AutoPuzzles for sale?

[Otto Puzzell]

Mr. Emptypockets here. If I had two cents, that would be what I'd call my post.

If done professionally, I'm not sure what's so awful about ads. Virtually every other automotive site I visit that has a forum, also has ads in said forum. It may require some additional scrolling by members, but not much else. The site owner could also include a 'for sale' area, where members could sell cars, books, etc (in place of the unpaid shilling for other websites and books that appear here now(.

Another area ripe for ads is the front page (which hasn't been updated in quite some time). Lots of open real estate there.

Putting a coin slot at the entrance ("pay or go no further") will kill the site, IMO. 

The monetary value of the site is, of course speculative. A potential buyer could look at the monthly traffic, consult with Google AdWords (or a similar service) to determine the likely monthly income.

[Ultra]

Mr. Emptypockets here. If I had two cents, that would be what I'd call my post.

If done professionally, I'm not sure what's so awful about ads. Virtually every other automotive site I visit that has a forum, also has ads in said forum. It may require some additional scrolling by members, but not much else. The site owner could also include a 'for sale' area, where members could sell cars, books, etc (in place of the unpaid shilling for other websites and books that appear here now(.

Another area ripe for ads is the front page (which hasn't been updated in quite some time). Lots of open real estate there.

Putting a coin slot at the entrance ("pay or go no further") will kill the site, IMO. 

The monetary value of the site is, of course speculative. A potential buyer could look at the monthly traffic, consult with Google AdWords (or a similar service) to determine the likely monthly income.

If it sells, you get half.  I told you that on day one. I keep my word

Between yours and my efforts of time and the money I've spent, we've got WAY more into this place than what we could ever hope to receive in recompense.

[Paul Jaray]

Charlie, how much time do we have before you arrange to someone outside?

[Ultra]

Charlie, how much time do we have before you arrange to someone outside?

Francesco, I'm very fond of this place.  If I feel you guys are making concrete strides to getting it done, I'll wait however long it takes.

[Tom_I]

So far we haven't heard from Pal about this. Considering that the Negyesi brothers currently host and run the site, and that it only exists in its current form owing to their recovering it from the server crash of 2014, when it was discovered that the admins of the time had not made any proper backups, if any changes to autopuzzles.com are to be made, it should really be their decision, shouldn't it?

[Ultra]

So far we haven't heard from Pal about this. Considering that the Negyesi brothers currently host and run the site, and that it only exists in its current form owing to their recovering it from the server crash of 2014, when it was discovered that the admins of the time had not made any proper backups, if any changes to autopuzzles.com are to be made, it should really be their decision, shouldn't it?

Still, today, I delete more spammers and unwanted members than any other admin.  I appreciate your thoughts on this matter but I don't appreciate your discounting me as a presence here.

I can, at any time, transfer the hosting to a hosting company and put ads back on the site.  It is mine to do so. 

Pal doesn't think the site has any value.  $1 nominally, I believe.

I've generated income off of this site, $50-$70 U.S. dollars a month with one month just over $100.  When we had ads all of this was discussed in the admin section back then and the current admins can look it all up.  Pal and his brother offered to host it because our spam traffic had risen to the point that hosting costs were about to increase tenfold.

After we moved to Pal and his brothers as hosts, I fixed the spamming traffic issues with some mods I installed to the software.  At current market values, hosting costs now could be comfortably covered by those same ad revenues today as our traffic is no longer off the charts with spamming I.P's pinging us constantly.

I run the SMF still.  Always have.  We are suffering a bug that occurred after a server transfer that prevents us from updating within the software.  As I am unfamiliar with the current style of hosting that the Negyesi's provide us it has been decided that they don't wish to risk any downtime in order to give me the opportunity to address the updates, as I offered to do and have always done in the past.  Both Pal and his brother are fantastic for all they do for this place and there is no question they alleviated a bit of a burden that I carried for 7 or so years unaided.  That said, they provide a fantastic service and have been very valuable to the site, but their impressions of it's value are no more or less valid than anyone else's. 

I have made income off of this site and that I have done so is on the record in the admin sections of this forum.

As Otto says, the traffic numbers are available to every member of the site in the stats section.  The research to ad revenues is available to anyone out there.  We had ads and they weren't a problem, at all, and I personally modified the current software so that ads will just plug right back in with an absolute minimum of effort.

I own the database, in it's entirety.  I own the name, the content and all rights thereof.  One can negotiate in good faith and I've confidence the editors I've been talking with would do just that.  Your negativity as to my offering the site to the editors and members for what I felt was a reasonable number based on the time and effort that has been expended to get the site to this point as well as the potential for income and growth that does exist with the current platform is curious to me as, if the site has no or very little value to you, why are you even here?

If no one is interested and nothing can be worked out with the people who have helped to make the site what it is then I will actively pursue outside interests until I can find an interested party and conclude ownership transfer.

Thanks for your interest, Tom I.  I won't hold your name on the potential buyers list.

[pnegyesi]

As I already said to other editors, without trying to offend anyone, sorting out copyright issues if the site would like to move away from its status as a hobby-only site will be a nightmare. Charlie (Ultra)'s position that he "owns" the database is questionable at best. We have hundreds (if not thousands) of photos used without permission. In this age no one talks about this, but occassionally there are copyright holders who get angry - I witnessed this at a Hungarian non-profit photo archive, where we had to take down about 150 photos due to a copyright claim. And AutoPuzzles - again according to Charlie's own words - is a for-profit site.

We are happy to continue hosting the site, but we are not in a position to do the sys-admin work. Charlie is doing the sys-admin work now. There are differing opinions on how to move ahead with the sys-admin tasks, hence our earlier message.

As for the buy-out of the site, we are not going to participate in any kind of buying scheme. But we are happy to host the site as long as it is required.

[Ultra]

As long as we as a site agree to take images down if a copyright owner requests, we are well within US law using the pics.  Besides, I didn't claim to own every pic, I said I own the database and that's indisputable.

[Otto Puzzell]

If it sells, you get half.  I told you that on day one. I keep my word

Between yours and my efforts of time and the money I've spent, we've got WAY more into this place than what we could ever hope to receive in recompense.

That's very generous. I would gladly reinvest whatever my share might be to the continued health of this community. An endowment, as it were.

[nicanary]

If it sells, you get half.  I told you that on day one. I keep my word

Between yours and my efforts of time and the money I've spent, we've got WAY more into this place than what we could ever hope to receive in recompense.

That's very generous. I would gladly reinvest whatever my share might be to the continued health of this community. An endowment, as it were.

That's a heartwarming offer, fully in the traditions of the site IMO. It would probably cover the costs of a new systems administrator for a few years.

At this point, I think we have to bear in mind the difference between intrinsic value, and emotional value. Personally, I've got mighty fond of this place in the 4 years or so that I've been a member. Life would indeed go on without it, and I'm sure I'd get used to ads after a while if they were the way to go, but I'd MUCH rather things stayed as they were.

I know that things are afoot amongst senior site members, and Ultra has agreed that he isn't in any particular hurry, but let's hope somehting is done soon, before we all "fall out" with each other.

[Tom_I]

Thanks to Charlie and Pal for the clarification, which is what I was looking for (and I imagine some other ordinary members were as well).

No offence was intended, but if you want direct answers, you often have to ask fairly direct questions.

[Ultra]

Thanks to Charlie and Pal for the clarification, which is what I was looking for (and I imagine some other ordinary members were as well).

No offence was intended, but if you want direct answers, you often have to ask fairly direct questions.

None taken, Tom. 

Thx for the clarification. 

[Ultra]

If it sells, you get half.  I told you that on day one. I keep my word

Between yours and my efforts of time and the money I've spent, we've got WAY more into this place than what we could ever hope to receive in recompense.

That's very generous. I would gladly reinvest whatever my share might be to the continued health of this community. An endowment, as it were.

Lots of ways to arrange this if you wanna roll your half over....

I'm wide open to conversations.

[nicanary]

I have just been talking to my daughter and she asked me how things were progressing with the re-arrangement of ownership. I advised her about the offer from Torstar, who I understand are a media and publishing group, and her immediate response is that they're after the domain name. No ifs or buts. A tiny site like ours has no attraction to them - the level of advertising they could inject would simply not be worth their while.

It goes without saying that this would mean the end of the site as we know it. They'd take the name and close it down. (My daughter is very savvy about these things - it's her profession.) Sorry to be a scaremonger, but I reckon her observation is not far from the truth, and we need to come to some sort of conclusion, even if there is no immediate hurry.

[FrontMan]

....so what are our prospects if this fine institution is to survive?  I would gladly make a share purchase of some kind if there was a safeguard against this sort of takeover in the future.  Sadly, I have no personal abilities which could help on the technical or business side, and if I had, I would be living in a bigger house with a bigger garage and possibly a different wife!
Could we hop to another, but related domain name?

[nicanary]

....so what are our prospects if this fine institution is to survive?  I would gladly make a share purchase of some kind if there was a safeguard against this sort of takeover in the future.  Sadly, I have no personal abilities which could help on the technical or business side, and if I had, I would be living in a bigger house with a bigger garage and possibly a different wife!
Could we hop to another, but related domain name?

I wondered about that. It would be good if Ultra could sell the domain name and then the entire database could be transferred and we would all be happy.  I suspect it's not possible - either that, or there would be so much work for Pal and Karoly that it would take them months and months to complete.

I too am a novice when it comes to matters IT. Whatever is resolved, I'll just have to go along with it.

[D-type]

One factor that has to be dialled in is that the number of unidentified cars "out there" reduces with every puzzle solved.  Rather like a gold mine petering out.  I come here largely from force of habit as these days I need to go down three pages of solved puzzles to find a car I've even heard of.  I think it's over a year since I last earned a point. 

Back to the question: "In it's present form, what commercial value can the site have?"  I think nicanary's suggestion that the value lies solely in the domain name is the answer.  The database, although of interest to an enthusiast, really has no market value particularly as there is always the risk of a copyright owner being litigious and winning a lawsuit..

[gilescooperuk]

You could easily buy another similar domain name for a nominal fee.

Get it in writing though that if someone buys the domain name there needs to be a redirect link on whatever page they host for at least 6 months.

By that time all the links on search engines should have been updated...

[nicanary]

There's no need for any panic - matters are in hand, as they say.

[Ultra]

.......

[Carnut]

They are, though it's taking longer than expected...
Answers are  hard to come by; hopefully it's only because we're in the middle of the holiday period rather than some more sinister reasons.

[fyreline]

I'm afraid I have nothing constructive to add to this conversation, other than to express the enjoyment I continually derive from the search to identify the weird and wonderful cars you folks come up with. That has value for me, and I would gladly contribute monetarily to keep things up and running. Please keep us posted on where we are with this issue, and where we are going. What you all do is appreciated.

[Carnut]

Progress on this is going more slowly than expected or we would like.

The situation is that the site will be bought by a consortium which is basically Otto Puzzell, Paul Jaray, Nicanary and Carnut.  I'm pretty sure Djetset wants to be involved too but I've been unable to elicit any response, positive or otherwise.  Pnegyesi does not want to take part and I received no response from Wendax; maybe that's because he didn't receive my PM (I understand there is a problem with some people not getting them).

I haven't included Allemano in any of this as I believe he is not as interested in the site as he used to be..

So it's time to move forward and I will be contacting the individuals involved separately to move it on.

[Paul Jaray]

Thank you for the work you are doing. 
I think it's not the best time of the year to have quick replies...many people are on vacation or just spend more time outdoor.
That's why I asked Charlie if we have some time.

[Ultra]

Sold!!!