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[bargainbloodhound]

OTWA, the online auction industry's oldest independent forum, announced today that it will be shutting down on July 31st.

OTWA to Close...
It is with a heavy heart that today I announce that OTWA will be shutting down effective the end of this month (July 31, 2005). To those that have supported us over the years, we thank you with deep appreciation.

The time has come when it just doens't make financial sense to invest more time and money into the site. I had a plan, I had a vision, and with the proper implementation and support I could make OTWA into a more vibrant community and marketplace, however, I have reached a point in my life where I just can't justify the time and resources to do it. I no longer want to work 60-80 hours a week for little or no return (and most times a loss), I have done that for too long already. I need to start thinking of my future and myself. I need to cut my losses and move on.

We will be sending an email to Supporting Members explaining how to receive any refunds that are due, and we will be shutting down the ability to list new items on the OCM shortly. Existing ads will run there course, and you will have plenty of time to complete your transactions.

At this point, I have no plans for the OTWA.COM domain name. However, I assure you, your personal information, including your email address, is not for sale. It will remain safe with me, and only me (to be purged once the shutdown is complete). The OTWA.NET email addresses will continue to work indefinitely, so you can still reach me personally at jim AT OTWA.NET

Again, both Crystal and I thank you, with deep appreciation.

-Jim

[Tags:]

Tags:

[amy]

yawn

[mandy]

This is why we maintain backups, encrypt data, run high-end software (linux enterprise), and pay a premium for hosting. Our server bill runs just under $500.00 a month.

Additionally, there is the board-licensing fee (which we need to update yearly or we do not get security updates.

-Jim

Let me bloody well cry for him with $500 a month for the server and $85 yearly for the annual VB upgrades. 

He'd probably wombat poo poo his pants if he had our $1700 monthly hosting bill.  They would have had to call 999 and carry him out on a bloody stretcher 5 years ago when we were spending $8K monthly to keep the servers running. 

A moment of silence while I cry for the 60-80 hour weeks he puts in   

That said. If you guys can assist with the workload (more on that below), and if you think we can come up with $500 per month thru subscriptions and other means). I can cover the licensing fees.

hahahahahahaha , he'll pay the $85 yearly VB licensing fee hahahahahahah 

I can cover the server maintenance and security updates, but would be able to do little else, if you guys are willing to take on day-to-day stuff (like never needing moderation from me,

Upgrading VB with a security patch takes minutes, You can flick a switch on Red Hat Linux Enterprise and it will automatically download and install any necessary patches, upgrades.

As far as the site, I have lots of offers for forum sponsorship

Ingenious plan: pour on the ole sob story and convince the members to pay for the hosting and do all the daily work while you rake in a few extra bucks from sponsorships.

W-A-N-K-E-R!

[bargainbloodhound]

Sad...very sad thread...that thread on OTWA is sad in the sense that its sad that the OAI world is so full of kool-aid drinking easily manipulated emotionally needy people who can be easily used/exploited for financial gain by some of the slimey salesmen who run the sites thse people use from Jim at Otwa to Ray at Wagglepop to Meg & Co at eBay. 

The fact that  eBay's boards and other OAI boards are also dominated by 'blind leading the blind' posts in which the inexperienced (inexperienced at running a business, or running a web site, etc)  give bad advise to other inexperienced users also makes it easier for a "leader" who appears to have knowledge to step in and quickly gain a devoted following (i.e. Wagglepop, Gegy, Ethical, a couple of the OAI forums where many have placed the forum owner/leader on a pedestal).

Who knows maybe Jim didn't use this 'OTWA is Closing' routine solely as a means of getting more revenues flowing in/free volunteer labor...but if he didn't do this just to manipulate his users for his financial gain, then he must be the worst example of a businessman around because NO real business owner is going to flip/flop the way he did in one day and go from "I'm closing the business" to "I'm keeping the business open"...and if they do, it indicates that there was absolutely no planning done before making the initial statement.

p.s. Mandy--I obviously agree that Otwa Jim intentionally  exaggerated/stretched  the facts a bit  when telling his "sob story" as a way to manipulate his users because he knew that OTWA fills an emotional/interpersonal void in many of its users lives and that a large share of the audience he was delivery his "sob story" to were clueless about the actual time/costs involved in things like VBulletin licensing costs and security fixes, OS fixes/patches, etc, etc., and he knew that the "sobbier" he made his story the more likely it was he could manipulate his followers (his "flock")  to voluntarily offer to open up their pocketbooks.

[Jen]

I have enjoyed OTWA in the past, but this incident has made me lose respect for it.  Jim did a great job shutting down spam posts and eliminating multipersonality idiots that would come on board with the "hey, I just found this great site" bullwombat poo poo that finds its way to different discussion forums. So, he did a nice job moderating, but as a site owner . . . this little saga is just pathetic.  Either he's manipulating or inept - and neither of those is good.

[ginger]

Who knows maybe Jim didn't use this 'OTWA is Closing' routine solely as a means of getting more revenues flowing in/free volunteer labor...but if he didn't do this just to manipulate his users for his financial gain, then he must be the worst example of a businessman around because NO real business owner is going to flip/flop the way he did in one day and go from "I'm closing the business" to "I'm keeping the business open"...and if they do, it indicates that there was absolutely no planning done before making the initial statement.

Well whatever it was it seems to be working.  The thing that really frys me  is the huge campaign to abuse use Adsense as a main source of revenue.  There is thread after thread about "click on the Google ads" and now this:

I will also include a daily Google with each daily challange. The basic idea is to offer a daily subject to Google and (hopefully) learn something new. I'll give you a phrase to copy to the Google search (located near the top of all OTWA pages), or you can explore in your own way. 

Please remember to only explore the subject if you have the desire to know about it.

When I use the Google Adwords program to advertise I'm looking for customers - not looking to fund the OTWA.   Don't get me wrong, I use Adsense on some sites too but I don't tell everyone to click all of the ads because I need money or I'm shutting the site down.

[Jen]

They aren't being very smart - asking users to click is against the TOS, and google can take away all of your adsense income and suspend your account for that activity.

[bargainbloodhound]

When I use the Google Adwords program to advertise I'm looking for customers - not looking to fund the OTWA

Yeah, the subject of click fraud still makes us  and we haven't done any paid advertising in 4 years.  We lost thousands of $$ to click fraud when we used Commission Junction for 2 years to run an affiliate program for one of our sites.  CJ's records would show 3-5,000 daily clickthroughs to our site...and our server logs would show that the actual number of visitors we received from CJ links was only 500-1,000.   We also had an affiliate program for another one of our sites for a very short time at ClickXchange in 2000/2001 and the affiliate click fraud there was even worse.

[ginger]

There is now a discussion about whether or not it is okay to tell people to "click on the ads that interest them" - http://www.otwa.com/community/showthread.php?t=31713&page=1  If I didn't think I would be chewed up and spit out I would tell them what I think about it. 

[ginger]

Ooops...I forgot...

BBH, don't you have some sort of affiliate site?

[ginger]

Interesting.  I was just browsing around OTWA and found this -

There we're some issues with the google ads, I removed the ads from the main pages but those smaller ads within the hosted forums require individual edits, rather than a databse edit. So, I left them until I finish working out the problem.

-Jim

Also seems that the boards were "cleaned up" as the "daily google" in the 300 seconds threads are gone and the "click on the google ads" posts are gone (such as the one I linked in this thread).

Hmm...seems that Jim got his google account suspended?

[thentavius]

OTWA has released a new membership fee chart:

http://www.otwa.com/community/showthread.php?t=32691

New Membership Levels... (coming soon)


I've run the numbers, did the math, the projections, etc. After careful evaluation and analysis, here's what we're looking at..

Personal Membership:

Quarterly (3 months) : $7.50 (2.50 per month)
Annually (12 months) : $24.00 (2.00 per month)



SoHo Membership:

Quarterly (3 months) : $15.00 (5.00 per month)
Annually (12 months) : $48.00 (4.00 per month)



Business Membership:

Quarterly (3 months) : $22.50 (7.50 per month)
Annually (12 months) : $72.00 (6.00 per month)



Corporate Membership:

Annually (12 months) : $96.00 ( 8.00 per month)


Each level will have its own set of benefits designed specifically for that level. Things such as extra resources and content, exclusive special discounts from Third Party Providers, etc...

We will be opening communication channels to major players in the industry, and bringing in more and more industry leaders to participate in the community like we did with the new Shipping, Packing, and Insurance forum.

Additionally, we will continue to maintain a way for members and non-members alike to donate funds that will go into a special fund specifically to site infrastructure, content development, etc.

This is just the beginning. You've stepped up to the plate and convinced me to keep OTWA open, and I've made the commitment, now it's time to make OTWA even better. I intend to reevaluate and implement quite a few programs/plans that were placed on the back-burner long ago.

So please bear with me, some things will move slow, others will move fast, but in the end, we all gain.

-Jim

[bargainbloodhound]

Hmm...seems that Jim got his google account suspended?

I don't think so because small google ads are still appearing on the specialty forums (like books, etc).  When Adsense bans an account they also stop ad delivery.  It does look like he's using  adserver software now, and so it could just be that he's having trouble getting the adsense code to work with the software.

New Membership Levels... (coming soon)

Yeah, I saw that.  One thing I don't like (besides the whole  we're closing/next day we're not closing ploy) is the new policy of allowing OAI companies to sponsor and moderate individual forums (the 1st is UPIC moderating the shipping forum).  Sponsorship would be fine if it was limited to a banner, etc, but the moderation part is asking for trouble.  I think this will really cut down on the ability of people (like me) to complain,  If Marketworks was moderating an Auction Management forum I doubt that they would allow topics like: "Today's Reason's Why Marketworks Sucks!!!!!" 

[thentavius]

You're absolutely right. It seems that allowing paid corporate involvement could cause troubles within the company's own special forum AND elsewhere on the site.

Imagine if Marketworks didn't like something that was said about them in the non-Marketworks area (i.e., an area not moderated by them)--they can still cause issues because they'll be able to cry out, "we're paying for corporate membership! Silence that poster!" Moderation could reach beyond their designated areas (and most likely will affect the entire board).

One of the most valuable things I find about boards is the free discussion of venues, products, and services which can occur OUTSIDE the venodr, product, or service. Being able to discuss a widget or company's true self is of the highest importance to me, and probably to many other board members.

I suspect Jim is going to have a problem on his hands, if he is not really careful about how he allows the corproate membership(s) to work. Personally, I wouldn't allow the corproate forums at all.

One thing I've always liked about the OTWA affiliation procedures is that it tends to limit what we saw over at FAS (the unending advertisement of businesses with no intention of engaging in real conversation), as well as limiting the number of plants who pop in to discuss how great a site or service is. I guess they are still going to keep the affiliation procedures intact, but this whole corproate pay thing is weird.

As for the personal sponsorship / membership options--I do know that they are still allowing members to join up and post for free. The paid memberships are replacing the old O! supporting member system.