A few of you have already noticed that there are changes afoot with Intranets.com, the service that hosts this site. Effective June 30, this "free" advertising-supported site will be no more, and we're going to have to either move the site to a new domain or find a way to support it with subscriptions.
Before any decisions are made, let's use this space to discuss the options and alternatives. I implore you all, this is not the time for individual members to chime in with "hey, let's all go over here... who's with me?" Rather, this is a time to suggest, discuss, and deliberate. Let's do that here.
During the rest of today, this evening, and tomorrow, I will perhaps sort out specifically what our options are.
For now, it appears that if we are going to stay with Intranets.com, it is going to cost us $150/mo. Now, mind you, we've got now 160 members... so that comes to less than $1/mo/ member. But if we are to pursue such an option, we'd have to set up billing ourselves.
The other alternative would be setting up shop somewhere else, but that raises its own problems. First, we would either lose all of the info posted here or have to move it; Second, there is no guarantee that a new host would not find themselves in the same predicament that Intranets.com finds itself.
I am in contact with folks at Intranets.com and they are keenly aware of the impact these changes will have on our forum, and they want to help. More importantly, I belive they are on a sound business path and that their long-term viability is good.
I don't have to tell you all that things are changing rapidly in the Internet world; we are fortunate that in this case, we got a message that says "new business model" instead of one that says "going out of business, goodbye." Now we have to figure out how to accomodate the changes.
I will be inviting Karen Leavitt, the VP of Marketing from Intranets to monitor our discussion here, and to chime in as she sees appropriate. I think that once members get a better sense of what this company has to offer that there will be very strong sentiment for staying where we are, even if there is a nominal cost involved.
I could be wrong about that, but at the very least I'd like to see the matter openly discussed and some sort of consensus reached before we do anything precipitous.
Thanks,
--PS
Created on Tuesday, June 05, 2001 1:06 PM EDT by The Perfesser Last Modified on Wednesday, June 06, 2001 2:17 PM EDT by The Perfesser