Our local bicycle forum, mplsbikelove.com, is currently up for sale on ebay. This is the latest in a string of odd moves for the forum and it's keeper.
Excerpt from the ebay posting:
This sale includes ONLY the website domain and contact list. This sale does not include anything related to bikelove.org, intellectual property or design on the website bikelove.org, or any of that. I am selling the forum because I do not feel like it is a safe thing for the community to own it anymore. It is a personal decision, and I hope that the community comes together and does something like forming a non-profit to promote cycling in the Twin Cities and uses the list for good, but I also want to make a good chunk of money off of this sale, so it is open to anyone and everyone, including businesses and individuals. And I do not care what you do with it.
www.mplsbikelove.com connects the best cycling community on the planet.
Personally, I have nothing more that I can do with this website, I do not want to see it end, but I have to step down.
There is no reserve on this auction. If it does not sell, I will list again at a lower price, but I will not continue to run this website past September 30th 2010. If nobody has stepped forward to take over the reigns, then I will close the website.
As much as people like to talk shit on Bikelove and Bikelovers, which has infinitely more to do with the realities of internet message boards than the MPLS cycling community or the websites patrons, the forum has been a major building block in making the cycling community what it is today.
In fact I would say that this forum is the biggest reason why we have such a strong community. A central place for information is absolutely invaluable, and the website functioned as a catalyst for many of the bicycle gatherings and community actions that have taken place. For me personally, launching the All City Championships five years ago would have been impossible without the people whom I met through bikelove and the use of the forum to disseminate information.
It'll also be really interesting to see what happens with the auction as bikelove represents a weird dichotomy, where the community believes it belongs to the people, but the people/person behind it who spends hours upon hours investing themselves in running it feel that it is theirs.
One thing though is for certain: if mplsbikelove.com ceases to exist, the cycling community as a whole will be much poorer.
3 comments:
i empathize with jeremy for wanting a return on the hundreds, if not many thousands of hours he's spent working on mpls bikelove for almost no financial return, but i can't help sensing a bit of greed or anger/frustration coming from him too in his asking price. i'm ignorant to yearly hosting costs, but i doubt they're near the initial bid of $10K. the BIN price could let one retire!
http://mplsbikelove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=231906&f=6#p231906
It is not greedy in any way to ask 10K for the forum, when I did the math, it should be bringing in close to 325K/year according to the number of eyeballs looking at the posts.
I am not selling out of greed, either, but I do want a fair market value. It is 1000s of hours, if it is a second. It is every thought of the last four years, it is what I thought my future was.
My life is for sale, at least, my old life is. My new life is just beginning.
I would hate to see it go. I can't speak to the asking price, as to whether it is fair...or not. But I can say that given the original asking price, I'm concerned that the site will leave us forever...
Here is hoping that if it is not purchased at that price, it will go down from there and someone will pick up the reigns.
E
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