TVR help forums
Discussion
I'm getting a little worried about the potential loss of these forum pages and the history therein once CarGurus take ownership of PistonHeads. I suspect they will be using this platform as direct competition with AutoTrader and our interests will be of little concern to them. Do you guys use other online resources to support TVR specific maintenance and problem solving issues
bobfather said:
I'm getting a little worried about the potential loss of these forum pages and the history therein once CarGurus take ownership of PistonHeads. I suspect they will be using this platform as direct competition with AutoTrader and our interests will be of little concern to them. Do you guys use other online resources to support TVR specific maintenance and problem solving issues
I must live in the sticks, I haven't heard about this!phazed said:
I must live in the sticks, I haven't heard about this!
Looks like PH will no longer be a car enthusiasts forum, its focus will be to compete directly with AutoTrader in a bid to grab the UK second hand car market. That doesn't sound like they are worried about our user interestsSee here
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
The way I see it, there is little value in the site to them without the community since it's the advertising that brings in the revenue. So I think they're unlikely to destroy it in the deliberate sense. The only question is whether people like or dislike changes that get made, and hence whether traffic is lost as a result over time.
I don't think there's any reason to worry over it. Now is the time to post on that other thread stating what you don't want to lose if you are concerned.
I don't think there's any reason to worry over it. Now is the time to post on that other thread stating what you don't want to lose if you are concerned.
It's an American company, they are sure to be concerned about liability regarding uncensored content. Open content forums are not popular when piggybacking onto major American companies. I think at a minimum it'll be heavily moderated possibly with delayed content checks so nothing is posted until it is approved
The back catalogue information held on the PH TVR forum is an invaluable resource of knowledge and photographic records, to lose it would be a great loss to the TVR community. Saying that and being pragmatic, it doesn't really hold much commercial value for the new owners and has zero links to it's business model which as the OP points out raises concerns for its future.
If you're into 50's, 60's 70's. 80's and 90's Porsches and need information on maintaining, repairing and modifying these cars you go to the Pelican Parts forum which functions exactly as the Piston Heads forum does for us TVR owners, the business model for the Pelican Parts forum is simple, its all about Pelican Parts selling parts to forum contributors.
Following the same business model, if I was running TVR Parts Ltd or Racetech Direct I'd be approaching the new owners of Piston Heads and making them an offer to take over the PH TVR forum including control of the back catalogue. The PH TVR forum is a powerful sales tool in the TVR parts market place and would give a TVR parts seller control over a platform used or at least viewed by the majority of their customer base.
As we know in business these days 'data is the new oil', if you look at the trend towards using Face Book to discuss our cars and take a few moments to think about what really lives behind these free Special Interest Groups it's quite clear the FB business model is all about selling advertising space to businesses seeking direct access to their target market.
In joining a Face Book Special Interest Group you are giving up your data for free, data which has value, Face Book then take your very generous gift of free personal data and sell it, effectively in exchange for accessing a Special Interest Group you are paying Face Book with your very valuable personal data...... so it's hardly free now is it
Face Book's business model of tricking people into giving up their very valuable personal data in exchange for using their platform is a very clever one, people still dont realise the value their personal data has so stupidly they just keep giving it away to Face Book for free. Face Book are laughing their cock off, what other business model allows a company to legally take something of high value from almost everyone in developed world for free, then re-sell it at an enormous profit?
If TVR Parts Ltd or Racetech Direct struck a deal to take on the PH TVR forum I wouldn't mind better it'll work out a lot cheaper in the long run than paying Face Book for advertising space or access to their TVR owner database, if I was running TVR Parts Ltd or Racetech Direct I'd definitely be interested in buying the PH TVR forum and back catalogue because as we all know.....
'Data is the new oil'...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/
If you're into 50's, 60's 70's. 80's and 90's Porsches and need information on maintaining, repairing and modifying these cars you go to the Pelican Parts forum which functions exactly as the Piston Heads forum does for us TVR owners, the business model for the Pelican Parts forum is simple, its all about Pelican Parts selling parts to forum contributors.
Following the same business model, if I was running TVR Parts Ltd or Racetech Direct I'd be approaching the new owners of Piston Heads and making them an offer to take over the PH TVR forum including control of the back catalogue. The PH TVR forum is a powerful sales tool in the TVR parts market place and would give a TVR parts seller control over a platform used or at least viewed by the majority of their customer base.
As we know in business these days 'data is the new oil', if you look at the trend towards using Face Book to discuss our cars and take a few moments to think about what really lives behind these free Special Interest Groups it's quite clear the FB business model is all about selling advertising space to businesses seeking direct access to their target market.
In joining a Face Book Special Interest Group you are giving up your data for free, data which has value, Face Book then take your very generous gift of free personal data and sell it, effectively in exchange for accessing a Special Interest Group you are paying Face Book with your very valuable personal data...... so it's hardly free now is it
Face Book's business model of tricking people into giving up their very valuable personal data in exchange for using their platform is a very clever one, people still dont realise the value their personal data has so stupidly they just keep giving it away to Face Book for free. Face Book are laughing their cock off, what other business model allows a company to legally take something of high value from almost everyone in developed world for free, then re-sell it at an enormous profit?
If TVR Parts Ltd or Racetech Direct struck a deal to take on the PH TVR forum I wouldn't mind better it'll work out a lot cheaper in the long run than paying Face Book for advertising space or access to their TVR owner database, if I was running TVR Parts Ltd or Racetech Direct I'd definitely be interested in buying the PH TVR forum and back catalogue because as we all know.....
'Data is the new oil'...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/
Good points COG, we need someone with a 'friendly' relationship with one of these TVR parts suppliers to make the necessary suggestion. I for one would willingly pay an annual subscription to a new host if that helps to encourage this. No reason for CG to loose the historic data that they are planning to purchase, we simply need a copy, that would allow CG to play the forums game in what ever model they intend
Reality check time
No automotive business is going to pay a cent for what's contained in any PH Forum, there is no way that a business will have its name associated with much of the content here, there is a vast ammount of good and bad information here and it's a massive task to split the good from the bad
It should also be noted that these forums aren't moderated by TVR automotive engineers hence it's a within reason free for all here, being a free for all forum is of much benefit to all those interested in posting here but of no interest to a business
Someone somewhere will need to get a TVR forum up and running should the PH forums be closed down
Wishful thinking never solved anything
No automotive business is going to pay a cent for what's contained in any PH Forum, there is no way that a business will have its name associated with much of the content here, there is a vast ammount of good and bad information here and it's a massive task to split the good from the bad
It should also be noted that these forums aren't moderated by TVR automotive engineers hence it's a within reason free for all here, being a free for all forum is of much benefit to all those interested in posting here but of no interest to a business
Someone somewhere will need to get a TVR forum up and running should the PH forums be closed down
Wishful thinking never solved anything
Penelope Stopit said:
No automotive business is going to pay a cent for what's contained in any PH Forum,
I'm confused, aren't CarGurus an automotive business? IMHO CG are doing this to gain access to a UKcentric automotive community. Likewise a TVR parts supplier would see significant benefit in bringing the TVR owning community to its doorstep bobfather said:
Penelope Stopit said:
No automotive business is going to pay a cent for what's contained in any PH Forum,
I'm confused, aren't CarGurus an automotive business? IMHO CG are doing this to gain access to a UKcentric automotive community. Likewise a TVR parts supplier would see significant benefit in bringing the TVR owning community to its doorstep Penelope Stopit said:
I'll rephrase that....No automotive parts supplier is going to pay a cent for what's contained in any PH Forum
In your opinion, you post this as a factI hope from the bottom of my heart that you are wrong but I think you may be right. Not for the reason you suggest but because CG are unlikely to entertain such a proposal.
bobfather said:
Penelope Stopit said:
I'll rephrase that....No automotive parts supplier is going to pay a cent for what's contained in any PH Forum
In your opinion, you post this as a factI hope from the bottom of my heart that you are wrong but I think you may be right. Not for the reason you suggest but because CG are unlikely to entertain such a proposal.
I would have thought that if any TVR parts suppliers were interested in running a forum they would do so without needing any information from PH
- **Do you use a desktop PC****?
bobfather said:
Good points COG, we need someone with a 'friendly' relationship with one of these TVR parts suppliers to make the necessary suggestion.
No need mate, they already read these pages and take ideas from PH TVR contributors only to peddle them as their own.bobfather said:
I for one would willingly pay an annual subscription to a new host if that helps to encourage this.
I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure you've understood yet what the forum business model is.Contributors should never consider paying for a platform they helped to build themselves just so they can be sold to by the owner of that platform, the owner of the forum is already enjoying subscribers giving away their contributions and personal data for free, the contributors are actually building the product, and without these freely given contributions the forum wouldn't even exist!
So why would contributors build the product themselves then pay for it too? And only to find themselves being sold to by the owner who's charging you for the privilege
Face Book 'on the face of it' is free as is PH, but for the above reasons if people take a moment to think about the model no one in their right mind would pay to access a forum, that's exactly why forums are free. If Racetech or TVR Parts Ltd bought it they absolutely would need to make it free, people are slowly becoming more savvy about what really lives behind forums and Face Book and are finally starting to realise the value in their personal data and their contributions.
Businesses that last are those that offer a fair deal, fair for the customer and fair for the business too, if people start feeling cheated they will stop using the business and it's product so now people are starting to understand what they are giving away in forum contributions and personal data when they use a forum you'd never persuade someone to pay for it too
If Racetech or TVR Parts Ltd bought the PH TVR forum platform and it's back catalogue they would absolutely need to give it away for free just as I and others have freely given away thousands of hours of our lives contributing to this forum to help make it worth what it is today when it gets sold.
We've all helped build the product that now has value, so it's completely illogical to expect any of us to pay to use the very product we ourselves created.... especially when it is only ever going to be used by the new owner to sell us parts and services he will profit from
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