Advertisements On This Website

  • Click here to become an Official Member of BMW Club Malaysia Download Form
Status
Not open for further replies.
syahruln;285253 said:
Jipster,

The club isn't just the forum. The forum itself is self-sustainable due to the traffic, but the club is not. We paid the membership fee to support the club, not the forum. This forum is just postings - a way of communication. The club involves much more interesting activities than just chit-chat or TT. Of course, now we all can see the club management isn't working the way we all want it. But, without supporting it (e.g. become official member), involving in its management (e.g. attending the AGM, voting for suitable ppl to be it's committee, planning for its future, etc), the club will not be successful.

Some people like to wait for things to get better before they join. Some people like to make things better by participating. Some ppl think the forum participation is enough for them, so they just stay forumers. Some ppl wanted more action in real life - teamwork, friendship, challenges, etc, hence they become part of the club.


I don't think it can be any more clearer than that. Very precise, Syahruln. :top:
 
Jipster has an insightful point. In the Web 2.0 world we are in today, you shouldn't be looking at traditional revenue models such as collecting subscription fees from members to fuel your growth.

You should be looking at:

1) Database Value
Building content value of this site which is essentially made up by individual posters. Seek to own hard to recreate source of data for competitive advantage. A good example is Amazon vs. Barnes and Noble success. Amazon's success comes from the contribution of reviews and recommendations contributed by non-paying users, which enhances their database value.

2) Volume Improves Service
Service will automatically get better as more people use it. You should be encouraging people to use the service more, i.e. contribute to postings and forums etc. Example is Facebook, Friendster etc. Non-paying users put personal valuable relationship links, likes, hobbies, and valuable demographic data willingly which is worth a lot of $$$. Facebook is positioned to be the World's Directory database.... A great vision which would have been destroyed using say, a paid subscription user model.

3) Leverage of Wisdom of Crowds
Build an environment which is condusive for people to contribute to the value of your site. Let end users dictate content and references. Good example is success of Wikipedia vs. Briticana Online, and most information now is updated and referenced on Wikipedia which is a community contribution effort.

If you have already gone down the path of taking the model of relying of subscription fees to fuel your revenue, then the service better be something out of this world which will sustain you in say 2nd to 3rd.. 4th year renewals. Also people's expectation of the service goes up a notch when you collect $$$ from them. Even world class services we use daily like Google, Gmail, Facebook, are not paid and funded directly by end users. Else its doom to fail in the long term in today's world I think.

This is my dua kupang only ok. Don't shoot me. Again, I may be proven wrong by the success of BMWCM's model. I don't subscribe mainly because I think the model is flawed and is not sustainable. The real benchmark is the renewal rate you get 2nd and 3rd year of current members and how many blue IDs will eventually switch back to Black IDs. With this statistics in the 2nd year onwards, you'll get a better idea if this is gonna work out long term. So I'm like Anxious, sitting on the sidelines and watching. I am also one of the founders of a 4000+ professional community, so I'm observing and learning from BMWCM's models and directions as well.
 
E46F

Yes what you say is true but we are not running a business here, we are trying to establish a club which is to gather enthusiast of a common interest in a brick and mortar model, as already said by me and now syahruln the forum is a different entity all together from the club..the forum is for all enthusiast to come to it to share that common interest on the world wide web and the club as owners of this site uses it as a vehicle to recruit members to the real world club..its not about more blues than black and vice versa but until the 'messiah' comes and work wonders with this site to make it a revenue earner for BMWCM, which of course will then be a big bonus to BMWCM and its members as owners of this site....

Who wants to be the 'messiah' join now as a member, get yourself into the inner circle (AGM is just round the corner) and work that miracle,
but at the meantime this site will sustain itself until then....as there happen to be more 'mewaitandseeonlylah' than 'messiah's
 
I guess I failed to see how collecting the annual membership fee benefits the offline activities. If you want to generate revenue to fuel offline activities, there are probably better more sustainable ways to do it. Based on my experience, sometimes it not about not having enough $$$$, as if you are successful in attracting sponsors, and investors into your community, the real problem is spending all that $$$, as everyone is busy with their own things and there is not enough activities being organized to spend all that moolah heh.
 
E46F

Like I said the 'Messiah' has not been found yet to lead this club to greater heights...annual membership fees is more like your commitment to the club its more like a pool at this moment in time for the current comm to use as funds to organise and subsidise events for the club members...well Im sure you very well know how a club is run...but the club making money that is another issue all together bcos it depends on who is steering the boat..Im not shy to say that the current comm is not doing a wonderful job but so far events that we have put our hearts into we got it done wonderfully...the only problem here is we have run out of steam and in need of fresh blood...to make this club what you have envisioned it to be..could you be the 'Messiah'?
 
E46Fanatic;285333 said:
the real problem is spending all that $$$, as everyone is busy with their own things and there is not enough activities being organized to spend all that moolah heh.

this statement very true..and is part of the problem..
 
Some say, why not get sponsors, no need to pay to be BMWCM member, let's make it free. This is Malaysia and we are Malaysians. We are savages for free items. If we don't incur a cost, it will have no value to us. Look at what happens when the govt subsidizes or give things for free. We vandalize, destroy and use with no duty of care. Look at the free items we get, where did it end up? Same goes here, make BMWCM free, it will have no value to us. We will destroy the club. Some may make our official club shirt as cloth to wash their cars.

Cost - RM300 - 150 registration and get a starter pack (shirt, cap, key chain, plate holders, insurance) If you walk in to a shop with your BMW park at the front, would you guys end up about the same for these items.

150 - annual fee...that equals rm12.50 per month... come on...in this cemerlang gemilang terbilang era, what can you get for rm12.50 per month. Why so calculative? This is the money used to sustain the club activity. Last year there were some charity events that took place using the club money right... so if you don't collect, where and how to do charity. Everytime want to do an event, get sponsor, boring la... people say these guys drive BMWs, want to do a good thing they get others to pay for it ka?

Why can't you just pay rm150 knowing that at some point that the money will be spent on running the club and for charity? It will be for a good cause unless proven that it is being spent wrongly like paying for beers and doing wild parties.

If you don't trust those who run the club, question about how much of your rm12.50 per month is spent, then get involved and run the club.

I just joined this club, so may be too early for me to defend. I am not trying to defend. I am just putting a point of view.

planta
 
I have noticed that the website now has more local advertisements. eg link to Petronas ad http://www.kad-mesra.com.my/index.cfm?ar=157&sc=48

So u see my suggestions are workable but some people here tend to take things personally and cannot accept any form of critism and there is where the problem lies with this club.

There is a serious lack of maturity and diplomacy amongst some members which cause simple discussions to be totally blown out.

I spend a lot of time in this forum as I like many of u am passionate about my car and want to share my passion with like minded persons.

However of late participating is becoming more and more unpleasant.
 
Let me clarify that I have nothing against paying membership fees but such fees as it is now should be restricted for Official Club membership.

I advocate an open policy for the forum and the forum remains open to all who wish to share online.

I believe that there should be one strong online forum rather than splinter groups all over the world wide web.

I argue that the forum can be kept going through the revenue generated by the advertisements.

The forum also provides the best advertisements possible for the club.

The club should organise more relevant activities such as the Factory visit and say a Bimmerfest to actract more members and such activities can be advertised through this forum.
 
This is a good thread. And in the words of DD, our president, it is healthy to have a constructive discussion on this. So, here's my two-cents.

It is clear that funding is required to run a club.

It is also clear that this forum is riddled with ads, and ads generate revenue, and the revenue goes to whoever owns this forum.

It is also clear that is the revenue generated grows when the forum traffic grows, and dwindles when the forum traffic dwindles. So, if the blues own a forum, and the blacks contribute to the traffic of the forum, the blues will benefit from the participation of the blacks, no?

The current committee, I am sure, are doing the best job they can. Is it good enough? That is for the voting members to decide.

I was a committee member. I have resigned some time back. I have yet to pay the membership fee to become a member. I resigned because my previous time-commitment have resulted in my failure in making changes I felt were necessary to the running of the community and the forum.

I have yet to become a paying member because the fee is not commensurate with the benefit of becoming a member. Goody bags are not my thing.

With the recent detailing clinic, it was demonstrated that one does not need to be a member to contribute or indeed participate in this community. My gratitude to the club for allowing a non-paying member to organize activities for the community. The best things in life are free.

It would benefit the community as a whole if there was transparency, especially in matters involving funds, from ad revenue, for example. I feel transparency on matters concerning funds is important. Far be it for me to suggest there is any impropriety currently, but more transparency would certainly be healthy.

A committee in place that are united in an agenda-free spirit for the betterment of the club would do wonders for the club. I look forward to the return of the earlier spirit of the community which was a group of people sharing a common passion in good faith.

I have made many friends from this community. May this community thrive and grow from strength to strength.

Peace.

:rock:
 
Other than Factory visit and beemer fest what else you like la than may be can suggest com to do more event for you.
 
Lee

"I have yet to become a paying member because the fee is not commensurate with the benefit of becoming a member. Goody bags are not my thing."

I think your stetement here is very unfair coming from an ex committee,on one hand you are hoping that we will strive and grow from strength to strength,
on the other you are indirectly telling others that to join this club is not worth it at all. So what does it take to make this club to be what you expect for a mere RM300...a pool, a clubhouse, activities every month ...come on be realistic , I think what planta wrote earlier already sums it all up...its just up to you guys how you want this club to grow...but no you want to wait and see, until the club can give you all the benefits than only would you want to be associated with it, to me I think this is very selfish thinking....coming back to the car detailing clinic, it was very good of you to organise it using the clubs resources, the club let it through bcos it benefited the members as well and we didnt have to organise it,...if the club would have stopped you from organising it do you think it would have come to past?...the club let you use its forum to organise it so I think the club should also get some credit for letting it come to past....so at the end of the day it was not free, it was at the expense of the club.
 
Guys, if you have to spend so much effort to coax Black IDs to become Blue IDs, by paying subscription fees, its really going against the grain and like I said not sustainable. Learn from great web 2.0 successes out there, and what other successful communities such as E90post, M3post, bimmer forums, etc has. They never went against the grain, and structured their services to make it a condusive environment to florush. Somehow, sites like E90post is so good that it attracts lots and lots of paying...... sponsors who post regularly, have deals etc which in turn benefits the club and its members. Community leaders built their value/funds from other means and their achievements are to be admired.

If you have come up with the secret formula, which makes the majority of your online user base queue up to subscribe and continue to subscribe annually, you have something which many others will admire and try to follow heh. The fault is really the culture of the Internet. We really spend a lot of time online but not actual $$$ to pay for services provided to us online. Its just so and you have to be rather stubborn not to accept this.

Getting sponsorship for a community like BMW owners to have enough to run the club online/offline is certainly achievable. A tiered membership of a minority paying official members vs. majority non-paying members who are likely to be your most valuable asset, creates more harm than good. Its unlikely that non members want to get involved in "official events", which actually is to your disadvantage. It should be equal treatment for all members, to harness the strength of the resources you have. Successful communities is rarely about lack of $$$ but the lack of member's time to help organize things and keep things running.

It doesn't make sense to collect funds from members to give them back benefit which are derived 100% from their own money anyways.

A working example - the community I am involved in gets tens of thousands in cold cash sponsorship annually (not much but certainly enough) as well as sponsorship in kind (freebies). This does not include advertisement sponsorship as well. In addition the regional affliation which I am also a committee of gets 6 figure USD sponsorship annually meant to help community groups across APAC. The biggest problem is spending all that money.. and lack of members time and effort to help us spend it all. All members do not fork out a single cent and enjoy the benefits of sponsorship created by the committee. Better than paying the committee a sum to only get it back (maybe not even 100% benefit) in return as how the committee structures the benefit right?
 
Internet traffic = $$$ !!

..understand it and it will be very powerful in the new economy. Company like Google is spending $$$ on advertisement to gain traffic, with traffic build up, $$$ will come automatically on a silver platter.

A simpler example: Which Radio Station would a business choose to advertise their services? Cheap one or high traffic (listener) one? And Radio Station is not charging their listener a single sen. Why?

Unless the club think they want to be like a prestige golf club membership... then I have nothing to say la.

Even bloggers know how to make money from posting their stories online for visitor to read, free of charge. Am no blogger, just reader.. ;D I go to their website, they get paid.
 
E46Fanatic;285877 said:
Guys, if you have to spend so much effort to coax Black IDs to become Blue IDs, by paying subscription fees, its really going against the grain and like I said not sustainable. Learn from great web 2.0 successes out there, and what other successful communities such as E90post, M3post, bimmer forums, etc has. They never went against the grain, and structured their services to make it a condusive environment to florush. Somehow, sites like E90post is so good that it attracts lots and lots of paying...... sponsors who post regularly, have deals etc which in turn benefits the club and its members. Community leaders built their value/funds from other means and their achievements are to be admired.

If you have come up with the secret formula, which makes the majority of your online user base queue up to subscribe and continue to subscribe annually, you have something which many others will admire and try to follow heh. The fault is really the culture of the Internet. We really spend a lot of time online but not actual $$$ to pay for services provided to us online. Its just so and you have to be rather stubborn not to accept this.

Getting sponsorship for a community like BMW owners to have enough to run the club online/offline is certainly achievable. A tiered membership of a minority paying official members vs. majority non-paying members who are likely to be your most valuable asset, creates more harm than good. Its unlikely that non members want to get involved in "official events", which actually is to your disadvantage. It should be equal treatment for all members, to harness the strength of the resources you have. Successful communities is rarely about lack of $$$ but the lack of member's time to help organize things and keep things running.

It doesn't make sense to collect funds from members to give them back benefit which are derived 100% from their own money anyways.

A working example - the community I am involved in gets tens of thousands in cold cash sponsorship annually (not much but certainly enough) as well as sponsorship in kind (freebies). This does not include advertisement sponsorship as well. In addition the regional affliation which I am also a committee of gets 6 figure USD sponsorship annually meant to help community groups across APAC. The biggest problem is spending all that money.. and lack of members time and effort to help us spend it all. All members do not fork out a single cent and enjoy the benefits of sponsorship created by the committee. Better than paying the committee a sum to only get it back (maybe not even 100% benefit) in return as how the committee structures the benefit right?

Ok lah, let's be open and accept the inputs. E46fanatics input.
"Community leaders built their value/funds from other means and their achievements are to be admired."
"Its just so and you have to be rather stubborn not to accept this."
"Successful communities is rarely about lack of $$$ but the lack of member's time to help organize things and keep things running."

Honestly, I really do not understand and know how to we can make BMWCM free to all. But I do not want to be stubborn and want to be open. Since E46 fanatics seems to have the expertise coz he is already in a committee that gets 6 figure USD sponsorship annually meant to help community groups across APAC. His biggest problem is spending all that money.. and lack of members time and effort to help us spend it all. All of the members in his organization do not fork out a single cent and enjoy the benefits of sponsorship created by the committee.

Therefore, I would like to sponsor rm300 for E46 fanatics to join BMWCM and I want to nominate him to be the BMWCM president this year so that hopefully by next year and the year after, I do not have to pay rm150 to renew my membership coz it will be free.

I am not trying to ridicule him or those other guys who are providing all the long advice, point of views, biz savviness. If we can make it free, why not? Se let's be practical.

Who wants to join my crusade and sponsor others like Astroboy and Lee and nominate them to be committee. We need these guys to make this club a great club. They say we can make it free, so let's make it free. It would be really nice by the end of this year, we would all be able to do TT's, convoys, charity and dinners... for free. Not just any club, BMW club and it is free.

planta
 
XXX;285867 said:
Lee

....coming back to the car detailing clinic, it was very good of you to organise it using the clubs resources, the club let it through bcos it benefited the members as well and we didnt have to organise it,...if the club would have stopped you from organising it do you think it would have come to past?...the club let you use its forum to organise it so I think the club should also get some credit for letting it come to past....so at the end of the day it was not free, it was at the expense of the club.


Good point XXX. I for one prefers to have total transparency where money is concerned. Kindly send me the bill for the expenses of the club that I have used to organize the detailing clinic.

How much did it cost the club for me to organize the clinic? Do you have the numbers?

Here's a suggestion.

The Meguiar's Detailing Workshop thread - 6,162 page views
The Detailing Workshop Photos thread - 1,438 page views
The Meguiar's CNY Offer thread - 747 page views
Total - 8,347 page views

Take the amount it cost to run the forum in total, and allocate the cost to the 3 threads proportionately. You can check the date of the first and last post to see how much airtime the threads have taken up.

Next, take the ad revenue generated by the forum and allocate to the page views proportionately.

If in the end, the cost is more than the revenue generated, send me the bill. If on the other hand, the revenue generated is more than the cost, send me a check. Fair?

While we are at it, how about doing the same calculations for the rest of the thread starters? Charge them money to start a thread, since a thread consumes resources of the forum. When the page view crosses the break-even point and starts generating positive ad revenue, pay the thread starter. Only seems fair.

In fact, in this way, I think you will start to see an improvement in the quality of the content, because the thread starter will be incentivised to see his thread grow.

Oh, wait, the above is relevant to the actual owner of the forum. So, XXX, forget about it. The workshop did not cost the club anything. I will be happy to hear a change in status quo. Still waiting.
 
planta;285918 said:
Therefore, I would like to sponsor rm300 for E46 fanatics to join BMWCM and I want to nominate him to be the BMWCM president this year so that hopefully by next year and the year after, I do not have to pay rm150 to renew my membership coz it will be free.

I am not trying to ridicule him or those other guys who are providing all the long advice, point of views, biz savviness. If we can make it free, why not? Se let's be practical.

Who wants to join my crusade and sponsor others like Astroboy and Lee and nominate them to be committee. We need these guys to make this club a great club. They say we can make it free, so let's make it free. It would be really nice by the end of this year, we would all be able to do TT's, convoys, charity and dinners... for free. Not just any club, BMW club and it is free.

planta

Planta, I sense a good head behind those opinion, and your motivation is pure, but misguided. Seems you do not have all the facts. You may want to check with some old timers.
 
Yes internet traffic is money and even if BMWCM makes tons of money out of it do you think its going to benefit the forumers , definetely not...unless you are a official member of BMWCM are you only going to get that benefits... so you want to be part of the company and benefit from it you also need to buy a share in it first...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom