Premium Membership Discussion.

[ekool]

I'm ready to get something going for the Premium Membership on the site here. I'd like to get the users feedback over what they thing we should offer, and what a reasonable price is for premium membership. Keep in mind, the PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP will be purely voluntary. Your existing membership will not change here AT ALL.

Here's what I think we can make available and we are open to suggestions.

1. Photopost/Picture Gallery (50MB Quota)
2. Email address @TitanTalk.com (incoming mail only, 50MB Quota)
3. Increased Private Message Mailbox (From 70 pm's to 300 pm's)
4. Acess to a customized "MyGarage" Page (6 Photos)
5. Special User Rank signifying your Premium Status

The privs would be done on a 1 year basis...

Lets hear some feedback so we can make this system work for everyone.

[logicjunky]

Originally Posted by ekool

I'm ready to get something going for the Premium Membership on the site here. I'd like to get the users feedback over what they thing we should offer, and what a reasonable price is for premium membership.

Here's what I think we can make available and we are open to suggestions.

1. Photopost/Picture Gallery
2. Email address @TitanTalk.com (incoming mail only)
3. Access to the Arcade
4. Access to upload attachments (currently, anyone can do it, we would make it a premium member only feature)
5. Special User Rank signifying your Premium Status

The privs would be done on a 1 year basis...

Lets hear some feedback so we can make this system work for everyone.

Hmm...I would think most of those are ideal to a premium member. Cost wise, are you thinking like $1 a month or high enough (like $10-$20 a month) so that not everyone wants to be a premium member? Email wouldn't be a big concern, maybe make PMs only available to premium members? Offer restricted threads for discounts/group buys perhaps? That would be kind of Sam's Club or Costco though.

I'm just throwing out thoughts here...

[ekool]

My dollar range is probably something more like $20 to $30/year for what I've listed above.

[logicjunky]

Ah, sounds good to me. A couple of bucks a month wouldn't be missed.

[dooboy2112]

I think the idea sucks. I don't like paying for anything that was free before.

[HavockWK]

Originally Posted by ekool

I'm ready to get something going for the Premium Membership on the site here. I'd like to get the users feedback over what they thing we should offer, and what a reasonable price is for premium membership.

Here's what I think we can make available and we are open to suggestions.

1. Photopost/Picture Gallery
2. Email address @TitanTalk.com (incoming mail only)
3. Access to the Arcade
4. Access to upload attachments (currently, anyone can do it, we would make it a premium member only feature)
5. Special User Rank signifying your Premium Status

The privs would be done on a 1 year basis...

Lets hear some feedback so we can make this system work for everyone.

The arcade and attachments are the only thing I feel are of any value to me, and there are enough free games on the net that I won't pay for the arcade. If you take away the attachment feature, then it will hamper the usefulness of the site. Keeping attachment sizes small can help you save on storage and bandwidth costs, but still will allow those of us who do not seek third party hosting just for a pic of a part to participate.

[rarjar]

I don't mind a premium membership level, especially if it helps keep the site going and is useful to those willing to pay. Heck, I pi$$ away more than $20-30 a year on useless stuff-- at least TItanTalk is useful (and fun)!

[BLWedge09]

It seems pretty unfair to me to start charging for features of the site that dedicated members have enjoyed for free up until now. If you were planning on adding several new additional features that would be restricted to paying premium members only then I would say go for it. By charging for current features however, you are asking for many current members to leave.I wouldn't leave alltogether, heck I'd probably end up paying if it were small enough, but I would be pretty pissed off everytime I had to pay. I'm just suggesting that you think about this for a while before you do anything that would alienate any members of the great community we have here.

[got_titan]

i would probably pay, if i had to but wouldnt really want to , and club titan is free

[rrumaner]

I am wondering why people are so adament about not paying for something that was free before? Ekool has provided a free service for the past year and because of this TitanTalk is the best forum out there.

If he has finally determined he cannot maintain the site for free anymore and is trying to generate some revenue to cover some of his costs, why are you so upset? No one said you have to pay anything. You will still get the same forums that you have always had even if you don't pay. What he is asking about is additional features for a small fee.

I do not like the idea of restricting uploads to premium members either but understand that storage space is costly. Maybe we advocate that non-premium members can only upload 10 photos a year while premium members would have no limit.

As far as ClubTitan being free, remember you get what you pay for.

[Mike H.]

I would pay if you added things like member pages where we could have a brief write-up and pics of our trucks. These could be linked in our signatures, and cut down on the signature write-ups and pics. I'd give $10 for that yearly. But I don't like the idea of charging for what has been free. Need to come up with bonus features for the paying members. But whatever you end up doing, I'm sure I'll pay it.

[BLWedge09]

Originally Posted by rrumaner

I am wondering why people are so adament about not paying for something that was free before? Ekool has provided a free service for the past year and because of this TitanTalk is the best forum out there.

If he has finally determined he cannot maintain the site for free anymore and is trying to generate some revenue to cover some of his costs, why are you so upset? No one said you have to pay anything. You will still get the same forums that you have always had even if you don't pay. What he is asking about is additional features for a small fee.

I do not like the idea of restricting uploads to premium members either but understand that storage space is costly. Maybe we advocate that non-premium members can only upload 10 photos a year while premium members would have no limit.

As far as ClubTitan being free, remember you get what you pay for.

It is the best forum out there because it is free. If TitanTalk membership had cost $10/yr to begin with and ClubTitan membership was free, ClubTitan would probably have evolved to be the much better service based solely on the larger membership I am sure thay would enjoy. It's not that I oppose charging for a good service. It is being charged for a service that has been provided for free that bothers me. I relate this to all of those free dial-up ISPs that were out there a few years back. After you used them for a while they would say you exceeded your time for the day/week/month and then tell you you could keep using it for a nominal fee. Funny thing is is that they never told you beforehand what the time limit was.

As I said before, If there is some added value to being a paid member than by all means go ahead with charging for premium membership. Just don't take away anything from the loyal members who don't want to pay for something that they thought was free when they signed up.

[Sammy Sandbag]

4. Access to upload attachments (currently, anyone can do it, we would make it a premium member only feature)

Every thing sounds good except for number 4. I think most of the other posters have covered what I would say. I think that if it's a feature pretty integral to the use of this forum and has been free up until this point, it should remain so. I'd equate this to all of a sudden requiring payment in order to make posts. Let's not forget that the upload/attachment feature is not only used for bandwidth hogging photos but also helpful documents and other useful files. This could really limit the forums number one benefit to all users, members helping out other members (regardless if they pay or not.)

I understand your goal ekool, I run a forum of my own and have recently started a donation program. I however am offering "rewards" to paying members. These rewards are features that have never been available to any users before. For instance I am now offering user albums, email addresses, and blogs. This is similar to your other premium benefits. I also don't have any sponsors or advertisements like you do. I mention that because I would have thought with the number of companies sponsoring this site you would have your costs covered.

Originally Posted by rrumaner

I do not like the idea of restricting uploads to premium members either but understand that storage space is costly. Maybe we advocate that non-premium members can only upload 10 photos a year while premium members would have no limit.

This sounds like a more reasonable solution, but perhaps limit it with file size. Other than what I mentioned, I think it's a fair proposal. Nothing in life is free, and too often people expect that everything on the Internet should be. Being an ex-web designer and current forum admin I truly understand the work and money that goes into running a successful web site.

[DCtitan]

pay to be a titant talk memeber but it had to happen sometime something this good is never free

heres what I say lets pay to be super moderators well maybe they should get paid. I dunno i kinda feel like some of the others I wouldnt have joined this site had it not been free. So I dont know if i would pay now but i guess if is neccersary to keep the site going. i could start giving people taxi rides in my titan I am sure people would pay $20 for that seeing as it is a great truck but that is true that you get what you pay for becuase we got some great moderaters, people, games and other stuff while you go to clubtitan and although it is kinda ancient it has much more technical stuff. i figured this might come after the changing to a bigger better more EXSPENSIVE server I guess I would pay one question though if enough people started paying would the price go down or stay the same??
becuase if a hundred people pay that could pay for a really good server but maybe rather then that we could get a reduced price????????????

[smoketitan]

Id pay simply because I have got a ton more than Icoudl ever put into this forum

and $30 is nothing compared to that

and I know how costly it must be for you all to allow pics, pdf etc etc

Ive been to many car forums and this is by far the best most informative on the block, even with all the bickering and what not

those who dont like could just go to clubtitan.org, they have a nice forum also just nortas good as this one