Just a personal opinion on the future of PN

[mikemorrellNL]

Hi just my personal opinion on the future (or not) of PN.

I'd originally included this as a 'P.S.' to a different post but I decided to separate the two. I'm just an ordinary PN member and I have absolutely no 'privileged' information about PN. I have no complaints about PN.

I just want to share my 'imagined' viability of PN (or not). I completely understand the difficulties that our moderators have had in dealing with our past and current 'owners' over many years. Once again,  I truly appreciate and compliment them. Especially for their heroic efforts to keep PN up and running despite the lack of any upgrades/investments and lack of contact with our owners/developers. And - more importantly -for their unrelenting efforts to 'engage our current owners/developers. Which sadly proved unsuccessful.

I've often wondered what the 'business model' of PN is. And what the 'business motivation' is for our past and current owners to subside the running costs of PN. My wholly uneducated guess (based on my suspected average age and experience of PN members, the 'voluntary subscriptions' from current members, the very slow trickle of new members and (therefore) very limited income from 'Ads') is that our current owners probably loses money each year on their investment in PN. In terms of their total investment portfolio, a loss on PN is probably 'peanuts.' In other words very minor assets or liabilities.

A couple of opinions (fantasies):

- My guess is that PN is an extremely small investment/cost in in our owner's portfolio

- My guess is that sooner or later some 'bean counter' will come across PN in the books (however marginal in the portfolio) and ask questions like 'hey, what's this?, What's its current and projected R.O.I?"

- My guess is that the answers would be something like 'don't worry about it, it costs almost nothing and who knows, at some stage we might even manage to leverage some profit'

- So my tip is also to consider PN as a 'business venture' (potentially profitable or not) and not only as a 'temporary playground' where we can all freely indulge our interests in photography;  the bottom line is always: who pays the bills for our 'PN playground' and why?

- TBH, I have no idea what the 'business value' of PN is to our owners. Maybe just the URL and the membership list.

- IMHO 'becoming (marginally) profitable' - in years to come -  is unlikely to happen in PN's current form and with PN's current 'business model'. I in no way intend to criticize our owners, our pro-active mods or our members. I Just want to share my 'imagined' (positive) possible futures for PN

- When our current owners bought PN from its previous owners, I could envisage some kind of 'synergy' with (= integration between)  PN and our current owner's portfolio. As yet (2  years on) no initiatives have been made to do this

A wild idea that has been floating around in my head for years is to possibly negotiate a 'membership buy-out' of PN from its current owner.  And to develop a new - paid membership based - business model. I've backtracked on this idea. Partly because of my suspected average membership age - including myself - and consequent motivation of members to embark on such a risky adventure. But mainly - despite many valiant attempts -the refusal of owner representatives to engage with with our mods.

@mods: please correct and edit as necessary!

 

[Sanford]

Maybe that's not a rush of spam we are seeing lately...maybe they sold some advertising space.

[Sandy Vongries]

3 minutes ago, Sanford said:

Maybe that's not a rush of spam we are seeing lately...maybe they sold some advertising space.

I kind of doubt it is paid advertising.  With the large quantity I knock down nearly every day, I'd certainly be hearing from someone.  A lot of it is phishing so it is in your best interest not to click on it.

[Sanford]

5 minutes ago, Sandy Vongries said:

I kind of doubt it is paid advertising.  With the large quantity I knock down nearly every day, I'd certainly be hearing from someone.  A lot of it is phishing so it is in your best interest not to click on it.

Thanks for staying on top of it.

[John Peri]

20 hours ago, mikemorrellNL said:

I completely understand the difficulties that our moderators have had in dealing with our past and current 'owners' over many years. Once again,  I truly appreciate and compliment them. Especially for their heroic efforts to keep PN up and running

I second that wholeheartedly.

For a great many years now, can it really be as much as ten, we have been discussing the possible demise of PN. Yet, thankfully, it is still around and will remain so for a very long time to come.  It still retains some superb qualities, among which for me is the ability to scroll through an entire portfolio which is particularly useful to those I refer it to. Apart from the periodic invasion of spam, it is actually functioning quite well now (thanks to the administrators), is it not? 

[Sanford]

8 minutes ago, John Peri said:

the ability to scroll through an entire portfolio

How do you isolate just your photos?

[John Peri]

  

1 hour ago, Sanford said:

How do you isolate just your photos?

with the URL ....

https://www.photo.net/profile/140041-john-peri/content/?type=gallery_image 

[hjoseph7]

Pentax Forums seems to be doing fine with their website, so they must be doing something right ...