With the vBulletin 3 days behind me, and the disappointment of vBulletin 4 ahead of me it was clear that building communities wasn't going to be the same anymore. Not only that, social networks and 'other things to do online' resulted in what I personally believe is a different way that people view a community these days, compared to say ten years ago.
With the introduction of a modern product that's written from scratch with the future in mind that gap is filled. And knowing the guys behind the company that created this product and the urge for me to find something that fills that gap, I quickly became a fan.
From the first time we guessed the product name we've reported on it - we've been involved with the private alpha testing, and since the day we've been able to publicly run a XenForo forum we've done so. The experience and knowledge of years of community building and the many questions I've received to help out, had me convinced that we had a three-step roadmap for 2010-2012.
First, we're there to share the news, go as we learn, and prepare for helping those who ask. I've run a blog and started alpha testing with my friends David, Christopher, Nix, Brandon, Brian, and Mikey. We've shared news, reported back bugs to the team, and had interviews with the guys and customers.
Secondly, provide answers to the questions we get mailed, tweeted, posted on the blog and the forums. Mikey, Nix, and the others helped. We've created documentation, admin demos, visual guides, template and style modifications, add-ons and provided services. The workload was spread among the team members.
Thirdly, now that a start has been made, it is time to have some proper discussions. We've created open conversations, in-depth discussions, polls, and wrote articles. Our team members spread from David doing the Blog, Mikey doing XFServices, Nix documentation and styling, and we've taken on new community moderators and writers, such as Steven, Vincent and Iestyn.
We're in our final stage, where we have a community with not just resources - and spend our time helping people convert over to XenForo, or walk them through the features, etc. We've got community management discussions and sorts of conversations about various elements of XenForo.
And I believe that unless I can change this hobby site into a commercial site, if my visual handicap wasn't standing in the way, and we'd have the financial resources to enter the long-term roadmap steps, that this site would not have to be discontinued after these three steps; and would have the potential to be at least twice as interesting, with a company supporting it, paid contracted moderators and writers, and partnerships with other great XenForo sites such as ragtek, miko's, mikey's and many others.
Unfortunately, I can only do much with my hobby, I can only invest so much of my own money into keeping the site running, and I can only give and get so much out of my team members.
Within a year we've received over a thousand registrations, and we will soon hit our ten thousandth post. But it will won't be much more. As this is our final quarter - after the fourth quarter this year I will discontinue XenFans.com. With the release of 1.1, and our products working just fine, and a year behind us, I think we've provided enough time for everybody to get free resources, free help, too cheap converts, and build their own communities.
The little bit of time I can spend in a day on a hobby, will be replaced by taking care of my own health, my family, and other hobbies.
We will still publish our monthly articles, send out our monthly newsletters, update our add-ons, and share them on XenForo.com, but at some point early 2012 we will direct our resources to other XenForo fan sites, discontinue writing indepth content (leaving it to you and others), and let the users basically run the site.
With the introduction of a modern product that's written from scratch with the future in mind that gap is filled. And knowing the guys behind the company that created this product and the urge for me to find something that fills that gap, I quickly became a fan.
From the first time we guessed the product name we've reported on it - we've been involved with the private alpha testing, and since the day we've been able to publicly run a XenForo forum we've done so. The experience and knowledge of years of community building and the many questions I've received to help out, had me convinced that we had a three-step roadmap for 2010-2012.
First, we're there to share the news, go as we learn, and prepare for helping those who ask. I've run a blog and started alpha testing with my friends David, Christopher, Nix, Brandon, Brian, and Mikey. We've shared news, reported back bugs to the team, and had interviews with the guys and customers.
Secondly, provide answers to the questions we get mailed, tweeted, posted on the blog and the forums. Mikey, Nix, and the others helped. We've created documentation, admin demos, visual guides, template and style modifications, add-ons and provided services. The workload was spread among the team members.
Thirdly, now that a start has been made, it is time to have some proper discussions. We've created open conversations, in-depth discussions, polls, and wrote articles. Our team members spread from David doing the Blog, Mikey doing XFServices, Nix documentation and styling, and we've taken on new community moderators and writers, such as Steven, Vincent and Iestyn.
We're in our final stage, where we have a community with not just resources - and spend our time helping people convert over to XenForo, or walk them through the features, etc. We've got community management discussions and sorts of conversations about various elements of XenForo.
And I believe that unless I can change this hobby site into a commercial site, if my visual handicap wasn't standing in the way, and we'd have the financial resources to enter the long-term roadmap steps, that this site would not have to be discontinued after these three steps; and would have the potential to be at least twice as interesting, with a company supporting it, paid contracted moderators and writers, and partnerships with other great XenForo sites such as ragtek, miko's, mikey's and many others.
Unfortunately, I can only do much with my hobby, I can only invest so much of my own money into keeping the site running, and I can only give and get so much out of my team members.
Within a year we've received over a thousand registrations, and we will soon hit our ten thousandth post. But it will won't be much more. As this is our final quarter - after the fourth quarter this year I will discontinue XenFans.com. With the release of 1.1, and our products working just fine, and a year behind us, I think we've provided enough time for everybody to get free resources, free help, too cheap converts, and build their own communities.
The little bit of time I can spend in a day on a hobby, will be replaced by taking care of my own health, my family, and other hobbies.
We will still publish our monthly articles, send out our monthly newsletters, update our add-ons, and share them on XenForo.com, but at some point early 2012 we will direct our resources to other XenForo fan sites, discontinue writing indepth content (leaving it to you and others), and let the users basically run the site.
