone reading this) use that to view ads on the message boards?
Speaking of which... Bob, I though you blocked this ad from Tribal Fusion? cdn1.tribalfusion.com Or, is it back by popular demand? <g>
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