No circumventing censor system...

...um, right up to the point that he starts making the mistakes that the majority of entrepreneurs who are successful to a certain point make... usually the pattern is egomaniac entrepreneur (and most entrepreneurs are egomaniacs - it's one of the things that got them there in the first place) starts trying to control everything in order to fight the fears of losing control when the successful business they've created starts to take on life of its own.

Then, to retain control, they gradually start to strangle their own business, in the name of protecting market share or fighting perceived aggressors or myriad other excuses. It sad to watch, but I'm afraid more people do it than don't. And I've witnessed it a fair bit in both my entrepreneurial studies and in my business life. For better or worse, I haven't been successful enough to make that mistake on my own, yet...

Well, gotta go.

 

This may seem a low blow, but what about all the images lost in the great crash of 2006? Who's to say that won't happen again? Also, alot of the pictures posted from external sites weren't created by the person who posted them or if they were they were created so they could share across multiple boards. Plus you may also run into some copyright issues if you post the pictures here. I think to confine everything to the FChat entity is to live a sheltered life. I see FChat more of a community of others sharing information and exchanging ideas, whether those be linked internally or externally.

All in all, there is no harm done to the community with sites such as Flikr and EC being linked.

 

There's a big difference though: Those kinds of direct competitors only exist becuase they think that the audience is asking for somethign they are not getting here. Block competetive ass-clowns like ***********, but think about what's gonna make people stay. More features. More choices. More needs met. Happier audience. More audience. More visits. More revenue.

(I'm gonna ignore the part where you circumvented the censor system by not spelling ******* correctly...)

Do you block MySpace? What about CarSpace? What about CarDomain? What about CarCrazyCentral?

The reason why the Internet is so scary to people is because it gives customers voice and control. Very loud voice and very direct control. I'm not preaching "free Internet". I'm not suggesting "sticking it to the man". I'm suggesting that people have control over where they spend their limited time online. Ferrari Chat used to be a GREAT option for me. Tons of time spent here. More recently, not as much. New places have emerged that fulfill different needs:

- The EC: Because I can say whatever the **** I want to say

- StreetFire: Because their video library is AMAZING

- Jalopnik: Because they have great editorial voice and publish in a format proper for the web

- eBay: Because half the world posts their cars for sale there

- ******: Because it's an even better source of Ferrari photos than Ferrari Chat

I'd figure out how to be in business with those guys instead of blocking random URLs because your audience spends time there, too. I agree that making the ****** profile called FerrariChat is a ****ty move, but don't block the whole damn thing...

Well, the only thing you seem to be able to sell is memberships and ad banners. I'd start thinking about how to grow paid membership registrations and new and exciting sponsorship opportunities that are meaningful.

Here's a point by point:

- I'd reimagine Velostrada as a Blog. RSS compliant. Frequent, short updates. Lots of communal commenting. Lots of banner ad opportunities. Lots of quick-hit traffic.

- I'd launch Ferrari Ads.com unless you wee really gonna put some "oomph" behind it. You've got great, targetted traffic and no real promotion other than a little tiny link.

- I'd start building more features into FerrariChat.com. Look at the car forums that are all around you. Tons and tons of ideas.

- I'd reimagine your premium product offering. What do I really offer for a paid membership? Should tags be a premium feature? Is my subscription fee too low?

- I'd think about how I can structure my sponsorship opportunites a bit more so that they are relevent and valuable for the audience, too. Should I do sectional sponsors? Should I change HOW I charge? Is there a CPM model? Is there a method for raising that CPM based on where a sponsor appears? Are there sponsors that my community wants more from?

Look, I just started an online company. My first venture since leaving AOL in 2000. I took some former clients (Former Vice-Chairman of MTV Networks, for example) who were slowly losing audience because they stopped listening to their audience. We're re-imagining what branded video networks look like in a world of infinite distribution, infinite choices, and infinite possibilities. It's a scary business model that we're so far proving successfully. But every day, we very directly listen to the audience and respond. And the result are products that the audience enjoys, products that advertisers want to be a part of and a premium CPM for doing it "right".

 

Actually, that's pretty smart for these reasons:

1) It's a place to put VERY hi res images and a place to EASILY upload images that are very his res. Fast.

2) There's $0 that you need to do to use their ultra fast image hosting service that's optimized for photos.

3) It's all they do and the level of service is FANTASTIC.

4) There's a VAST community of Car fans there that might want to be introduced to FerrariChat.

If I were in your shoes, I would be trying to EXTEND the FerrariChat community into more and more places without writing as many of those checks you had to write in 2000 when the web was a different place.

I would:

- Contact the person that made the account (easily accomplished using the built-in messaging system on ******) and say, "If you're gonna create a Ferrari Chat profile and operate it, you need to work with me." If there's no response, you get in touch with ****** and say "A user is using my trademark inappropriately." (To be clear, I'm not cool with using your trademark sans permission, but I think ****** is a smart place for ferrarichat.com to be)

- Ask ****** Users if they'd help get the word out about Fchat. Can you tag all your Ferrari photos with ferrarichat.com? Any photo from a ferrarichat gathering tagged ferrarichat.com? Promote photo sets and photo batches with active links back to ferrarichat.com?

- Contemplate a premium membership feature for folks that allow for the inclusion of

 

so true emil
the best line i ever heard and it is so true.
if you dont listen to the audience you will start losing them.

Ferrarijoe

 

how do you say it ? .......OWNED

 

But you guys are still here posting. Hmm...

As i recall, most businesses can reserve the right to refuse service. It is Rob's sandbox, if you don't like it leave. Each time you post here is a way of 'voting' for it. Kinda like why i'll NEVER buy a new Ferrari, it is due to FNA being the scums they are imo. But some guys keep buying new Ferrari cars and take the abuse FNA provides when it comes time for a warranty claim.

 

I understand your point about retaining the images and keeping this as a sort of historical archive of all things Ferrari. However, a bulk of posts do point to external websites (Youtube, Google video, Myspace, and the list continues on for days), I still don't see the harm in allowing EC and Flick to also be pointed to. Like I said before, it's very sheltered and to create a truly ideal community I think it would be best that third party sites are introduced to discussions. An example is the on going thread on the FXX registry. While 20 years from now that may no longer be around, it did spur a large thread with tons of information on the FXX project. The same scenarios can, and have, happened with EC and ******. Perhaps a video on the EC site may not be around 20 years from now (being that it may have been moved or deleted), but (according to you) the thread about it would, which would be equally important if not more so. Not to mention that the EC site provides videos, which, FChat has yet to do.

 

To Carbon and BlKBlKBlk (sorry I don't know your name)

I'm gonna come back on the reservation to defend my man, Rob.

Many, many, many years ago (like, in way before you were born), Bob Dylan wrote:

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

The solution here is to man up and become a sponsor. You are in bidness. Rob is in bidness. So be a man about it. Quit trying to steal Rob's customers on the cheap.

Damn, Carbon, you of all people. Without F-Chat, you would still be a crumb on Long Island. Do you really want to go wandering down memory lane?

Trust me on this. Rob and I have had words before. Both on and off line.

However, please hear this: Rob started this as a hobby. He didn't have a business plan. He didn't have investors. He was just a typical hard-headed Gen Xer who thinks that he knows the answer to just about everything. (Although, now that he is a daddy, I suspect that maybe, just maybe, he is starting to realize that we are all tenants in this life.)

Long story short -- This "in your face, mofo" crap may work in The City. But as Don Imus found out, there are a lot of us out here in the fruited plains who are getting very tired of this BS.

Again, just remember:

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

Dale

 

F.A.B.!

 

To be fair to Rob, as much as i think the rules are stupid, it STILL is his forum, and he can do what he wants. However, maybe we should try and meet him in the middle finding some sort of website to load all the hundreds of pictures onto? or maybe instead of complaning we should get together do a run, everyone pitch in some money, and help rob start someplace to store all the pictures everyones complaining about.

idk i just think there is some way to meet Rob in the middle on this one... any proposals?

 

I want you to continue to succeed. Let me know if I can ever help.

 

Dale... Thank you for the very condescending words; I appreciate them and am not surprised that you would resort to something like that. What you fail to realize is that FerrariChat is not the same place it was almost five years when I first registered. And Rob has continually reiterated that this was initially a place where he could simply chat with others about Ferraris. Now it's something else entirely. So, yes, if you'd like to go wandering down memory lane, let me know, I'll take the trip. How's that Boxer book coming along...? Still planning on buying the Ferrari Market Letter...?

I don't care about Don Imus or your fruity plains or any of the musicians' lyrics you quote. They mean nothing. Not to me, not to the thread. Your words fall on deaf ears here. And you know why.

 

Ok Carb, I've got an oldie to quote:

Who are you?

Who who....who who?

 

darf your one wierd dude funny but wierd

 

As a webmaster and having a few sites hoping to actually break even one day, can understand how Rob feels. Also 100% agree ALL photos should be on HIS server(s) to ensure they are ALWAYS there and 'connected.' Yeah yeah he suffered a HD crash and backups were toast, stuff happens when you trust a 3rd party co-locate server/host. Obviously Rob spent $$$$ trying to recover data and like everything in life, we live, we learn.

FRANKLY, IF IT WAS ME RUNNING FCHAT I WOULD NOT ALLOW NON-PAYING GUYS FROM POSTING. It keeps spam down and while freeloaders can read, they can't post nor see photos (saves bandwidth costs). Bandwidth, especially photos, chew through LOTS of GB and in this day and age would bet Rob easily goes well over whatever standard allocation and pays extra.

Hello Mr. Unsubscribed!

Umm, while i'll avoid being Captain Obvious, the below pic says something Mr. Porsche TurboS. Those who have not subscribed are getting a free ride versus those of us who value Fchat enough to have long ago put our $$$ where our mouth is.

Apologies for being a bit abrasive here, yet longtimes guys here know it is simply my lacking in ability to be diplomatic, though at least you know exactly how i feel. Like Tony Montana, have two things in this world and don't break either of them for anyone (also never F'ed someone who did not have it coming). Direct and to the point.

Oh, and highly support a few Fchat advertisers to the tune of well over $20k in the past 2 years.

Your move.

Hey all you whining, crying, complaining non-subscribers --- Love it here and subscribe or please (i used the P word to be diplomatic) let me show you to the exit.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Guys-

It's come full circle for me in the last year. I don't know if you remember, but with Darth, Noah, PeterS and myself this place used to get turned upside down at the drop of a hat. I decided that we should have our own playground (since people were getting banned and generally causing Rob a lot of grief) so I started EF thinking that we'll self-police ourselves and side-step the bans in the process.

It's been interesting.. While I don't really have any specific rules (which WAS the biggest complaint with this board- too many guidelines) but we've still managed to rub some of our biggest proponents the wrong way with absolutely no intentions of doing so. I just wake up one day and x, y, and z haven't logged in for two weeks.. WTF?

The point is that a community such as this thrives when given guidelines to follow and flounders when it's "every man for himself". Granted, we're not doing too bad for our first year (but I know we can do better) and I'm actively working on the site to gently nudge it into place.

Also, while we may have started with an FC-centric base it was never our intention to 'steal' users away. We just wanted to invite the ones who we jived with and let the cards fall where they may. I pay for the site and don't accept advertising money.. I'd rather that the ones who do have ads on my site be active members of my community more than anything else and so far it's worked out for us.

Anyways, even after taking a swing at it ALL of us are still active here on FChat. Could Rob do more? Hell yeah. Does he need to? Not really. He's got my respect (even though Carb isn't posing on the hood of his car and he's not advertising on billboards) and oddly enough I see more and more through his eyes everyday.

Bradley, I wish you the best but I can't see your model getting myspace/youtube $$$ in the end. Maybe I'll be wrong.. but at this point a "F**k Tom" shirt really reeks of little-man syndrome.

 

I too am unsubscribed, is that beyond the FChat limits? I was under the impression that this was our prerogative... no?

LOLOL!!! Bro, I would be willing to put my sole proprietory financial income down against the fact that you never sold a drug in your life, let alone be able to relatively compare yourself to a fictious druglord like Tony Montana. LOL!!! Comedy at it's finest.

Have you reduced yourself to childish games and thus, terminology to follow suit?

LOL. Speak to me in person.

 

bout time you showed up. This thread was missing an internet tough man.

 

Geez, I thought that was YOUR job!!!

Actually, don't we have enough internet tough guys already? There's more **** getting tossed here than needs to be, but, at least until Dale and Carbon starting fencing it had stayed relatively... er, civil.

Oh well.

Dale - Carbon, time to sit around the campfire and sing Kumbaya? Or would you like me to repad the pugil sticks.


Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya
Oh lord, kumbaya.

Carbon, sorry for the musical reference, I know how those can set you off.

Let me remind you of what a pretty smart guy once said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone."

DM

 

Don't caste[sic] stones cause rock chips? Don't we call that patina?

Anyway, I'm curious if the img tags/external links are because;
1) FChat doesn't allow hi-res images to be loaded here
2) The great crash scares people about the stability of the pics
3) If the img tags are primarily created by folks who aren't registered & consequently can't post pics.

Personally I think images should stay here *and* should be available on a click for hi-res as some sites do.

Since vids & some other formats aren't supported here, I think links to those sites should be allowed

I'd also would like full HTML support. Maintaining that "Months ahead" thread isn't too much fun with HTML or XML

and it seems to me that other links should be allowed until "abused". If you are really pushing another site for it's own purposes, that should be shut down. To reference another site where a neat vid is....that's fine in my book. Other "competitors" have come & gone (Ferrari List, ************, Asstd Yahoo groups) yet FChat remains and seems fractured, but thriving. I vote with Emil. Find a way to integrate the other folks or use their strengths to your advantage.

And, $50/year is a pretty good bargain. I'm certain I've saved thousands of dollars alone in the diagnostic skills and tips from fellow fchatters only available here.