Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
|
Few updates just to get everyone in the picture.
Corsa Sport is 14 years old in 5 days, which has got me thinking that we should have a revamp by the time its 15. Amongst other things this will include revisiting our proposal to join VBOA and to show at Billing and the permanent addition to the calendar of SCS in Scotland. Those two will fall alongside PVS and TVL. I'll be making a decision on Trax nearer the time. Based on this year I am minded to return that to a CS event as although support was massively late and everyone who delayed their ticket payment is a pain in the ass, it was actually very well received on the day.
I also am thinking about chopping the forums around a bit, specifically dedicated model forums for B, C and D as well as some other changes to technical information. This is a big job because I want to back date the change and have historical content in the right places so we've some administrative challenges to overcome before that happens.
Got a year to make changes to address a few years of decline in traffic and focus. I know I always say that but I'm planning to stay out of full time employment to concentrate on such things so hopefully I can give it more time this time.
To that end, I've been looking in to other income and decided to spread the wings a bit. I've bought two other forums.
The first is corsagsi.co.uk which was run by Sam on here, who will be joining CS in a staff capacity. The site has a forum, which will be merged and also Wiki content will in the first instance is being migrated over to T&FAQ. Plan there is to introduce a CS Wiki, probably with privs so it's not a free for all. This site ranks well in search engines, something which CS historically does not, which should aid CS in growth for all types of traffic.
The second is pumapeople.com, which is the smaller of two main Puma forums but which benefits from good search engine traffic and offline meets and events. Although these are fairly successful they are not backed financially in any way, so we're going to take the CS touch to those. This site will remain standalone although if the opportunity to merge that in to any further related sites comes up I'll be exploring that.
I'll continue to look for other sites in a similar position.
In addition to all of this, the current staff are still involved in growing our track day forum project - Weekend Racer - and we have a fairly regular pattern of events under that brand.
In other Vauxhall news, both All Corsa and MIG have also been sold to an investor who already has a large portfolio of other sites, so I'll also be watching that situation with interest.
Think that brings everyone up to speed 
[Edited on 07-11-2011 by Ian]
|
Tiger
Member
Registered: 12th Jun 01
Location: Leicestershire Drives:Astra VXR
User status: Offline
|
Nice one matey 
|
Steve
Premium Member
Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
User status: Offline
|
Are you planning on doing anything to the software on PP?
one of the reasons i tend to use the other is the software is slow, although it does have a good mobile plugin that switches over when i use my phone
|
Nismo
Member
Registered: 12th Sep 02
User status: Offline
|
|
Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
|
Yeah going to align PP to the CS ethos of simple and quick. It's well featured which I like, file upload and gallery browse with EXIF and that type of thing, but I'll definitely be slimming it down a bit in the interests of performance.
|
willay
Moderator
Organiser: South East, National Events
Premium Member
Registered: 10th Nov 02
Location: Roydon, Essex
User status: Offline
|
Lovely.
|
Steve
Premium Member
Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
User status: Offline
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ian
Yeah going to align PP to the CS ethos of simple and quick. It's well featured which I like, file upload and gallery browse with EXIF and that type of thing, but I'll definitely be slimming it down a bit in the interests of performance.
it has a good wiki too that needs sorting out atm, its a mess of random clicking on sub headings
when are you going to announce on there?
[Edited on 07-11-2011 by Steve]
|
James
Member
Registered: 1st Jun 02
Location: Surrey
User status: Offline
|
Good stuff. Any idea how much MIG and AC sold for? 
|
corsadonk
Premium Member
Registered: 4th Jul 09
Location: Marlborough, Wiltshire
User status: Offline
|
Good luck.
|
Jake
Member
Registered: 24th Jan 05
User status: Offline
|
cant help but think a crowd from corsagsi will make their own forum after a couple of months
|
Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
|
I only have very rough guesses, both are contractually tied not to reveal.
|
Steve
Premium Member
Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
User status: Offline
|
PP used to be big fish of the puma world until the admin let it get buggy and slow, i think if it gets streamlined most will return
|
Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
|
Their offline stuff years ago is very impressive indeed.
|
Corsa_Sport21
Member
Registered: 13th Apr 08
Location: Leven, Fife. Drives : 205 GTi
User status: Offline
|
I can remember when MIG got bought over a while back.
Was a big kick up about it.
|
John
Member
Registered: 30th Jun 03
User status: Offline
|
Do the new ones generate any revenue?
|
Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
|
quote:
Originally posted by John
Do the new ones generate any revenue?
Yes they're both currently covering their costs.
|
Steve
Premium Member
Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
User status: Offline
|
PP only runs donations atm, you ge t abook with a 10 quid donation, no idea how many do that though
|
DannyB
Premium Member
Registered: 6th Feb 08
User status: Offline
|
I hope it works out, I think this site needs to get the interest of Corsa owners back as right now I see it as off day with a few Corsa members, which is a shame.
A slight design change would be good to bring it up to date, banner images, feature cars back etc.
Please for the love of god start banning people, or temp banning people to maybe put them in line, otherwise you'll merge the sites and all the idiots on here will make the new members feel like twats and they will fuck off and form their own site
Good luck though, hope it works out.
|
Eck
Premium Member
Registered: 17th Apr 06
Location: Lundin Links, Fife
User status: Offline
|
Bold move, Ian. Let's hope it all works out I'll join the other sites if you add  to them.
|
Ben G
Member
Registered: 12th Jan 07
Location: Essex
User status: Offline
|
if you have premium on this site, would you automatically be premium on those 2 sites? or would you need to pay for another 2 premium memberships?
|
Colin
Member
Registered: 4th Apr 02
User status: Offline
|
Evolution
|
Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
|
interesting. good luck Ian.
|
Steve
Premium Member
Registered: 30th Mar 02
Location: Worcestershire Drives: Defender
User status: Offline
|
Ian Murdoch tbh
|
Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ben G
if you have premium on this site, would you automatically be premium on those 2 sites? or would you need to pay for another 2 premium memberships?
Probably separate because the member tables are separate already.
Might do something for discounting them but the big picture is that the same people are not on them all in the same way. In truth the distance between regular member and premium members shouldn't be large enough that it matters too much. Like you don't lose too much if you don't pay.
|
Chris x
Member
Registered: 11th Sep 08
Location: Bexhill
User status: Offline
|
That puma people site looks just like lr4x4.
[Edited on 07-11-2011 by Chris x]
|
