Let's talk more about what's going on lately

Anyone besides me that would like Michael to jump in here again?

Hap

I would love for him to keep in touch as well :)

Hey Michael ... come on in and say Hi! Some of us really aren't as scary as we sometimes seem, LOL. You are now a member of this great big community and we'd love to see you posting on forums that are of interest to you, whether it be the California Gardening Forum, Pets forum, Cooking, Leisure, Travel, Family Matters etc. etc. This website is the most informative place to learn about so many different things and to meet and chat with others with the same interests. Your company has purchased a wonderful site, even though it's called Dave's Garden, we are so much more than just gardening! So, come on in. The door is always open ... you will love it here!

Thanks, Lin.

You always say things so much better than I can. Plus, you must type way better than myself.


Thanks again.

See all,

Hap

I think Michael is looking to me to continue to reach out to the DG community. This is a good thing. :)

I have a phone call schedule with him for tomorrow.

God's Speed, Dave.

Hap

good luck Dave... just hope for the best

That IS a good thing---we want YOU to continue to be "The Man". I hope Michael's monitoring the level of activity on the site and recognizes its potential as it currently exists----with you and your fabulous team in place! Thanks so much for keeping us posted on what's going on, Dave.

Dave,
Just want to share that I appreciate that you have really made a positive contribution to this fragile world. I appreciate the vision you have and the work you and Terry, Melody and Trish have done. Just an awesome, awesome journey. It's obvious we all would like Dave's Garden to continue to just be and grow it's own beautiful garden of members.

I ran across this reference in a blog today... don't know if it was posted elsewhere.

Dave and crew you are soooooo special.

http://blogs.chron.com/lazygardener/2010/01/fri_jan_8_so_who_is_dave_anywa.html

Thank you Dave for keeping us up to date. I am hopeful things turn out
best for everyone and will try to remain positive.

Jean

Ditto

Aguane, excellent article. Thanks for the link.

Is that a new TYSON ad banner on the page received when not logged in...or has it always been there.

My sentiments are the same as most everyone else. I don't want the important things about DG to change.

I really appreciate the reassurances you've given us, Dave. Still, I'm very cautiously optimistic. Like others, this is the only website that I pay for. I really don't want a bunch of ads. That would be a deal-breaker for me.

I agree that the articles are great. When I'm busy, I still always have the time to check on what articles have been written. The articles are a big draw for me. I really think that the quality of the articles are well-worth paying for.

Well, I love this website and have learned so much from it over the years. I know that others feel the same. I think that is why we are so passionate about it. It has a very loyal customer base.

I would like to wish you the best, Dave. You have created a wonderful internet home for gardeners.

Teresa in KY

Just chiming in - ditto to everything LOL. Just no point in spelling it all out again, I think Michael is getting the drift... and I am glad he is letting Dave run with the ball at this point. Indeed a good sign! Also waves to melody, Joan and Terry!

I had a great run as a writer for a while and would feel sad for many of the talented writers here if this feature got discontinued. But money has to be a consideration in all this.

Even though I've gardened for more than 50 years and have subscribed to various gardening magazines over the years, I've learned more from Dutchlady1, sallyg, Melody, critterologist, and other writers at DG than from those other magazines put together. And, one gets to interact with the writers! And others who have read the articles, making them even more helpful!
I have also been moved (as well as learning) by the writings of Kathleen, Sharran and Ben, among others.
While money is surely a consideration, I think the articles are well worth the cost. Dave has paid fairly; and Terry has treated writers and would-be writers with a respect that is not as common among editors as one would hope.
~Potagere

michael,
welcome, best of luck to you as you can see by now how much we love dave and his staff for making this our favorite home to come to visit.

dave standing behind you wishing you all good things in this transistion,
have to ditto and ditto with everyone here!!

I have read, and commented on all that has been said,and I have one thing to add, the new owners had better read all these posts as they will see right away that there is NOT ONE COMPLAINT
now how often does that happen with this many members, but there would be an awful lot of complaints if anything happens to take Dave and staff away from us, the amount of cancelations would be staggering.

Doris

Just chiming in to say ditto, ditto, ditto. We travel a lot and it is hopeless trying to keep up with magazines, and I have let most of my subscriptions lapse. As long as I have a laptop, Dave's garden is always close at hand!

Well said, Doris, we cross-posted and you are absolutely correct. I have read these posts and nary a complaint! Mind boggling! It just goes to show how everyone loves this site!

Everything has been said that I would of said so.....

Ditto, ditto, do.
Where ever Dave goes, I go too.
^_^

The great thing about the internet is websites are always fighting for a top spot on Google and to do that they need fresh content...and forum chatter does not count....so articles provide the answer. In other words, it would be good to keep the writers writing gardening articles to keep Dave's Garden on the front page of Google.

As for offering coupons, with everything going on here, from birthday clubs, pets, and now home brewing, there would be a plethora of advertisers to choose from....one could actually be picky about who gets to advertise here and who doesn't.....for international members, the coupons could offer mail order discounts so every one benefits. JMO

I guess the one thing that bothers me about all this is that while we have 500,000 members we only have a little over 7,000 paid subscribers. I have the feeling it's the members that IB is interested in and not the paid subscribers. What direction that takes only time will tell. At this point the paid subscribers are a definite minority and while we have some good perks by being subscribers I am not all that sure if it isn't the 500,000 members that IB will be targeting and catering to.

As a professional writer $10 per article is way below a fair and reasonable price for the type of articles that we see on DG.

In fact I think that that is a ridiculous offer.

Paul

Yeah, those are not the kinds of articles that we've been publishing on DG.

As noted above, whether they will want to continue to pay the price that will be needed to pay for the quality articles we've had on DG, that's not yet known.

Nobody is going to ask the DG writers to write for peanuts. Either we'll continue procuring new articles or we won't. If we continue them, the payment will be the same as before.

Well, that makes me feel better, because as stated in thousands of post to this forum "WE ARE FAMILY" and I think you just might have gotten the idea how much all of us " RESPECT " you and the staff here at DG.

I have to admit I've had the Ads blocked pretty much my whole time here.
I just Logged out and looked around.
Surprisingly I saw very little to scare me off.
Then I realized I was in a very heavily blocked Firefox mode.

So I opened the page in an unblocked IE Tab...... Yikes!
Flash Pop! lol!
Well no Pop but that may just be because I have a Pop Up Blocker on.....
Now I see where the revenue is coming from.

Dave is it your impression that the clean lines and no advertising for Subscribers will remain the same?
Does IB REALLY want more Subscribers?
Seems to me that would block off ad revenue...... or does the Subscriber Fee offset that loss?

Ric

I've been thinking about what brings those 500,000 folks to the Garden.

Regarding the ads: I'm not anti-ad. Probably because I worked as a graphic artist for many years in ad design (newspaper, magazine and even a few internet ads) and so I made my living that way. The ads are what made the payroll and paid for production.

Last night I turned on the ads and took a look & even clicked on two of them. Got hungry because the Tyson ad took me to a page with a bunch of recipes and the second ad was for Qwest, a phone & internet service with a good reputation and better prices than I can get.
I turned the ads back off mainly because of their placement on the pages. I have Top Watchdog ads and Forum sponsors turned on all the time. I like to see what they are offering and they never seem to get in the way. Well placed static ads never bother me. Flash & animated ads almost always do bother me. I usually leave websites that use them and block all pop-ups. I wonder at their use.

edited to fix a booboo

This message was edited Jan 27, 2010 8:14 AM

well!!! lol, it doesnt want to get fixed
edited to say now it is fixed and the gremlins are at war with me

This message was edited Jan 27, 2010 8:16 AM

Thanks for the quick response Dave!

That's what a figured would happen on the site but....lol!

Ric

Dave - Do you think they are going raise the annual subscription? If so, any idea how much it might be?

Becky, we discussed that earlier in this thread.

Thanks, Dave. I must've overlooked that question. :-)

It's interesting that this discussion is increasingly getting down to the "nuts-and-bolts" of any business.
As such, I suspect there are times when Dave just simply cannot answer the questions we have, just because he is no longer the owner and the owners may not communicate a lot more to him than the owners of our own companies communicate to us, you know?

I get the impression that Dave's a smarter businessman than he is generally given credit for here (or even admits to). He probably did some deep thinking before he set up the "subscription-no-ads" option.

Media LIVES on ads. Ladies [uhhhumm, I know that's not pc], pick up a copy of Vogue, Elle or the ones I don't know, and check out how many ad pages you have to page through to get even to the Table of Contents.

DG is media. Although we may disagree on other issues, it is very clear to me that Dave made some hard (and apparently savvy) decisions on how to slice "members get ads" and "subscribers don't", and to weigh the costs of that.

I think that Dave wants this (what can I call it? It's bigger than a Website!) community to continue along the lines with which we are all familiar. He said:Nobody is going to ask the DG writers to write for peanuts. Either we'll continue procuring new articles or we won't. If we continue them, the payment will be the same as before.
And I'd say: That's good news, Dave.

But we really all have to wait and see, don't we?

There may be a GOOD reason IB is asking for total control of Dave's programming code. They may use that to improve their other sites.
Making money is not a bad thing.

But ... of course, there are always concerns about how that money is made, aren't there?

I'm not yet clear on the member/subscriber interface.
I can imagine that if all DG members became subscribers, that such a situation might work for Dave : paying the server; paying his admins; paying him.
BUT I am not at all clear on the member/subscriber interface as it was addressed in Post #7501813.

I should think that 490,000 non-paying members who can be exposed to inundations of advertising are worth far more to a buyer than 50,000 paying members who get no advertising at all.

Still, I figure Dave ran the numbers (or had his accountant do so) long ago.

For my part, I've never understood why we have so few subscribing members, with so much more access and community available to them.

But consider: 500.000 SUBSCIBERS. Free-speaking consumers who got no ads, but relied on "Garden watchdog".
A force to be reckoned with.
Huh?

It is nice to see more 'nuts-and-bolts' questions and concerns being posted. For a while, it seemed there was a movement afoot to canonize Dave! I don't know how Dave feels about all that, but I've been in a similar position once or twice in life and it's uncomfortable, really. No one is indispensable, as proven by the fact that truly wonderful people die each day - and the world doesn't end. Personally, I'm happy that Dave is so open and willing to communicate what he does know even though there are probably many unanswered questions. Perhaps we should all get off the 'puter and go dig in the dirt and give Dave a rest, hmmmm? Just a thought. The sun will come up tomorrow.