I wanted to post my thoughts about the changes SA is making.
Over on the old site Izzcube said “What surprises me just a little is the very large number of new 'commenters' wishing to sign up for the new Premium service. Those folks, lurker's we might call them have had a pretty balanced view since you held reins here. I suspect that will go away at SI, pretty quickly.”
While I’m OK using SI, (I know Ron’s fond of it like an old sweet heart:)) this got me thinking, the fact that many new commentators, then and more importantly just now, are posting a message in Ron’s blog to be signed up for free access is a powerful statement (testament) to the following Ron & Chowder have. This is a position of power that SA recognizes. We should try and use it to our advantage.
I think SA recognized this in a covert monitoring way (remember when the SA Administer out of the blue posted in Ron’s blog offering free access to premium). “We” as users only see the people that post. “They” at SA surly can see everyone that visits the blogs. I don’t think RON & Chowder have any idea of the sheer number of people that followed their blogs but I think SA sure did and, as such are trying to monetize that. Not just by giving us free access to premium for a year and hoping we all renew, but hoping this plan they have will induce all who visited their blogs to sign up & renew premium.
But the only way that plan may come to fruition is if Ron & Chowder participate (which I know they’re not) and we all continue to post on SA new format. If we continue to post over there, its SA hopes that we, as a group, bring life (as many of the eyeballs we had on the old blog) to their new format. Without us they’re as good as dead. Case and point, look at the activity of the new blog before we all arrived, pretty pathetic.
Also when we arrived we were all posting very generic comments and the SA Administrator posted something like “come on guys, talk about DGI like you did on the other blog”. It’s an attempt to monetize SA using all of us to provide the content and attract more users! They give us free access and we provide the value.
I think most of us asked to be signed up for premium access so we could continue to converse under the assumption that little would change that way. Thing is we made that decision “sight unseen”. I can only speak for myself but having “seen” the new format I think it stinks! Not interested in it at all.
Having said that I would be under the assumption most feel the same way. I know I have no plans on renewal to SA premium services when the free yearly access expires.
In summation, I think we should tell everyone to stop using the new SA blog format immediately. We have the power! This group when united together has made SA change before, we can do it again! We need to stick together to make this work. Enjoy the free access, convey our dissatisfaction of the new format, and then abandon the blog. If we provide no value to the new format then their plan to monetize utilizing all of us fails. Pass it along! |
