The Worst Month Ever

[MattyHollis]

I often like looking at the who's online section, just so I can laugh when I see things like this;

Guest   12:22:16 AM   Printing the topic "Pick me an outsider..FA Cup special".

[Ironside]

99% of the guests are bots,

[tikay]

You have to put a lot of time into a forum to get new members. They don't often pop out of nowhere. When this site had live tournament updates I imagine the new members were rolling in pretty hard.

I have posted on a different poker forum that is run by Matt Dale for the past 10 years. It used to be so incredibly active but it also helped that his old poker skin on boss media had a link on it to "Poker forum". Considering it was a fairly unknown poker forum, it had a lot of members and posts. These days it doesn't get any new members and occasionally the odd regular stops posting. I counted and there were a total of 8 threads made there in November. The forum could have shut up shop 2 years ago but it's still crawling along. I imagine give it a year it's gone.

Blonde poker is here for a looooong time. It has so many regular posters. If I were to offer my two cents I would have some trying to stay involved in team events or see if you can get another blonde bash going. Scrap the main site as Keith said and just link it up to the forum.

Crikey Dan, I listed a few forums that had were on their uppers yesterday, & completely forgot that one - Bristol & South West Poker Group was it's snappy title. Think I had a run in with one of their regulars about 10 years ago, but it happens, & we kissed & cuddled eventually.   

And yeah, it used to be pretty lively, & Matt kept the pot boiling nicely. What's he doing now, still working with Des?

As you say, it may as well have closed a year or two ago, & that's my entire point about blonde, I don't want to see blonde reduced to that, & won't be part of it if it does.

On a sad sidenote, I had a look on there this morning & was shocked to hear that Mike Quayle had developed MS, & has now passed away. I knew him quite well, & he had a few nice results. 

[tikay]

I often like looking at the who's online section, just so I can laugh when I see things like this;

Guest   12:22:16 AM   Printing the topic "Pick me an outsider..FA Cup special".

There's a similar one I often see, it goes something like


Doing something you can't see

The mind boggles.

[tikay]

We seemed to get a bit off track, in true blonde style yesterday.

Yes, the cost is part of the equation, it'd be ridic to keep paying for it if it became Tumbleweed City, and that was my point throughout - new threads are key, & interaction. If we leave it to the usual handful to start the threads, it feels like its being forced, as has been correctly noted. My circumstances may change soon, too, it must be long odds, given my age, that I'll still have a job Next Door this time next year, it's a young person's game.   

Here's what troubles me most - I don't want us to end up like this.....

http://www.thehendonmob.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1


http://community.betfair.com/poker/go/forum/view/94146/165794/poker


http://www.meetup.com/bswpoker/messages/boards/

At no stage did I suggest the money was the main problem, I never mentioned it at all. It's part of it though, yes, of course it is. 

For the record, as the two things were mentioned, Fred has turned a profit of £8,674, & the Hosting Costs, as far as I can tell from a quick search of my records, have cost £19,679.18 since February 2009. I don't recall exactly when, but Tighty was paying it originally, & then I took over, at a guess, about 4 years ago, but I may be wrong on that. So yes, it could be said that Fred has "saved me" £8,674. I'm certainly not ungrateful for Fred profits, & I recognize how they have arisen. I would hope lots of blondes have benefitted from it, too. In theory, those who follow it should have all made just as much, maybe more if they stake more bravely. I like that. 

My point, though, was if we want to keep the place, we need to treat it as a community, & all make some effort. A regular supply of new threads would be a good start. 

[tikay]

I know when i started posting on THMF then Blondepoker times were different, but the reason i joined the forums and posted was the fact i was a fan of Elblondie and THM, would promoting the "names" on blonde help with numbers now a days i have no idea.

What was the original business plan for Blondepoker?

To run an online skin?

Or to build a community and look to sell the site?

Dave's plan was to build around an Online Cardroom, & that's how our cardroom started. Affiliates, too - remember, in those days, Affiliates were like a gold mine. Times changed though.

The cardroom went fine at first, though most of the profits came from the attached casino.

Then the going got a bit heavy, & the blonde players were, as a book of players, net withdrawers, they were making "too much profit", & so I-Poker closed us down.  We also became liable - don't ask - for "chargebacks", & found ourselves paying as much as $17,000 in a month - an entire month's profit - in chargebacks for dodgy accounts set up from paces like Ukraine, Afghanistan & Russia. I-Poker ran our cage, so we had no control over vetting new accounts,  so it seemed a bit rich that we had to pay the chargebacks - I-Poker MUST have known that blonde could not get sign-ups from places like Afghanistan.

Dave was not enjoying it much, understandably, so he sold his stake & walked. In hindsight, maybe the doors should have closed then, but for Dave, it was the right decision I suppose.   

[TightEnd]

right at the start there would have been a choice to go down an affiliate model or open up a cardroom

once that decision was taken, it wouldnt have worked to then switch to an affiliate model once the cardroom had to close as by then almost all of our posters had accounts everywhere, our user base was already mature. Hence going down the sponsorship route

-

as to server costs, Bongo put us on a new arrangement 5-6 years ago as the then host was giving us problems in terms of reliability

we are currently investigating if it can be done cheaper (and better), which seems to be the case. perhaps the market has moved on in terms of costing

[tikay]

I know when i started posting on THMF then Blondepoker times were different, but the reason i joined the forums and posted was the fact i was a fan of Elblondie and THM, would promoting the "names" on blonde help with numbers now a days i have no idea.

What was the original business plan for Blondepoker?

To run an online skin?

Or to build a community and look to sell the site?

just a guess but i think they were looking at being funded by affiliate links

Kinda sad Colclough doesn't pop in now and again.

Maybe brings up bad memories.

I agree, & yes, probably bad memories for him, not just the I-Poker mess, but he was having a torrid time in his private life, too.

He & I got on wonderfully before he invited me into blonde, & we get on fine now,  but whilst we were partners in business, it was all a bit strained.

He lives in the Philippines now, I last saw him 18 months ago, & every year before that, at the WSOP in Vegas.

He was, at the time, 10 or 12 years ago, one of the biggest "names" in European Poker, but then everything changed, & the new guard took over.

He's still playing a bit of live poker, according to this.....

http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=55

Guess he's pays Online, too.
 

[tikay]

right at the start there would have been a choice to go down an affiliate model or open up a cardroom

once that decision was taken, it wouldnt have worked to then switch to an affiliate model once the cardroom had to close as by then almost all of our posters had accounts everywhere, our user base was already mature. Hence going down the sponsorship route

-

as to server costs, Bongo put us on a new arrangement 5-6 years ago as the then host was giving us problems in terms of reliability

we are currently investigating if it can be done cheaper (and better), which seems to be the case. perhaps the market has moved on in terms of costing

Yes, it seems we could do it cheaper, but it must be said, the current Hosts are very good indeed.  Our outdated software causes us to fall over frequently, but Tighty rings them & they are as good as gold.

Previously, we fell over regularly, & on occasion we'd be offline for a week or more. That's no good at all.

Anyway, the issue is revving up what we have, & keeping the new threads coming. Broadly speaking, 6 or 7 a day does the job & hits the numbers. Reducing the host costs is no good if we have no forum.

[celtic]

right at the start there would have been a choice to go down an affiliate model or open up a cardroom

once that decision was taken, it wouldnt have worked to then switch to an affiliate model once the cardroom had to close as by then almost all of our posters had accounts everywhere, our user base was already mature. Hence going down the sponsorship route

-

as to server costs, Bongo put us on a new arrangement 5-6 years ago as the then host was giving us problems in terms of reliability

we are currently investigating if it can be done cheaper (and better), which seems to be the case. perhaps the market has moved on in terms of costing

Yes, it seems we could do it cheaper, but it must be said, the current Hosts are very good indeed.  Our outdated software causes us to fall over frequently, but Tighty rings them & they are as good as gold.

Previously, we fell over regularly, & on occasion we'd be offline for a week or more. That's no good at all.

Anyway, the issue is revving up what we have, & keeping the new threads coming. Broadly speaking, 6 or 7 a day does the job & hits the numbers. Reducing the host costs is no good if we have no forum.

Blonde was offline for a week?

[Graham C]

For over £300 per month, the hosts should be bloody amazing!  You should be able to get hosting for the forum for a lot less.  You could use the savings to pay someone periodically to update the forum if needed.

[tikay]

right at the start there would have been a choice to go down an affiliate model or open up a cardroom

once that decision was taken, it wouldnt have worked to then switch to an affiliate model once the cardroom had to close as by then almost all of our posters had accounts everywhere, our user base was already mature. Hence going down the sponsorship route

-

as to server costs, Bongo put us on a new arrangement 5-6 years ago as the then host was giving us problems in terms of reliability

we are currently investigating if it can be done cheaper (and better), which seems to be the case. perhaps the market has moved on in terms of costing

Yes, it seems we could do it cheaper, but it must be said, the current Hosts are very good indeed.  Our outdated software causes us to fall over frequently, but Tighty rings them & they are as good as gold.

Previously, we fell over regularly, & on occasion we'd be offline for a week or more. That's no good at all.

Anyway, the issue is revving up what we have, & keeping the new threads coming. Broadly speaking, 6 or 7 a day does the job & hits the numbers. Reducing the host costs is no good if we have no forum.

Blonde was offline for a week?

Yes, & frequently for days at a time.

We even had an emergency "substitute" site as I recall, set up by Iron.

[tikay]

For over £300 per month, the hosts should be bloody amazing!  You should be able to get hosting for the forum for a lot less.  You could use the savings to pay someone periodically to update the forum if needed.

It's not £300 per month Graham, it's £199.99 + £40 VAT = £239.99.

Can we move on from Hosting costs now, please? The main problem lies elsewhere. If the Forum were busier, we would not be having this convo.

[tikay]

Sample size & all that, but the stats for yesterday, December 1st, were much better than of late.

11 new Threads, largest number in a day since 8th September.

306 Posts beat 28 of the 30 days in November, & is around 80% above the November daily average.

[BorntoBubble]

Sample size & all that, but the stats for yesterday, December 1st, were much better than of late.

11 new Threads, largest number in a day since 8th September.

306 Posts beat 28 of the 30 days in November, & is around 80% above the November daily average.

let me know where to send my invoice for increasing traffic