NSC and all the newbies.

[Stat Brother]

How many newbs have signed on to this fountain of knowledge, this season, compared to the last few years.

I don't normally pay any attention to the opening page, but 10000+ members, 5000+ active, most viewed 1666, all seems a lot more traffic than, say, 2 years ago.

Do these figures also effect the running costs a la big pictures and videos etc?

 

[El Presidente]

November 2007, NSC hosting cost = £80

January 2011, NSC hosting cost = £337

 

[Tricky Dicky]

I always thought we had abour 3,000 members, but I guess that was a couple of years ago. With greater internet usage, growing enthusiasm with the Amex, and good form all contribute to more numbers. How many regular posters, though, a few hundred ?

 

[love Brighton.hate palace]

im a newbie member but not a newbie nsc user and i thinks thats the case with a lot of users

 

[casbom]

I hope Bozza is prepared for next season onwards, as there will be a hell of alot more fans who will be seeing Brighton on a more regular basis and who will no doubt want to know more than just via the Argus or Seagulls website. I can see the average total number viewers running up in the thousands within the next couple of years.

I guess at some stage, we're going to have to pay a subscription to keep up with the running costs of the site?

 

[Bozza]

November 2007, NSC hosting cost = £80

January 2011, NSC hosting cost = £337

February 2011 - £500, with traffic recorded as being 40% up on January.

 

[I Am The Great Cornholio]

I am what you call a newbie user but I have always, Hmm whats the word. hung around and observed for a good couple years now.

 

[house your seagull]

if there was a thing where once a year NSC asked everyone for a pound, i wonder how many would oblige?

 

[Stat Brother]

February 2011 - £500, with traffic recorded as being 40% up on January.

Blimey, I'll buy something from Amazon soon.

I guess for the good of NSC we need to bulldoze Falmer and flirt with relegation this season.

 

[Rookie]

February 2011 - £500, with traffic recorded as being 40% up on January.

Christ, NSC is a victim of Gus and his success. Think we need him to chip in with a couple of quid

 

[Muzzy]

I am what you call a newbie user but I have always, Hmm whats the word. hung around and observed for a good couple years now.

me too, but as a lifelong albion fan i think i qualify, my job means attending games is a nightmare tho!!

exiting times to follow the lads and there's sure to be more newbies like me signing up once the amex is up and running!

the opportunity for approx 12,000 to 14,000 more armchair fans to watch there local team in the flesh will no doubt mean some new to be, ex manure/chelski fans will show up next season..... after all, why would youngsters support us in the last 10 years at the theatre of trees when they can watch top level games from the comfort of their own sofas?

I think dads will be proud to take their boys to the footie on a saturday afternoon as my pops proudly took me back in the seventies once we have a proper arena to watch it in!!

I wouldn't mind betting that this years crimbo wish list has more albion shirts on it than any other teams this year!..... I for 1 have no problem with that and hopefully the hardened withdean fans won't either....

For whatever reason newbies are turning up, embrace, enjoy and lets sit together on the rollercoaster that is "Brighton & Hove Albion"

 

[Mellotron]

This place will be overrun with newbies early next season.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

me too, but as a lifelong albion fan i think i qualify, my job means attending games is a nightmare tho!!

exiting times to follow the lads and there's sure to be more newbies like me signing up once the amex is up and running!

the opportunity for approx 12,000 to 14,000 more armchair fans to watch there local team in the flesh will no doubt mean some new to be, ex manure/chelski fans will show up next season..... after all, why would youngsters support us in the last 10 years at the theatre of trees when they can watch top level games from the comfort of their own sofas?

I think dads will be proud to take their boys to the footie on a saturday afternoon as my pops proudly took me back in the seventies once we have a proper arena to watch it in!!

I wouldn't mind betting that this years crimbo wish list has more albion shirts on it than any other teams this year!..... I for 1 have no problem with that and hopefully the hardened withdean fans won't either....

For whatever reason newbies are turning up, embrace, enjoy and lets sit together on the rollercoaster that is "Brighton & Hove Albion"

Nice!

 

[Brovion]

February 2011 - £500, with traffic recorded as being 40% up on January.

Wow. I know none of us want NSC to become subscription-only or to see different classes of user (those who pay get more features etc), and I know this has been mentioned before - but have you considered adding a 'Donate' button? Loads of websites have them and that way you could just give a polite cough whenever funds run a bit low and those of us who use it regularly can dob in a few quid. No pressure, give what you want, and ANYBODY who says "I donated £20 so my opinion is worth more than yours" gets their money refunded and a lifetime ban.

 

[Stat Brother]

I always thought we had abour 3,000 members, but I guess that was a couple of years ago. With greater internet usage, growing enthusiasm with the Amex, and good form all contribute to more numbers. How many regular posters, though, a few hundred ?

Exactly my thoughts TD, hence the original post, plus my complete lack of understanding on all things 'bandwidth'.

(oh btw the more the merrier, assuming it's affordable. This isn't an uber poster thing)

 

[Bozza]

Wow. I know none of us want NSC to become subscription-only or to see different classes of user (those who pay get more features etc), and I know this has been mentioned before - but have you considered adding a 'Donate' button? Loads of websites have them and that way you could just give a polite cough whenever funds run a bit low and those of us who use it regularly can dob in a few quid. No pressure, give what you want, and ANYBODY who says "I donated £20 so my opinion is worth more than yours" gets their money refunded and a lifetime ban.

We still have c£6000 in the pot, so no immediate pressure to call out for funds. However the nature of our current hosting package is such that costs are variable - simply the more server resources we use, the more we get charged. Given how hosting costs have escalated this season I need to move us to a fixed cost solution, which will mean returning to our own dedicated server once again. However, unlike last time, when our server creaked at anything above 400 or so concurrent users, I will look to make sure that our new server is sufficiently powerful to cope with our busy periods. I've sought advice from admins of other boards I know of that also use vBulletin and are as busy, or busier than NSC. I reckon I should be able to get us on a fixed cost hosting platform for c£250 per month that should be more than adequate for our needs.

Beyond that, there are a few other things I need to do...

- Make better use of other affiliate schemes. Amazon works very well for us, but I should also be encouraging users to go to other sites, such as eBay, Play, Tesco etc via NSC. It will all add up and make a difference.

- Become stricter about people linking to their content off NSC, particularly where the pages linked to carry ads and look to monetize that content. Example: you want to blog? Good, when I upgraded vBulletin I paid extra for the vBulletin blogging platform that is fully integrated into the main board itself, so write your blog on NSC, keeping content and eyes here.

- Enhance NSC beyond what it currently is to include, for example, an Albion wiki - make it the online home for all Albion related information, accessible and modifiable by all. Also an Albion specific version of Soccerbase - all our results, scorers etc from the dawn of time until today. Make NSC the first port of call for all Albion fans, almost nomatter what they want. And monetize those pages as we do currently with the main board.

 

[¤DãŃn¥ §êãGüLL¤]

This place will be overrun with newbies early next season.

Doubt it. They'll be too scared to post in case they spell something wrong.

 

[Biscuit]

Wow. I know none of us want NSC to become subscription-only or to see different classes of user (those who pay get more features etc), and I know this has been mentioned before - but have you considered adding a 'Donate' button? Loads of websites have them and that way you could just give a polite cough whenever funds run a bit low and those of us who use it regularly can dob in a few quid. No pressure, give what you want, and ANYBODY who says "I donated £20 so my opinion is worth more than yours" gets their money refunded and a lifetime ban.

I like this idea. I'm sure it's been considered.

 

[Bozza]

Exactly my thoughts TD, hence the original post, plus my complete lack of understanding on all things 'bandwidth'.

(oh btw the more the merrier, assuming it's affordable. This isn't an uber poster thing)

As time has progressed, bandwidth has pretty much become a non-issue. What is an issue are the server resources that a SQL based site, such as NSC, uses - memory and CPU processing power.

Every time a user does anything - logs in, view the Big Board page, clicks on a thread, make a reply - anything - there is a whole heap of SQL queries processing behind the scenes against NSC's underlying database which contains many gigabytes of data. In isolation these queries cost almost literally nothing. But when you add up the hundreds of millions made every month - the costs began to mount up a bit!

 

[Mellotron]

Doubt it. They'll be too scared to post in case I respond.

Corrected.