| |
Hi, everybody.
With all that’s been going on, a lot of people have been asking me things like:
“what should I do?”
“Should I stay on Brickshelf or move to MOCpages?”
“How do I know if any of these services are safe?”
Let me start by saying that Kevin did an amazing job offering Brickshelf to all
of us for free, and it’s always been a valuable core to the fan communities. I
have hundreds of pictures there, myself. And I know from my own experience
running MOCpages that what he’s done has not been easy.
This is my plan, and what I intend to do for the good of all you guys.
MOCpages is, and always has been, a place to share your LEGO creations.
Pictures are a very important part of sharing a LEGO creation, but what’s even
better that just browsing files is being about to read about creations, to hear
what people think, to get ideas, and to learn and grow from each other. And
I’ve always believed very strongly in that. That’s why I started MOCpages, and
I firmly believe that’s why you guys all use it.
The changes I’ve made to MOCpages this week are here to stay. In fact, I will
continue to expand MOCpages’ services so that it can continue to grow with the
community and be a strong and solid core for fans everywhere, for years to come.
This is something that I’ve always wanted to do, but only recently has it become
obvious to me that it’s really needed.
“Who is Sean? Can I trust this guy?”
For those of you that don’t know me, I’ve been heavily involved in the community
for a long time. I’ve been collaborating on LUGNET and RTL for over 10 years. I
helped launch LEGO Factory with The LEGO Company back in 2003. I build town,
sculpture, and micro, although few know I have a huge ‘80s space collection. :)
Together with folks like Robin Sather, I helped create the LEGO Ambassadors
program. (I designed that logo!) :) I have good working professional
relationships with many, many LEGO Company employees, and speak with them daily.
And I’m one of the world’s five LEGO Certified Professionals; my full-time,
self-employed, day-job is creating LEGO sculptures and running MOCpages. Before
I became a full-time “LEGO guy” I worked for 10 years designing humane,
approachable, and purposeful solutions for web applications.
Money?
As a business owner, I know that the only way to keep any service alive is to
run it with a solid financial plan. For years now, MOCpages has been paying its
own bills, covering the cost of servers, upgrades, moderation, and maintinence.
But as the site grows, these will expenses grow, and I will be rolling out three
additional revenue streams: 1) membership, 2) sponsorship, and 3) affilliations.
The purpose of diversified income is so that there is no failure point; if one
pulls in less money for some reason, the others can cover it. I’ll have more
details on the specifics of these later, because right now I’m still putting the
business plan togther.
Because “paid memberships” have been a sticking point here in the forums lately,
I want to address it specifically. I’ve been analyzing how people use sites
like MOCpages and Brickshelf, and how they share their creations. The continued
free MOCpages service will be designed so that most of you can still use (and be
very happy with) the service not having to pay anything. Those who want to flex
their virutal muscles can sign up for a paid membership, of which there will be
two levels. (Basic and Premium, for example.) The two paid levels will get you
all sorts of really cool features in addition to just more storage or other
“basic nessecities”. I’m excited about them, frankly, and I’ll share more when
development of these cool new features is underway and price points are
available. I want to stress again that MOCpages will stay fundamentally free,
much as it is today.
AFOLs rock
But it all comes back to you guys. MOCpages is only a success because of the of
people use it. Last month, over 1.2 million people came to see your creations.
And 85% of the regulars show up every day. It fills me with joy to hear things
like DecoJim’s story, who found a club
and made friends, all because of MOCpages. (And he’s one of my favorite
builders, to boot!)
So to answer those questions, “what should I do?” ... I’d personally love to see
you guys come to MOCpages. It’s up to you, of course, but we’re going to have a
great time there and it’s only going to get better.
Sean
- - -
MOCpages admin
www.mocpages.com
|
|
Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: MOCpages? Brickshelf? What should I do?
|
| (...) Hi Sean, and thank you for MOCPages. (...) Basically, I trust people. I trust people from the start. But who runs MOCPages? You and you alone? Not a team? Without the ldraw.org team, Ldraw would have died with Jesse. And that's basically the (...) (17 years ago, 26-Jul-07, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
| | | Re: MOCpages? Brickshelf? What should I do?
|
| You have said that old postings on MOCpages that use Brickshelf for image hosting will automatically have the images copied to MOCpages and the pages updated to use your hosting. Two questions about this: 1. Is this still true, now that Kevin has (...) (17 years ago, 29-Jul-07, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
|
Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: MOCpages, now a Brickshelf alternative
|
| (...) First of all, thank you for providing mocpages. When I posted my Fisher Building MOC on your site, a person from MichLUG left a review and that is how I found out about that club of which I am now a member. I would support your idea of a two (...) (17 years ago, 18-Jul-07, to lugnet.publish, FTX)
|
41 Messages in This Thread:
 
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
This Message and its Replies on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
