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WebRing, Inc. welcome message
From: |
contrib |
Subject: |
WebRing, Inc. welcome message |
Date: |
Fri, 7 Dec 2001 08:11:53 -0800 |
Hello,
Those of us at WebRing would like to take this opportunity to say hello and
welcome you "back" to WebRing. We say "back" because it has been a long
strange journey indeed since Starseed first took over operation of WebRing
several years ago.
We won't take your time here to describe many of the things that have been, and
will be, happening with WebRing. We encourage you to read the current status
page, and check it periodically, at http://dir.webring.com/h/status20011203
We will *not* make a practice of sending you unsolicited emails. It is not our
intention to spam our users. In the event of extraordinary developments we do
feel it is prudent to contact you directly. The final separation from Yahoo!
is important enough to warrant this.
Let us summarize where we are and where we hope WebRing can be in the near
future.
WebRing is once again independent of all parent organizations and is returning
to the style of organization it used to be: A community site largely devoted
to assisting it's members, RingMasters, Site owners, and surfers, in enhancing
*their* Internet experience. For many this is a hobby, for others part of
their business. Whatever the reason you choose to participate in WebRing in
particular we hope that we can continue to improve your experience.
In the near term our focus is, and has been, to facilitate the migration from
Yahoo! to WebRing. This has *not* been an easy process. We knew it would not
be due to restrictions required by Yahoo!, mainly imposed to protect the
privacy and rights of individual users. In this we agree completely with
Yahoo! Your privacy and rights are important to us as well. Nevertheless, we
have been inspired by the response from you. See the bottom for some
additional information on getting members to migrate.
In coming months we will begin initiatives in two main areas:
We will be implementing features that users have been asking for for some time.
Some are old features you want to see restored, while some are new ideas we've
gathered from support emails and other forums.
We will also be introducing features that we have been thinking about for years
now but have never been allowed to develop. We think these will greatly
enhance you ability to promote your web site(s) and increase your traffic. If
you are doing this as a hobby then you should be able to interact with more
people interested in the same topics. If you are a commercial user then you
shuld be able to expose your product or service to a larger, yet still focused,
audience.
We would like to stress that WebRing is a community and we are doing our best
to keep it that way. We feel that the best way to grow and support the
community is to work with you, the community, to ensure that your needs and
wishes are the topmost priority.
In order to meet this objective we are asking, humbly, for your assistance and
participation. Basic system costs are not small: Buying and operating many
servers and paying for bandwidth is a monthly expense. We're putting our
effort and great deal of time into WebRing. A small contribution from each
member can give us the resources we need in order to improve support and allow
us to improve the service we provide to you. Here are some of the ways in
which your contribution would be used:
- First, we'll give you back in promotion credit what you contribute to us: We
will credit your account with any contributions and allow you to use that
credit to promote your Ring, Site or whatever else you would like to promote
throughout the WebRing site. Many of you run commercial sites and already pay
to support/host your site. Directly promoting your site and/or business on
WebRing's pages is one way to improve the traffic to your Site or Ring. Giving
small sites, with limited budgets, an opportunity to advertise on a large site
like WebRing is something most large sites won't consider, and can't accomodate.
We believe your promotions will have much greater appeal, at a lower cost, than
the mass market banners, popups, popunders, etc. that are used by mainstream
advertisers. We'd like to see those mostly eliminated from WebRing, used
sparingly to help keep costs down.
- Develop tools to allow you to directly benefit from any advertising revenues
your Ring's pages produce. We'll give you the ability to run promotions of
your own, at a discounted rate to other advertisers, on your WebRing pages,
directory and search pages, allowing you to keep any proceeds exceeding system
costs. In the meantime, if you have a client who would like to sponsor or
advertise on your Ring let us know. We'll help you out.
- Allow you to "un-advertise". Many people would rather not be bothered with
ads at all, and have no need or wish to promote their Sites/Rings further.
We'll allow you to block either ads on your Ring's Hub page, or on any page you
visit while logged in to WebRing. You, in essence, can have an ad-free service
without the hassle of operating your own.
- Promote WebRing on other parts of the Internet. By pooling resources we can
promote WebRing elsewhere and increase traffic accordingly. We have already
secured a sizeable promotional campaign which will begin shortly after the
migration period ends.
- Continue enhancing the system. Obviously, a better system is in everyone's
interest, and will keep WebRing growing and bringing more content and traffic
to you and other users. All of the projects outlined above will be aided by
support from the community; you.
- Pay for existing hardware and bandwidth, and add new as needed. We have
already spent more that $60,000 to ensure that we have adequate hardware and
bandwidth to cover the first year of operation. If WebRing grows as we believe
it can, eventually we'll need more to continue.
- Continue to provide timely, personal support. We have strived to respond to
each and every request for assistance since the migration period started.
Every one of the people involved is unpaid and works at another job to support
themselves. We think it would be in your best interest to have some paid help
to ensure that you get the best, personal, care possible.
If you value WebRing as we do, and as many others who have already contributed
do, and feel you can benefit from an even better system, then we ask for your
assistance. If this does not appeal to you then you should ignore this
request. We'll still offer the best service and support whether you contribute
or not. That, to us, is what community means. The amount you contribute is up
to you, think of it terms of a magazine subscription perhaps. You can use
PayPal by following this link:
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=webringinc%40yahoo.com&item_number=gnustep&item_name=WebRing+support&no_shipping=1&return=http%3A//dir.webring.com/h/thanks&cancel_return=http%3A//dir.webring.com/rw
Best wishes,
The WebRing Team
PS - Special section on migration. While *many* members have migrated, a
significant number have not. Some choose not to, while others simply haven't
bothered to OR have invalid email addresses and so have not heard.
If you belong to a Ring that has not migrated yet then the listed RingMaster on
WebRing will be 'webring'. You are encouraged to contact the RingMaster and
ask them to migrate their Ring(s). You can do this using the Contact
RingMaster link on the Ring's hub page on the Yahoo! side.
If you are a RingMaster and would like to encourage your members to migrate
then you should consider these two options: First, you probably can email your
members from the Yahoo side by going to the hub page of your Ring via
http://edit.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=<your ring id>
In addition, if you have members that do not migrate before the Yahoo service
shuts down they will still be able "migrate" after the fact as long as their
Site is still in your Ring. Once they create a user id they can either contact
you (if you set your profile contact to allow it), or using a post-migration
screen we will make available in January. It is better to migrate now, of
course, since they may belong to more than one Ring and migrating from Yahoo!
transfers all data in one operation.
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