Recently, I've invested a ton of time reworking the code that runs the website. In the course of doing that I took a good look at the data that is being stored in the databases. I felt that this would be a good barometer to see where the website stands today, in term of site visitors, when compared to our early days. And as you can probably guess, site visits have fallen off quite a bit from the high point in the mid 2000's.
There could be many reasons for this. One, us dinosaurs are dying off. When I bought my first GS in 1976 I was 19 years old. I'm soon to be 69 years old. And most people that bought them were a bit older. I say all this to state that our visitors are dying off. Unfortunately we can't stop Father Time.
The next thing that comes to mind is the age of our GS's. Again, if I look our bikes, the first GS came out in 1976. That's 50 years ago. That a heck of a long time for any vehicle, never mind a motorcycle. There are less and less around. Thankfully this website and a lot of the fantastic visitors over the years, did their part in keeping them around for as long as they have.
When I total up the contributions for the last couple of months this weekend, this will be another indicator in how well things are going. As you may or may not know, this website runs on the contributions that everyone makes. Once it ceases to be self-funding, then it shuts down. It takes about $115 a month to run it, not including the extras that come with it over the course of the year. So there is a bit of concern there. And advertising is not an option to pick up the slack. We had that in our early days. I hated it then and I really hate it now since everyone today wants to be in your business.
One idea is to open a new forum so people can sell other bikes other than just GS's, in the forum. The reasoning being that most GS's owners may own other bikes that they want to sell. Of course I can see this segueing into a For Sale part for other bikes. We don't do that now but is that a good idea in order to be more tolerant of out old GS or ex-GS owners?
I say this all because it's been on my mind a bit lately. Let me know what you think about all this.
There could be many reasons for this. One, us dinosaurs are dying off. When I bought my first GS in 1976 I was 19 years old. I'm soon to be 69 years old. And most people that bought them were a bit older. I say all this to state that our visitors are dying off. Unfortunately we can't stop Father Time.
The next thing that comes to mind is the age of our GS's. Again, if I look our bikes, the first GS came out in 1976. That's 50 years ago. That a heck of a long time for any vehicle, never mind a motorcycle. There are less and less around. Thankfully this website and a lot of the fantastic visitors over the years, did their part in keeping them around for as long as they have.
When I total up the contributions for the last couple of months this weekend, this will be another indicator in how well things are going. As you may or may not know, this website runs on the contributions that everyone makes. Once it ceases to be self-funding, then it shuts down. It takes about $115 a month to run it, not including the extras that come with it over the course of the year. So there is a bit of concern there. And advertising is not an option to pick up the slack. We had that in our early days. I hated it then and I really hate it now since everyone today wants to be in your business.
One idea is to open a new forum so people can sell other bikes other than just GS's, in the forum. The reasoning being that most GS's owners may own other bikes that they want to sell. Of course I can see this segueing into a For Sale part for other bikes. We don't do that now but is that a good idea in order to be more tolerant of out old GS or ex-GS owners?
I say this all because it's been on my mind a bit lately. Let me know what you think about all this.
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