Major Announcement: APUG future development plans

[Ian Leake]

Sounds like a very really good idea!

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I know this has been long under development. Looking forward to seeing the result!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Sounds great. I'm in.

 

[Eric Rose]

Great news Sean! Currently I go to APUG (naturally), Petapixel and mu-43.com. Gave up on DPUG long ago. By the sound of it you will be combining what I like from these sites under one umbrella. I like this a lot!

 

[Sean]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'll address some of the posts below:

Please don't turn it into one of those sites where video's start playing automatically and follow you as you scroll down. I don't mind advertising unless it's disruptive. Good luck.

It is clear that APUG does not generate enough revenue from current resources and as benjiboy has said it is difficult to work out how we manage currently with only 3% of us as subscribers. However if I have read Sean's post correctly the extra revenue needed will not be relying on additional member-subscribers but will rely on other external sources which is fine as long as it doesn't mean the kind of intrusive things that nbgno has mentioned but I do wonder how we grow in the way Sean has laid out without some form of additional commercial intrusion.
pentaxuser

It's sad to hear that APUG does not generate sufficient revenue from subscribers. I certainly wouldn't be interested in any of the electronic photography sister sites and I wouldn't want to see advertisements aimed at dig*t*l photographers. Having said that I can't stand adverts of any kind and always block them on websites.

Would love to beta test, Sean. Seems like you have some great ideas.
Not crazy about ads but I do understand that you've got to have revenue.

-- jason

RE: advertising concerns. No one hates invasive, annoying, hassling advertisements more than me. I would never have these pop up ads, ad windows that require them to be closed, auto playing video ads, "suggested stories" that trick people into thinking it's a forum post, etc. Our ad space has always pretty much been a non-animated banner in the header and middle of a long thread list and some block ads in the footer. We should be fine to maintain that low key method. Also, ads will be targeted to the specific areas ensuring all APUG ads are analog related.

What remains to be seen - I, and probably many others, have old accounts with DPUG that have the same username as our APUG username. How will they be merged?

These duplicate accounts will be brought to our attention during the import process and we can address them individually and merge accounts as required.

Sounds good, What sort of time-scale are we talking about Sean ?
Ian

Some of the main components have been built and we're starting to tie them all together and test. There will be some refining etc. My coder has 3 weeks off in December and we hope to get the development environment finished by end of December. We'll then have some beta testers kick the tires and action any immediate issues. If all goes well late Jan. early Feb. is a good target, maybe earlier if things go faster than expected.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I am extremely pleased that you are doing this Sean, you have show the highest order of dedication since the beginning of this site, and I really feel this site will benefit by these efforts. congradulations Bob

 

[samcomet]

Good on ya Sean!!!!! I am certain that the best photo site on the web will now be betterer!!!! Or more bestest!!! I'll be happy to do some beta testing as well. Looking forward with bated breath.
cheers,
Sam

 

[Alan Klein]

Who are you? What is your mission? Why will Nikon Canon etc place ads if you bifurcate digital and analog? I understand that may satisfy your readers, but what advantage is it to advertisers? How will you sell them this split? Will you keep track of clicks for each section? Have you spoken to them to get their ideas of what they need so it make sense for them to advertise? Trying to guess that your plan will work when it might not is wasting time and money. Ask them what they need and adjust your plan accordingly. Finally, have you surveyed your readership to find out exactly what they want and will accept and what they will give up to keep the heart of APUG going?

 

[Sean]

Who are you? What is your mission? Why will Nikon Canon etc place ads if you bifurcate digital and analog? I understand that may satisfy your readers, but what advantage is it to advertisers? How will you sell them this split? Will you keep track of clicks for each section? Have you spoken to them to get their ideas of what they need so it make sense for them to advertise? Trying to guess that your plan will work when it might not is wasting time and money. Ask them what they need and adjust your plan accordingly. Finally, have you surveyed your readership to find out exactly what they want and will accept and what they will give up to keep the heart of APUG going?

Hi Alan, digital advertising is extremely flexible. If using an ad network in the expanded areas such as google ads, the ads display based on the relevant content users are viewing (or have viewed), they can also be based on geographic location etc. In some cases advertisers will not even know their ads on Photrio are being served on Photrio, they would only know that someone out there talking photography is seeing their ad. Our own internal advertising system is highly flexible and advertisers will have a variety of ways to reach their target audience if they choose in house ads. I already have several companies in the last 6 months asking me to let them know when this is all running as they are interested in targeted advertising to these expanded areas. As mentioned what ads APUG members see will remain the same, when I speak of new advertising this is in reference to the expanded areas which some APUG members will choose to keep hidden. It's possible the userbase of the expanded areas could grow 10x that of APUG or more, so there will be plenty of audience for advertisers to be interested in. As for surveying readership, this has been ongoing for months, not on a huge scale but in private with many active members, the moderation team etc. There has been enough positive feedback to warrant progressing with the concept. Also, no one is giving anything up, APUG remains intact and if all goes well APUG will finally have revenue it needs to be so much more than a discussion board and a one man staff. As mentioned we could possibly hire staff, have more resource for coding work, hire freelance photography writers for original articles and videos, promote analog photography in new ways, have a presence at trade shows, run conferences and team up with workshops etc. The worst case scenario is we end up with a single login and system for APUG and DPUG, which will be very useful from an admin standpoint.

 

[Helinophoto]

Luckily, lenses are usually interchangeable between bodies, irrelevant of media used, which means that most major lens-makers could benefit from having their ads here.
I use state of the art, Canon L-glass with my Canon 1v and my EOS 30, and it would be no problem using anything from Tamron, Sigma or Canon, should they release a new lens in the future.

Just saying, it's easy to forget that ^^

 

[TheToadMen]

Sounds good and solid. I like the idea to have APUG within a hybrid online community.
I'm in!
Bert from Holland

 

[macfred]

Sounds good and solid. I like the idea to have APUG within a hybrid online community.
I'm in!
Bert from Holland

Same here !

 

[Alan Klein]

Sean: My post was not to criticize or be negative but just to give some brainstorming points to think about, sort of a check off list. Glad you have it under control. Hope it all works out for you. My own preferences, for whatever it's worth is that I'd like to see digital and analog combined since I shoot digital for travel, vacations and family type affairs and reserve my analog medium format shooting to those special occasion when I want to do it specifically for landscapes usually. Since I don't have a darkroom, a forum on scanning, digital editing of film and subsequent digital printing is very helpful to me. The separating out of APUG and DPUG is very awkward so improvements that pull them together would be great.

 

[ozphoto]

Great to hear things are moving forward and that it will be any easy choice for the APUG community:

• Analog only
• Digital only
• Analog & Digital

Make your choice, sit back and enjoy the banter.

 

[pdeeh]

Of course, even as things stand, if we had a scanning/hybrid subforum, those who feel terribly offended by scanning could put the forum on ignore and never have to worry about it again.

Just as I have the "rangefinder" subforum on ignore, because I no longer own and so am uninterested in rangefinders now.

Still, it's Sean's site and he calls the shots. It's not a democracy.

I'm not going to hold my breath for the newly rebuilt forum, not because I don't have faith in Sean, but simply because software projects have a habit of being tripped up (if we recall, the last major update to APUG got pushed back and pushed back from predicted implementation date). An old mate of mine was a senior IT exec for a very very large airline. He always said (tongue only partially in cheek) that he took his project managers' estimates and multiplied by pi.

Nevertheless, I do hope the rebuild goes well, and to time, and that it does deliver the security and longevity APUG deserves.

I do wonder though whether the worldwide community of forums isn't already saturated with sites with a digital bias, to the extent that there won't be much extra footfall for the digital side of the mixed site that Photrio will umbrella.

(Yes, I know, I just turned umbrella into a verb. I'm really sorry.)

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

The idea of a hybrid subforum that everyone else can turn off is easy from a software perspective, but not from a social perspective. We tried it, and the hybrid photographers with more of an agenda weren't content to keep the digital discussion to the hybrid subforum, so DPUG, a separate hybrid forum, was the next step.

DPUG also had problems with different constituencies that weren't happy together. The main tension was between those who were interested in digital negatives for alt-process printing--mainly a fine art, handmade audience--and those who wanted to use the forum for more conventional digital discussion with the experience and background of long-time analogue photographers, not to mention people who wanted to think of hybridity in other ways, like digital photography with classic or historic equipment. The forum was open to all of that, with the option of turning off subforums that weren't of interest to any given user, but perhaps there was fear of contamination from other discussion streams, orientations, and levels of knowledge, so some of the more active hardcore alt-printers went elsewhere. That said, DPUG remained a good forum if you wanted straight information without the level of banter at APUG. The response might be slower, but it was and is fairly information dense.

The new forum will offer even more options for customization, but the challenges will likely again be social, to see if we can have these different streams crossing without generating too much turbulence.

 

[Peter De Smidt]

The suggested implementation sounds outstanding. I'm looking forward to it!

 

[pdeeh]

doesn't annoy me if yousubscribe, mate.

but sniping at nonsubscribers as "freeloaders" is pretty pathetic. grow up eh?


edi: the post this refers to has been deleted.

 

[mgb74]

RE: Advertising

I can certainly deal with non-intrusive ads as you describe. But how does an ad blocker (I use Ghostery) impact that. I personally don't object to the ads as much as I do the tracking that follows me around from site to site.

 

[Diapositivo]

Great, great, great news. And I mean great. That's great. Love it.
Frankly I think this is good not just for APUG but for analogue photography in general.
The world needs a hybrid photo forum with the high level of competence and love for analogue work which is expressed here.
Photrio will be filling a gap which is left empty by the internet at large.
Hybrid is good for film. Hybrid is necessary for film future. Hybrid brings people to film.
I foresee great success.
In a few years this will be the place where to be for understanding hybrid procedures.

Very well done. Wish you all the best.

 

[Down Under]

I also am long overdue to become a subscriber. In this sense I am perhaps most guilty of all, having lurked since 2003 or 2004.I did promise (myself and Sean) to join and pay up in, as I recall, 2007, but as a self-employed design architect in a small self-funded practice funds always seemed to dry up when I needed money most, and when I had lots of work there was no time to do anything but work 24-7. Now retired now,and sorting out and setting right as many of my life's small messes as I can before moving on to my next avatar.

I had problems with my Paypal in Indonesia earlier this year and I decided to cancel my account when I returned to Australia. Now having 2nd thoughts. I'll rejoin in March when I'm back home and I will then fix up my membership PDQ. The least I (we) can do is to give Sean a little more funding at a time when he may well need it most of all.

You APUGers are a truly generous lot and you have given me a lot of good advice etc when I've needed it.

The new plans for APUG are exciting indeed and I will feel honored to be part of it all from next year. As some have said, a film site will provide yet entirely new directions to what I see as a growing lot of users even in Asian countries where up to a year ago one had to order stock either from Singapore, Bangkok or Hongkong. Now I see more film cameras than ever on the streets and I am meeting many serious shooters, not just cute urban baby dolls sporting the latest fashionable accessory film camera slung on sleek hips at a Saturday night disco.

So there is hope for the future, and I'm pleased to think that APUG will be at the top...

 

[Valerie]

I love this idea! Looking forward to seeing it implemented.

 

[Sean]

RE: Advertising

I can certainly deal with non-intrusive ads as you describe. But how does an ad blocker (I use Ghostery) impact that. I personally don't object to the ads as much as I do the tracking that follows me around from site to site.

There's no tracking here or selling of user information. I have a link affiliate system for sites such as ebay and that's about it. If you have anti-tracking apps running it shouldn't be an issue. That being said, I generally disable my blockers on sites I visit regularly as a way to support them (unless they have annoying intrusive ads).

 

[Sean]

Thanks for the additional feedback guys, it's motivating to say the least

 

[xya]

very good idea. I'm pleased that finally scanning can be included for those who are interested and that scanning threads won't be deleted any more. if you need more beta testers, count me in.

I'm an artist photographer, I do analog shooting on film. I still have a small lab. but for big prints of my work it has always been a professional lab. 30 years ago it was just analog printing. the labs still exist, but what do they do now? they scan my negatives and print them. they even print them onto ordinary photographic paper. times have changed. seen the results, i'm happy about it.