Updating subscriber benefits

El Guapo!

I was just reading through a thread in After Hours about Boards running at a loss, and in that thread it was mentioned that subscribers don't get much bang for their buck.
Although I only subscribed to kind of "give back" and not for the benefits, I'd tend to agree.

I think it'd be better for all involved if the subscribing process was updated. If people were offered more for their money it may entice more people to subscribe. And in turn, this would be good for Boards as a company i.e; More money to spend on thick rimmed glasses and pocket protectors for the guys behind the scenes.

Now, I'm not sure exactly what could be offered but I'm sure if there was a feedback thread set up for suggestions, then people could put their heads together and come up with a few ideas.
Maybe something along the lines of:
Access to extra smilies only available to subscribers.
Access to extra skins.
Maybe a subscribers newsletter every once in a while.

These may be stupid ideas but you get the jist of what I mean! You could even give people a Boards.ie pen for subscribing! "Now ye're writin!" (See what I did there?!)

And it would also help a lot more if there was other methods of payment offered, such as laser/credit card etc.

I just think it'd make sense if this whole system got a bit of a rejuvenation and everyone would be happier.

My name is URL

I think it was suggested before but offering individual perks like name-changes, custom avatars etc rather than full subs might be a good idea. Kind of like how they do on the Something Awful forums.

Death and Taxes

Dean09 wrote: »

I was just reading through a thread in After Hours about Boards running at a loss, and in that thread it was mentioned that subscribers don't get much bang for their buck.
Although I only subscribed to kind of "give back" and not for the benefits, I'd tend to agree.

I think it'd be better for all involved if the subscribing process was updated. If people were offered more for their money it may entice more people to subscribe. And in turn, this would be good for Boards as a company i.e; More money to spend on thick rimmed glasses and pocket protectors for the guys behind the scenes.

Now, I'm not sure exactly what could be offered but I'm sure if there was a feedback thread set up for suggestions, then people could put their heads together and come up with a few ideas.
Maybe something along the lines of:
Access to extra smilies only available to subscribers.
Access to extra skins.
Maybe a subscribers newsletter every once in a while.

These may be stupid ideas but you get the jist of what I mean! You could even give people a Boards.ie pen for subscribing! "Now ye're writin!" (See what I did there?!)

And it would also help a lot more if there was other methods of payment offered, such as laser/credit card etc.

I just think it'd make sense if this whole system got a bit of a rejuvenation and everyone would be happier.

I actually subscribed as a result of that thread , but boy it was hard work!
For a start there should be a big subscribe button in an obvious place on the skin.

wnolan1992

My name is URL wrote: »

I think it was suggested before but offering individual perks like name-changes, custom avatars etc rather than full subs might be a good idea. Kind of like how they do on the Something Awful forums.

I think that'd be a great idea. I've seen a good few people just stop posting with one account and start posting with a new account because they wanted a name change but didn't want to subscribe. A cheap (€1-€5) rate to just get a name change might make sense.

WileyCoyote wrote: »

I actually subscribed as a result of that thread , but boy it was hard work!
For a start there should be a big subscribe button in an obvious place on the skin.

This is also true. When I originally went about subscribing, I found it impossible to find decent info on the perks available and where to go about subscribing. A single page listing all the perks and a link to the subscribe page would be a huge benefit.



Oddly, I was only thinking about this the other day, on the back of the menu bar going missing from the old skins. I believe it was said in a thread somewhere that eventually those skins would be gone completely as the site moves away from vBulletin. When that day comes, maybe it might be worth considering allowing subscribers to still use those skins? Judging by the numbers posting about how they don't like the new skin, it is a minority of the overall membership of the site, and perhaps they'd be willing to pay to keep the site the way they personally like it. (or maybe not, but it's gotta be worth a go :P)

Another thing that might be worth considering is a tier above the one year for €50. A tier that doesn't give you anything extra, but allows you to pay any amount >€50 if you feel the site contributes that much to your life.



And it's sure to come up eventually, so FWIW I'd be completely against giving subscribers access to animated Avatars or smilies.

LizT

wnolan1992 wrote: »

I think that'd be a great idea. I've seen a good few people just stop posting with one account and start posting with a new account because they wanted a name change but didn't want to subscribe. A cheap (€1-€5) rate to just get a name change might make sense.

One thing to consider is how much extra work this would put on the admins. Changing a name isn't a simple process afaik and it has to be done in the early morning for some reason.

Penn

LizT wrote: »

One thing to consider is how much extra work this would put on the admins. Changing a name isn't a simple process afaik and it has to be done in the early morning for some reason.

Kills hamsters who keeps the site going. Hamsters cost too much money. Cost of subscription would go up.

It could be a horrible cycle of hamstercide, but doing it in the early morning prevents that.

Pawwed Rig

WileyCoyote wrote: »

I actually subscribed as a result of that thread , but boy it was hard work!
For a start there should be a big subscribe button in an obvious place on the skin.

I agree with this 100%. I would say alot of posters do not even realise there is a subscribe option. I think the subscribe option could be more visible. After I subscribed it took me a while to figure out any benefits.

I eventually found a post in a thread that listed the benefits hence my 4 shiny red stars. One of these days I will figure out how to customise my avatar too:D.

Spear

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I agree with this 100%. I would say alot of posters do not even realise there is a subscribe option. I think the subscribe option could be more visible. After I subscribed it took me a while to figure out any benefits.

I eventually found a post in a thread that listed the benefits hence my 4 shiny red stars. One of these days I will figure out how to customise my avatar too:D.

Hopefully it was point 10 on here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056265452

and for the avatar it's:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/profile.php?do=editavatar

johnr1

I subscribed last year, more to give something back than for the benefits, but in the interm I've lost access to my paypal and can't be bothered to set up a new one.

I'd probably subscribe again if there was an option to pay by debit card but this seems to be too difficult for boards to administrate.....

Ah well......

The current subscriber benefits aren't enough of a draw to really bother with it.

TherapyBoy

johnr1 wrote: »

The current subscriber benefits aren't enough of a draw to really bother with it.

Maybe the Mods could share their Cake & Hooters with us?

P_1

johnr1 wrote: »

I subscribed last year, more to give something back than for the benefits, but in the interm I've lost access to my paypal and can't be bothered to set up a new one.

I'd probably subscribe again if there was an option to pay by debit card but this seems to be too difficult for boards to administrate.....

Ah well......

The current subscriber benefits aren't enough of a draw to really bother with it.

On that point, I'm fairly sure that there is an option with Paypal to accept credit/debit cards. Paypal might charge extra for that though so it could be a reasonable assumption that paying through that method might cost the subscriber to be a little bit extra.

Just a bit of food for thought...

Pawwed Rig

Spear wrote: »

Hopefully it was point 10 on here:

Fair point but do most people visit FAQ's for newbies when they join this site or do they jump straight in and pick it up as they go along? The prison forum would suggest the latter. It is a long time since I registered so not sure what info is sent to a person when they sign up.

When I subscribed it took me a good while to figure out how to do it. I have heard others say the same.
I would agree with the other poster re Paypal. Not everyone uses it. I just happened to have an account that I use to use when I would buy stuff from ebay but most sites accept credit card now.

Penn

TherapyBoy wrote: »

Maybe the Mods could share their Cake & Hooters with us?

You can have the leftovers.

(There's never any leftovers)

Spear

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Fair point but do most people visit FAQ's for newbies when they join this site or do they jump straight in and pick it up as they go along? The prison forum would suggest the latter. It is a long time since I registered so not sure what info is sent to a person when they sign up.

The proportion of valid questions in there is extremely low, though the amount of wrongly posted stuff is down a fair bit.

DaveNoCheese

I know subcribers have access to a shiny subscriber fourm but that is literally only used for name changes.

Maybe a nice shiny private forum where we can all gather and swap stories about how difficult the subscribing and paypal service was.

Or how about more skins or, here me out... a custom skin creator?

Then we can all make our Hannah Montana skins and share them with eachother in the shiny new forum

wnolan1992

DaveNoCheese wrote: »

I know subcribers have access to a shiny subscriber fourm but that is literally only used for name changes.

Maybe a nice shiny private forum where we can all gather and swap stories about how difficult the subscribing and paypal service was.

Or how about more skins or, here me out... a custom skin creator?

Then we can all make our Hannah Montana skins and share them with eachother in the shiny new forum

Isn't The Lounge subscriber only?

Is that not shiny enough for ya? :pac:

Micky Dolenz

When I subbed I didn't have a paypal account, just stuck in a CC number and that was it.

seamus

As MNIURL pointed out, I recall a dicussion on this before where the possibility of rejigging the whole thing was suggested where people could make one-off payments to change their name, etc, rather than a yearly subscription fee.

From what I gather in any case, subscriptions have never been a huge money spinner for boards, so they haven't spent an enormous amount of time promoting them. There's also the risk of excessively monetising the boards experience. The core of the experience is free, and it always will be. So tacking on subscriber "perks" results in fairly useless things like the Sex & Sexuality forum, which people in general neither want nor use.

DaveNoCheese

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Isn't The Lounge subscriber only?

Is that not shiny enough for ya? :pac:

Never noticed this, have I.

Shiny it is.... make it filthy I must

Steve

wnolan1992 wrote: »

A cheap (€1-€5) rate to just get a name change might make sense.

FTR, the minimum sub is €5 (for 1 month) and that qualifies you for a name change .

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/payments.php

I've been a subscriber since 2007. I do it just to give something back really, I spend quite a bit of time on here. :pac:

DaveNoCheese

Steve wrote: »

FTR, the minimum sub is €5 (for 1 month) and that qualifies you for a name change .

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/payments.php

I think what they mean is a service where you literally pay, say €2, and you get a name change. Not actually subscribe per say

Steve

DaveNoCheese wrote: »

I think what they mean is a service where you literally pay, say €2, and you get a name change. Not actually subscribe per say

Ah yeah, I got that

The point is, the mechanism is already there to support it and it costs less than most people would pay for a coffee and sandwich for lunch, or a pint of beer on a Friday etc.. so why complicate it?

Micky Dolenz

Steve wrote: »

Ah yeah, I got that

The point is, the mechanism is already there to support it and it costs less than most people would pay for a coffee and sandwich for lunch, or a pint of beer on a Friday etc.. so why complicate it?

I don't know. I think it's time for a change, there is a lot wrong with how subbing is set up. It should be more accessible with a few more options of payment.

wnolan1992

Steve wrote: »

FTR, the minimum sub is €5 (for 1 month) and that qualifies you for a name change .

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/payments.php

You're right, it's actually cheaper than I thought it was.

Perhaps even advertising the one month sub as a "Name Change", instead of a subscription to Boards might make a difference?

Steve

Pippa Middleton's Arse wrote: »

I don't know. I think it's time for a change, there is a lot wrong with how subbing is set up. It should be more accessible with a few more options of payment.

wnolan1992 wrote: »

You're right, it's actually cheaper than I thought it was.

Perhaps even advertising the one month sub as a "Name Change", instead of a subscription to Boards might make a difference?

I agree - to a point.. yes to more accessible payment options but with the caveat that it shouldn't cost boards more than they get in terms of risk of breaking the database and time spent by people pushing the name change through..
In real terms, €5 is little compensation if it takes the site down for half a day.

The flip-side is, instead of this thread, there'd be one about how boards is gone too commercial and is nothing but a money grabbing machine trying to rip people off by having a 'more visible' button that says '€5 for a name change!!'. I don't think that is ever going to be win win..

El Guapo!

seamus wrote: »

From what I gather in any case, subscriptions have never been a huge money spinner for boards, so they haven't spent an enormous amount of time promoting them. There's also the risk of excessively monetising the boards experience. The core of the experience is free, and it always will be. So tacking on subscriber "perks" results in fairly useless things like the Sex & Sexuality forum, which people in general neither want nor use.

Isn't that the problem though? Subscriptions don't make them much money, so they don't put too much effort into it. Maybe if it was updated and re-jigged a bit, it would make it more attractive to users and, in turn, would earn more money for the site.
And I don't think that making the subscription service more prominent will take away from the site. It would always only be an option, so people wouldn't feel the need to subscribe and it'll always be a free site. But it could be pointed out that there's attractive extras and bonuses to being a paid subscriber.
If its attractive enough, people will want to subscribe.

I also agree with other posters that the subscribe feature isn't very well laid out on the site. I've seen people asking how to subscribe on loads of different threads. Some of them never even knew there was the option to subscribe.
I just think it'd be better for everybody if the system is changed up a bit.

Micky Dolenz

Steve wrote: »

I agree - to a point.. yes to more accessible payment options but with the caveat that it shouldn't cost boards more than they get in terms of risk of breaking the database and time spent by people pushing the name change through..
In real terms, €5 is little compensation if it takes the site down for half a day.

The flip-side is, instead of this thread, there'd be one about how boards is gone too commercial and is nothing but a money grabbing machine trying to rip people off by having a 'more visible' button that says '€5 for a name change!!'. I don't think that is ever going to be win win..

Of course, pending tech issues.

With regard to a money making machine, if would be an option, not an obligation. Same as subbing but easier. As we all know, no matter what goes on here, we'll have people giving out.

Boards.ie: Danny

I can't see us automating username changes to a point where no matter the time of day or night you buy one it'll be done immediately. We could perhaps automate them by putting them into a queue where an admin can change a few in the queue per day or whatever. As has been mentioned before we'll only do name changes early in the morning when site load is under control and up time is maintainable.

Danny

phasers

Name changes aside, how about letting us pay for custom avatars? I remember Dav said that custom avatars are meant to stay after a sub runs out anyway, could this be looked at as a revenue generator?

Micky Dolenz

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Isn't The Lounge subscriber only?

Is that not shiny enough for ya? :pac:

Indeed, First Class lounge is Subscriber only. Worth a visit for any current or potential subs.