anandtech getting gready.

[Duckers]

If you call that greedy, try spending close to a quarter million dollars a year just to keep a community running because you actually care for it not because it's bringing in a profit.

Hi Anand,

how do you think the popularity of AnandTech, and therefore the traffic, would be affected if there were no forums?

I do not know anything about AnandTech and your businesses, but I am almost sure that a considerable amount of the popularity of AnandTech is due to its forums.

Correct me if I am wrong

 

[Netopia]

Hey Anand, If you want to sell some shirts and stuff, be SURE to include sub-sets with Team AnandTech cracking logos... you'll sell lots!



<< I've put the past four years of my life into this and I am quite passionate about it. >>


I've been here almost all of that time. Thanks for sharing your life with us. Personally, I rather miss the posts about the movies with the gang, your classes and your girl! It's been a pleasure figting it out an debating with forum members, sharing new techniques and news, hot deals, sharing sorrows and laughing and joking, building friendships, building the TA Teams and just being part of the community which you built through LONG hours when most people would have been partying their way through High School. Thank you.

And now, in honor of his humbling us with his presence!....

Forum Fighting

Everybody was Forums typing!
Those cats post fast as lightning
Sometimes there's a little in-fighting,
But we reply with expert timing!

They were funky Cyber men from funky Cybertown
They were clocking them up and they were cooling them down
It's an ancient AnandTech art and everybody cools their parts
From a newbie to a 'leet, all those 'puters runnin' SWEET!

Everybody was Forums typing!
Those cats post fast as lightning
Sometimes there's a little in-fighting,
But we reply with expert timing!

There was junior George Pow-ell and SuperSix as well,
He said here comes the BIG BOSS, his name's Anand
He took a sec' and posted great, 'bout the place he did create,
His sudden posting made us read, he's a very u'nique breed!

Everybody was Forums typing!
Those cats post fast as lightning
Sometimes there's a little in-fighting,
But we reply with expert timing!

(repeat)..make sure you have expert spelling
Forums typing, post as fast as lightning.


Joe

 

[Geekbabe]

LOL, I came here as a novice looking for help to install a new cpu and vid card into a POS open box system I'd foolishly purchased.

I got so much help and was so warmly welcomed that I hung around
and learned a lot.I've also saved tons of money on the Hot Deals and For Sale boards.

I'd enjoy buying/owning an Anandtech tee shirt and certainly would consider paying a subscription fee to access a beefed up networking forum or other parts of the site.Heck, I pay
subscription fee's for magazines and such that I don't get nearly as much out of.

 

[Colt45]

I think it is really nice to hear from Anand. Thanks!

 

[Blakwngbrd]

I second that remark - I'd buy a tshirt, and after the time I've spent here and the money I've saved, I'd be willing to pay a subscription fee as well.

 

[LordMaul]

Netopia:

You just won the KillBat Award for Most Time On Hands.

 

[Russ]

Joe,

I'm ashamed to admit that I actually still have the real version of that song. Hey! Way back then, I thought it was cool.:Q

Russ, NCNE

 

[Netopia]

Russ, this may kill you, but that and Little Willy were my favorite songs when they came out... when I was in 4th grade!.

Joe

 

[NFS4]

<< Russ, this may kill you, but that and Little Willy were my favorite songs when they came out... when I was in 4th grade!.

Joe >>


Russ was first noticing his bald spot when that song came out







J/K Russ

 

[Russ]

NFS4,

I don't think I had much hair at all when that song came out. It was right about the time I was doing Basic Training in the Army.

Russ, NCNE

 

[pulpp]

i certainly hope this site keeps going forever, i like how articles are written in a professional manner here, and that on average, all people in the forums here have much more tolerance and a muture atitiude.

 

[JohnnyKnoxville]

Thank You Anand you are the best.
This is the only site I go to for hardware reviews.
Keep up the good work

 

[rck01]

What about more in-depth content? For example, articles that focus on complex Enterprise Computing issues like security, systems management and client/server scalability. There's a distinct lack of credible performance data on this type of real-world compute scenario. Would readers be willing to plunk down a few $$$ in exchange for the kind of in-depth analysis that could help ensure the success of their next big IT project?

AnandTech is already publishing content that outclasses what many so-called &quot;research&quot; organizations produce. As a veteran Senior Analyst (Giga Information Group), I can personally attest to the fact that much of what these organizations publish is pure fluff. It's mostly a series of rewritten press releases wrapped around uninformed opinions. AnandTech, on the other hand, does a great job of getting to the bottom of many thorny performance issues - and unlike my former employer, they don't charge $35-50K/year for the privilege of reading their findings.

Frankly, I'd find any attempt by AnandTech to deepen its coverage to be a worthwhile endeavor and something I'd be willing to support via a nominal subscription fee.

Randall C. Kennedy
Director of Research
Competitive Systems Analysis
http://www.csaresearch.com

 

[josphstalinator]

Here's something to think about. The AnandTech Forums actually eat up more in bandwidth costs than the advertising on the Forums actually brings in, by a good amount. Because of the nature of the Forums, they actually eat up more bandwidth than the main site in spite of the fact that the main site does more traffic. In the business world, when something isn't making money but is rather losing money on a consistent basis that is almost a given that you kill that part of the company off - yet the forums are still around and I personally go up to Pittsburgh along with Jason Clark almost every quarter to perform upgrades/maintanence on the servers just to make sure that the Forums are running as quickly as possible. So why on earth do I keep them [the forums] around? Because, personally I like them and I do like to provide you all with a place where you can feel welcome and really feel like you're a part of the family because you are.

bullshlt. you keep the forums up cause 99% of the traffic on this site is do to these forums. take away the forums and you'd be taking away nearly all the traffic on your main site as well.

 

[Pretender]

<< Here's something to think about. The AnandTech Forums actually eat up more in bandwidth costs than the advertising on the Forums actually brings in, by a good amount. Because of the nature of the Forums, they actually eat up more bandwidth than the main site in spite of the fact that the main site does more traffic. In the business world, when something isn't making money but is rather losing money on a consistent basis that is almost a given that you kill that part of the company off - yet the forums are still around and I personally go up to Pittsburgh along with Jason Clark almost every quarter to perform upgrades/maintanence on the servers just to make sure that the Forums are running as quickly as possible. So why on earth do I keep them [the forums] around? Because, personally I like them and I do like to provide you all with a place where you can feel welcome and really feel like you're a part of the family because you are.

bullshlt. you keep the forums up cause 99% of the traffic on this site is do to these forums. take away the forums and you'd be taking away nearly all the traffic on your main site as well. >>

The forums add to the experience, but you have to admit the articles on the main site are truly extraordinary. Most forum readers visit the main site at least once a day (myself about once every 2-3 days).

Think of Anandtech.com as Las Vegas. The casinos are the main site (articles, etc), and the hotels are the forums. You can take away the forums and people will still stay and visit, just not overnight. Well, you get my drift

 

[NFS4]

<< Here's something to think about. The AnandTech Forums actually eat up more in bandwidth costs than the advertising on the Forums actually brings in, by a good amount. Because of the nature of the Forums, they actually eat up more bandwidth than the main site in spite of the fact that the main site does more traffic. In the business world, when something isn't making money but is rather losing money on a consistent basis that is almost a given that you kill that part of the company off - yet the forums are still around and I personally go up to Pittsburgh along with Jason Clark almost every quarter to perform upgrades/maintanence on the servers just to make sure that the Forums are running as quickly as possible. So why on earth do I keep them [the forums] around? Because, personally I like them and I do like to provide you all with a place where you can feel welcome and really feel like you're a part of the family because you are.

bullshlt. you keep the forums up cause 99% of the traffic on this site is do to these forums. take away the forums and you'd be taking away nearly all the traffic on your main site as well. >>


Considering that you know nothing about the statistics of this site/forums, or how traffic flows from the forums to the main site and vice versa, I don't think that you are qualified to make a comment such as that.

Maybe if you had access to Anandtech traffic profiles I'd be inclined to believe you, but you don't.

 

[Josh]

[Edit] Sorry, didn't see Anand's response. He's summed it up well. [/edit]

 

[Dually]

<< Here's something to think about. The AnandTech Forums actually eat up more in bandwidth costs than the advertising on the Forums actually brings in, by a good amount. Because of the nature of the Forums, they actually eat up more bandwidth than the main site in spite of the fact that the main site does more traffic. In the business world, when something isn't making money but is rather losing money on a consistent basis that is almost a given that you kill that part of the company off - yet the forums are still around and I personally go up to Pittsburgh along with Jason Clark almost every quarter to perform upgrades/maintanence on the servers just to make sure that the Forums are running as quickly as possible. So why on earth do I keep them around? Because, personally I like them and I do like to provide you all with a place where you can feel welcome and really feel like you're a part of the family because you are.

If it weren't for advertising on the main site, there would be no Forums. I am currently working on some value added features that would help branch out the AnandTech business model to take care of things like the Forums. If you call that greedy, try spending close to a quarter million dollars a year just to keep a community running because you actually care for it not because it's bringing in a profit.

Sorry if I'm coming off a bit too passionate about this but what can I say, I've put the past four years of my life into this and I am quite passionate about it.

Take care,
Anand >>



That is a good reason and makes total sense.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Damn, next time I start thinking I'm old, I'll start smiling when I remember that I was in maybe 3rd grade while Russ was purchasing his 8 track of &quot;Kung Fu Fighting&quot;.

 

[Amused]

Heh, Kung Fu Fighting came out in 74-75. I was 7 or 8 at the time. I didn't enter Basic training until 12 or 13 years later.

Russ, be sure to take your Geritol

 

[Cyberian]

<< bullshlt. you keep the forums up cause 99% of the traffic on this site is do to these forums. take away the forums and you'd be taking away nearly all the traffic on your main site as well.
>>



Man, what a smooth-talking sumanabeech!

 

[dawheat]

<<bullshlt. you keep the forums up cause 99% of the traffic on this site is do to these forums. take away the forums and you'd be taking away nearly all the traffic on your main site as well.>>

Gosh I hate people who are full of their self-importance. The forums are made up of a couple thousand active users- that small audiance will not make much of a difference for the traffic to the main site. While most sites would be pleased with a couple thousand readers, Anandtech is quite a bit larger than those hobby sites.

 

[Anand Lal Shimpi]

Thanks for the responses guys. As far as how much of the forums traffic goes back to the main site, it's actually next to nothing. The AnandTech main site has close to 2 million unique IPs that hit it every month, the Forums doesn't come close to that.

Take care,
Anand

 

[Duckers]

The AnandTech main site has close to 2 million unique IPs that hit it every month, the Forums doesn't come close to that.

Are AOL's dynamic IP addresses included in that list?

 

[Buddhist]

&quot;Thanks for the responses guys. As far as how much of the forums traffic goes back to the main site, it's actually next to nothing. The AnandTech main site has close to 2 million unique IPs that hit it every month, the Forums doesn't come close to that.

Take care,
Anand&quot;

Not to be trolling but being a forum admin myself...

Even if the ips that hit the forums aren't unique but do show the same ones over and over, its still quite a big asset. 2 million unique =good. But i bet the forums get more then 2 million hits in total a month so impressions still count...

Just curious what your input on that is...

BTW hi Anand. Seems your posting quite reguarly at off topic these days. hehe Kind of like the old UBB days.