OMG MY ADOPTS IS GONE!?!?!

[Nemesis]

Well my adopts appears to be gone as when i go to http://www.myadopts.com/ it says it can't be found! furthermore i found this thread as proof.

http://www.virtualpetlist.com/showt...om-Would-consider-selling-to-the-right-person

I saw them as my biggest competitor

Def. the wrong board but i wanted it up top... mods can be mad and move it later lol

 

[Hall of Famer]

umm this... I am assuming Myadopts costs at least more than $2000, are you sure you are ready for taking up this challenge? Id recommend you to find yourself some business partners to cover up for the expense if you decide to give a try.

But still, why do you consider MA as your biggest competitor?

 

[Folli]

Oh wow, I was wondering why I couldn't access the forums or site. Didn't think that BMR would actually be selling it, though. I've been on there since around just after it was made..

I do wish he left a message about it or something instead of just leaving us with a blank page. Oh well, at least I know what's happening with it.

 

[Abronsyth]

And that would explain why it's been down. It'd be nice to see it under new management, truthfully, Brandon was trying but he didn't seem to have much time to spare on it. I just hope it re-opens soon, I had a lot of friends on the forums...

 

[Hall of Famer]

Well I was wondering though, who will be able and willing to make an offer to BMR if he indeed sells MA. MA is quite resource-intensive, and the fact that it suffers downtimes many times means that the new owner may have to upgrade the server in order to win favor over MA's current members. But where does the money come from? BMR'd have upgraded MA's server himself if MA proves to be profitable.

Anyway for MA users, it may be better if the new owner is a businessman. Even though businessmen have bad reputation on the internet, they do understand the need for separation of ownership and management and MA's staff will have full power to monitor the community. These staff have been doing rather well, it will be bad if the new owner actually is a power-abuser and messes things up.

 

[Nemesis]

I find it hard to believe my adopts to be worth 2000$. I used multiple traffic analyzing sites and it'd be lucky to get near 200$. Now maybe its worth lies in the amount of people that want it, but honestly I am only interested in how it automatically installs people's sites, that would make my life easier as I have installed mysidia now like 40 times lol!

HOF had pm me about it, would anyone else be interested in buying shares/pieces of it and run it democratically together? If all involved keep it going in their free time then it will be maintained full time. I would also plan on gaining back everyone's investment and then some.

Side Notes: I am quite pissed at how this is being handled though. First off where is the site? What the hell is that? How many times am i gonna see that repeated on the internet? No warning no heads up, no care for his community. How is he gonna sell a site we can't see that is losing traffic.

Oh yes did anyone check the traffic rankings @ Alexa? it looks like a huge mountain.. i think he's selling cause its tanking hard... its below average now...

But back to my main point, I beleive it's unacceptable at how many sites he just let down. As you all saw I notified on the forum that i was having doubts about my own hosting service (not anymore) but atleast i was giving a heads up that in 6 months- a year i may not be hosting anymore. And if i were to ever end my services for w/e reason i would see to it that every site was backed up and moved before i turned off the server.

That's my rant for today..

 

[Abronsyth]

I believe I can answer the whole Mountain Traffic thing. It plummeted after Encyclopedia Dramatica caused some problems for us, chasing users away, and some staff members (can't say who) got really fussy when people got mad at her for beating up on another staff member and chasing the latter away, and her chasing him away angered a lot of people (including myself) and convinced us to leave.

And I agree completely, just poofing MA away without any warning to many users who were right in the middle of creating sites.

 

[Sophie]

MMM...
I thought at first that the server was just out as it always does.
Perhaps MyAdopts is really gone...

 

[Jani]

It's not gone.

The server's just down, but BMR hasn't put it back up. And considering his thoughts on selling it, he might not put it back up for a while.

However, he is only thinking about selling, he might not actually do it :c



Oh, and, if he does, and you do buy it, will you keep the current forum staff? ;n;

 

[Folli]

Well, MA is back up now.

 

[Hall of Famer]

Well now that this is getting a bit interesting. Since BMR said he'd be curious to see how much price the site would fetch, there is a chance that he's just doing a test to figure out the worth of myadopts.com. Since BMR is charging a high price for MA, I'd be rather curious to see who will come out as the winner.

I personally think Nemesis would keep the current staff team if he wins the bid, but thats just my assumption.

 

[Nemesis]

Well I'm glad the site is up and feel bad for the accusations but it was bad timing and I had never seen the service down before, I do play around the site.

And as for it's price he is wanting way to much, a few thousand for a site that will be expensive server wise (bogging script) and has decent amount of traffic however it is a very low age group so is actually low ranking; and the traffic is tanking with a severe downward trend. I can only imagine the issues with what people try and upload to the site copyrights and anything else you could possibly find on the net.

Final thoughts:
"I personally think Nemesis would keep the current staff team if he wins the bid, but thats just my assumption. " HOF is right that would be the best course of action and what I'd do. However being in college and busy myself there is no way I would pay such a price on a risky investment, his price is placed based on the fact that people are dedicated to adopts sites and may fight for it. But from a business perspective it would be a loss and I actually doubt I will be a bidder.

Only scenario I see (that would get me involved) is he can't find a seller (no one with same dedication as him) and I would say his best course of action would be to give it to someone he trusts, (HOF) and his best bet would be to let the community care for it on a lease/rent and he could still collect his adsense till he gets his desired amount. That is the only way I see myself running that site is if its free till its debt is paid. Or run on community donations, but again unlikely due to the young age group.

 

[Hall of Famer]

Final thoughts:
"I personally think Nemesis would keep the current staff team if he wins the bid, but thats just my assumption. " HOF is right that would be the best course of action and what I'd do. However being in college and busy myself there is no way I would pay such a price on a risky investment, his price is placed based on the fact that people are dedicated to adopts sites and may fight for it. But from a business perspective it would be a loss and I actually doubt I will be a bidder.

Only scenario I see (that would get me involved) is he can't find a seller (no one with same dedication as him) and I would say his best course of action would be to give it to someone he trusts, (HOF) and his best bet would be to let the community care for it on a lease/rent and he could still collect his adsense till he gets his desired amount. That is the only way I see myself running that site is if its free till its debt is paid. Or run on community donations, but again unlikely due to the young age group.

I see, this makes perfect sense to me. A rational investor like Nemesis will recognize this as too risky a decision to make. This is however, under the assumption that all bidders are rational. There may be people who will be bidding for BMR and drive up the price even higher, should be interesting to see.

I wonder if he will choose the path of leasing/renting MA though, but thats actually not really a bad choice unless he wants instant payment(not gonna happen anyway, considering no one is gonna make an one-time $3000 payment without at least one or two times of bargaining).

And again, whoever receives MA, the best choice is apparently to leave the community management to their current staff team. Cant say they are perfect, but they have been rather experienced and know what they are doing. Owners messing up with management can potentially drive the community to a dead end, true businessmen know this very well.

 

[Pyrkagias]

Or run on community donations, but again unlikely due to the young age group.

You could be suprised... Some of our members are actually older than you think and they already wanted to donate, but BMR never accepted...

 

[BMR777]

Hello all,

Let me clear a few things up.

First off, the site will continue to run as normal. It was only down due to a server issue, which we have every so often. I would have moved the server a long time ago, however it's more of a technical limitation thing than a money thing, as we could afford to move to a better server, it's just it would probably take a few days in a row to accomplish this task, with the moving of the database and the transferring of the domain name to the new server. Unfortunately I haven't had a few free days in a long time to babysit the site transfer process. I am currently overpaying for my current server because it is fully managed, meaning I have better support, but if you know what you're doing you can save by getting a self-managed server at prob half the cost.

Also, I'm not dead set on selling and it would be sad to see the site go. That said, I do realize that I don't have enough time for the site anymore since I am working 40 hours a week. I would ideally love to sell the site to someone who wishes to improve the site and continue what I started. I don't think it's right to give it away, though, since it does make money through the ad revenue. The site last year made over $3,000 and I anticipate it could make more than that in a year IF someone has the time to get the server issue worked out and do some new coding for the site. Unfortunately I don't have this time anymore, so I've unfortunately been doing the minimum to keep the site online. That's why I haven't added a new feature in months, time, although I would love to add more if I wasn't working.

My price for the site is not set in stone, but I would still like to get something for the site as it is a decent money maker once the server is upgraded. It has consistently brought in more than enough to pay for server costs and it has been nice to have an extra hundred or two dollars every month from the ads.

If you have any questions just let me know.
BMR777

 

[Hall of Famer]

umm this is interesting. How much are you paying for the hosting service? Assume you are currently breaking even, it generates a revenue of $3000 a year, this accounts for a $250/month dedicated hosting service? But I thought a dedicated server at $250/month should be able to more than sufficient to handle a site like MA? Just curious.

At this moment I'd recommend you to consider what Nemesis said in his last paragraph - Leasing. This way you will not be paying for the hosting package, while still able to collect revenue at about $250-$300 a month. This process may last for about a year(or half a year if the new owner finds ways to make it $500-$600 a month?) until you have received exactly what you wanted earlier - $3000. One important reason to consider this is that it is hard to make potential buyers believe that MA will be a good investment under current conditions. One time $3000 payment is apparently too risky a price to pay for most of them. Not saying you will definitely not be able to sell it, but chances are you will have to wait for months or more than a year to get a satisfactory offer.

There is one thing I do not quite understand though. Some members from MA said that you would not accept donations from them, while I also heard from Kaeliah before that you would not hire programmers from MA to code for yourself. Is there a good reason for this? But if so, why are you selling MA right now in order to find someone who will do some new coding for the site?

 

[ChibiMaestro]

Wai what?
... I should have really read this thread... how could I miss it?

If Brandon decides to sell MA to someone else, I just hope he makes sure the new owner will do a good job of keeping MA online and adding features often.

I don't want MA to die if he sells it to the wrong person >.<

And...

There is one thing I do not quite understand though. Some members from MA said that you would not accept donations from them, while I also heard from Kaeliah before that you would not hire programmers from MA to code for yourself. Is there a good reason for this? But if so, why are you selling MA right now in order to find someone who will do some new coding for the site?

Well, I believe Brandon does accept donations, but because there isn't an easy automatic way, many people are put off. And the only way to donate is by PMing Brandon and discussing it. However, Brandon isn't on very often, so it's hard to get a hold of him.
And also, Kae did offer her help to him, however Brandon did say no because there was a security risk.... but I do wonder why he couldn't have just reviewed what Kae would code, maybe modify it and implement it?

...
Anyway, I just don't want MA to be sold and someone, possibly I don't know run MA. If Nemesis wins the bid and purchases MA, I'd be okay with it since he does seem like a great person, but I want him to keep MA going and take it seriously and update it often... :3

I just don't want someone totally new and someone I have no idea who they are, and never seen before take over >.<

 

[Hall of Famer]

I see, that does make sense to me if BMR is either too busy or worried about security issues.

Well it seems that Nemesis will not be bidding for MA at $3000, so chances are MA's new owner is completely unfamiliar to you if BMR manages to sell it. Possibly a businessman, but I dunno.

 

[BMR777]

Well, the server actually is only $90 a month, not $250. Even then, I pay too much because I have a fully managed server.

I don't accept donations because the site is breaking even. Since the site has mostly a younger audience I would feel bad taking their money when the site is making a profit as I would then essentially be putting donated money in my pocket. Only if the site ever began to run at a loss would I accept donations.

I'm NOT set on selling MyAdopts, but if the RIGHT person came along who wanted to continue the site in the same manner I would run it in if I had more time I would consider a sale. The $3000 is not a firm price, but rather a starting figure by which I can gauge MyAdopts' value.

 

[Hall of Famer]

I see, so you are actually using a VPS hosting package for MA at this moment? If so, I am not surprised that MA's server goes down regularly. I've set up a new VPS server that I plan to move all my sites to before the end of 2011, it costs $97 a month. I'd have upgraded to $125/month dedicated hosting service if cpanel license does not cost $30 a month though. I thought MA had a much more powerful server than mine, it seems that it is not.

But now I am a little bit confused. MA is generating a revenue of $3000 last year, that makes $250 a month? If so, you are earning profit at $160 a month(revenue is much higher than cost), and this is definitely not just breaking even. Correct me if my computation is wrong, but I dont think so? It does not explain your incentive to sell MA if it earns profit at $160 per month either. It is up for you to decide whether to accept Donation though, I was just wondering.

Well alright, I do understand that you are neither determined to sell MA nor set the price in stone. Have you discussed with Nemesis further after you told him that you were charging $3000 for MA? Just curious.