Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

SI - Site Forums : Silicon Investor - Welcome New SI Members! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gush who wrote (21901)	12/13/2004 12:00:55 AM
From: SI Bob	Respond to of 32918

You're missing a big, relevant piece of the site's history. I'm the president of Investors Hub. We acquired Silicon Investor last year to ensure that it wouldn't be shut down. Prior to that, I had no affiliation with SI since being laid off by InfoSpace in 2001. As soon as we acquired it, we jettisoned several aspects of it that were contributing to its failure. And let everyone know that since we didn't own the charts and portfolios (InfoSpace does) and email (a 3rd-party provider was being paid a hefty fee for it), we'd be ditching them, too. I set out to work writing, from scratch, this version of the site. It was rolled out October 24th of this year. Advanced Search existed for a limited time on the old version of Silicon Investor. It didn't exist when we acquired the site. When we acquired the site, not only did I let people know what things would be jettisoned, I also assured everyone that the features we weren't ditching that still existed when we bought the site, would be available (or eventually developed) in the new version of the site and then some. I've been good to my word on that. This version has a lot of stuff that didn't exist when we acquired the site. And nearly everything that did exist exists now. Advanced Search was added to this version of the site relatively recently. I don't remember when it last existed on the old version of the site. It didn't exist when we acquired it in May of 2003, so we're talking a 1 1/2 year absence right there. I know it went away LONG before we acquired the site. I think it is implied that a life-time member would not have to pay for services that were included at one point in time during membership.. I disagree. We actually were under no obligation to provide anything. We could've simply folded the site and in doing so, taken out one of our bigger competitors. But we don't roll like that. And a key point is that purchasing a subscription bought the ability to post and the ability to read in batches of 10 messages at a time. It didn't buy the ability to use Search (or Advanced Search during the short time it was present). Those were available for free. I don't remember the advanced search being presented as a 'limited time' function... nor do I remember anything stating that is was going to go away. Do you remember that until a few weeks ago, it didn't exist for years? Surely though you don't remember anything stating that it was going to go away, you noticed that it went away. A very long time ago. All companies have functions that become enhanced with time, and they considered it normal business maintenance. They all don't decide to start charging fees because they have finally got the function to work properly. Ever own a copy of software or operating system? Ever upgraded? We've enhanced the site very substantially without charging existing members extra for access to most of the new stuff. 3 features that've been added require the $19.95 per year upgrade to gain access to them. You provided a service that was free, then removed it because it didn't work well. Nope. InfoSpace did. Long ago. The Silicon Investor we bought did not have Advanced Search. Si has the most members, and IMO you have done a great job of keeping peace in a professional manner(unlike the guy at IHUB), and people continue to feel comfortable posting here. Another piece of history. In addition to being laid off from InfoSpace in February of 2001, I fired myself from the admin job several months ago. SI Admin (Dave) is the new admin. I'm just the president and code-monkey. Anyway, I won't go through all the details yet again, but basically we're keeping features available that were available when we acquired the site, adding new features, and have moved the site to a viable, survivable business model. The old model of "pay once and you'll never have to pay again, but we'll keep adding new features" was financial suicide. And why no new features had been added to the site in ages.