Ok, now that I'm caught up I understand what is happening...
To put it simply; MacNN was a grass-roots mac loyal news service that gained in popularity because of the loyal forum members like Cipher13 (7000 posts!) and many others...
This popularity allowed MacNN to grow as a real organization, gathering News, getting 'scoops', becoming a real journalism site...
Then,as ALWAYS happens, THE SELLOUT. MacNN founders decide to either take on a partner or sell out, whichever, but they used their 'Capital', ie, the number of readers/forum users, and the cache they built up over the years and used it to move to the next level..
Problem is, this is no longer a grass-roots web site. It's gone corporate. Good or bad, that's the way it is.
Get this clear (I have a Masters), the people of NewsFactor could care less about your wants or desires. Lose some now, gain more later. They will take MacNN further than the Founders could by sheer corporate willpower and it has very little to do with you...
These forums eat up a tremendous amount of bandwith. I would imagine they would be delighted to have the forum traffic decrease by half and then some. Bandwith is expensive. And the return, in a business sense, is little.
Sorry, we lose. MacNN is now corporate America. By acting the way they are against members is exactly what they want. Weed them out. Cut down on the bandwith.
Cipher, calm down. You are no longer their audience. You will not be assimilated. They are not the Borg.
We only have 2 choices. Live by their rule, or leave. What you NEED to decide is how much are the people here worth to you..
Can you ignore the Home Page? Can you live within their TOS? Are your friends here worth it?
I decided that my presence here and my discussions with you guys was more important than my Sig_Tag... so I came back. But this was before the Corporate Raiders...now it's a different ballgame.
Should we play ball by their rules? Probably. Right now, they seem to be the only real alternative. Where would you go? Cipher, your site could never handle the bandwith so don't even think about getting everyone over to Alnora. You'll lose money fast.
This is not a game anymore. It's now all about the money. Eventually, it all becomes about the money...
That's the reality of it. What you do with it is up to you.
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http://www.manzione.com/
MacNETv2 coming July 2001
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