Site & Forums Acquired by Internet Brands
10-04-2010, 11:32 AM
#1
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I am so proud of how much this site and forums have grown since their beginning in 2003. I am so incredibly appreciative of the people I've met and experiences that I've had as a result.
However, in the past year or so there have been numerous changes in my life. As many of you know, I recently got married, bought a house, and will soon be starting a family when the time is right. I realized that I haven't been able to devote the appropriate amount of time and attention in updating the site, especially since the release of the F10 model. The site and forums require full time attention and resources and I simply do not want to see the site decline in the future due to my lack of time in updating and maintaining the site.
This brings me to the announcement. Today I am pleased to announce that 5series.net has been acquired by Internet Brands
Effective immediately, Internet Brands will take over the servers, forums, advertising and all related matters. I will help transition the site over to Internet Brands and following the transition I will continue to remain active as the Site Founder along with Dave (das). Our two moderators, Rudy and Iceman, are very understanding of the situation and will remain on board as our moderators. I sincerely thank you guys!
So what does this mean for you?
You will get faster e-mail and admin PM responses, the site will get quicker, and the forum will slowly get some really exciting new features. Internet Brands has all of that knowledge and expertise, which comes from their experience of running over 90 different automotive forums. Another main reason I decided to hand over the reigns to Internet Brands, is the fact that each of their forums is nothing like the next. They have made a very strong commitment to maintaining the integrity & identity of the communities they acquire. Internet Brands uses the same Google AdSense advertising program as we do so we shouldn?t see much change in that regard. I want to stress that there will be no major changes.
Internet Brands have a great deal of experience working with teams of site moderators, and they recognize that these moderators are an essential ingredient of a healthy community. As such, you shouldn?t expect major staff changes moving forward. It will still be the same team of moderators that you?re used to. IB does have full time community mangers that ensure things are going well. Please feel free to approach them directly if you have issues to discuss. I know we have recently talked about adding more moderators to the team to deal with the growing site. At this point, it will be up to IB to make the final decision however they do rely on the current admins and moderating team for input and prefer to pick members from within the community. We have made some recommendations to them and will continue to help them with our recommendations on how things should run to maintain the friendly forum environment we?ve established into the future.
I really feel that this change will help to keep 5series.net the premier 5 Series BMW community now and especially into the future with the release of the F10! I hope that you share the same feeling and offer a warm welcome to our new owners.
I want to thank each and every one of you for the memories and friendships I?ve gained through this site over the past many years. Please feel free to shoot me a PM or e-mail if you have any questions. I will always be available moving forward to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you,
Mark aka. Lomag
However, in the past year or so there have been numerous changes in my life. As many of you know, I recently got married, bought a house, and will soon be starting a family when the time is right. I realized that I haven't been able to devote the appropriate amount of time and attention in updating the site, especially since the release of the F10 model. The site and forums require full time attention and resources and I simply do not want to see the site decline in the future due to my lack of time in updating and maintaining the site.
This brings me to the announcement. Today I am pleased to announce that 5series.net has been acquired by Internet Brands
Effective immediately, Internet Brands will take over the servers, forums, advertising and all related matters. I will help transition the site over to Internet Brands and following the transition I will continue to remain active as the Site Founder along with Dave (das). Our two moderators, Rudy and Iceman, are very understanding of the situation and will remain on board as our moderators. I sincerely thank you guys!
So what does this mean for you?
You will get faster e-mail and admin PM responses, the site will get quicker, and the forum will slowly get some really exciting new features. Internet Brands has all of that knowledge and expertise, which comes from their experience of running over 90 different automotive forums. Another main reason I decided to hand over the reigns to Internet Brands, is the fact that each of their forums is nothing like the next. They have made a very strong commitment to maintaining the integrity & identity of the communities they acquire. Internet Brands uses the same Google AdSense advertising program as we do so we shouldn?t see much change in that regard. I want to stress that there will be no major changes.
Internet Brands have a great deal of experience working with teams of site moderators, and they recognize that these moderators are an essential ingredient of a healthy community. As such, you shouldn?t expect major staff changes moving forward. It will still be the same team of moderators that you?re used to. IB does have full time community mangers that ensure things are going well. Please feel free to approach them directly if you have issues to discuss. I know we have recently talked about adding more moderators to the team to deal with the growing site. At this point, it will be up to IB to make the final decision however they do rely on the current admins and moderating team for input and prefer to pick members from within the community. We have made some recommendations to them and will continue to help them with our recommendations on how things should run to maintain the friendly forum environment we?ve established into the future.
I really feel that this change will help to keep 5series.net the premier 5 Series BMW community now and especially into the future with the release of the F10! I hope that you share the same feeling and offer a warm welcome to our new owners.
I want to thank each and every one of you for the memories and friendships I?ve gained through this site over the past many years. Please feel free to shoot me a PM or e-mail if you have any questions. I will always be available moving forward to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you,
Mark aka. Lomag
10-04-2010, 11:40 AM
#2
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Hello, all!
I am so pleased that these forums have grown to become the vibrant community they are today. What started off as a labor of love in summer of 2003 to give folks interested in the yet-to-be-released E60 a place to talk and share has become a diverse community of BMW enthusiasts over 40,000 strong!
Mark and I, and your faithful moderators Rudy and André (Iceman), hope that this forum continues to be the absolute best BMW 5 Series resource on the internet, and more. For those interested in the history, see Rudy's post, Who started this forum?
What a long way it has come! I hope you all continue to share in the great community that is growing here every day. Please welcome Robb M. and Bob (speedlimit) to the forums, two new admins from the new owners. All of us have been talking a lot over the last few days, and the site will have an even brighter future going forward.
Thanks and best regards,
Dave
I am so pleased that these forums have grown to become the vibrant community they are today. What started off as a labor of love in summer of 2003 to give folks interested in the yet-to-be-released E60 a place to talk and share has become a diverse community of BMW enthusiasts over 40,000 strong!
Mark and I, and your faithful moderators Rudy and André (Iceman), hope that this forum continues to be the absolute best BMW 5 Series resource on the internet, and more. For those interested in the history, see Rudy's post, Who started this forum?
What a long way it has come! I hope you all continue to share in the great community that is growing here every day. Please welcome Robb M. and Bob (speedlimit) to the forums, two new admins from the new owners. All of us have been talking a lot over the last few days, and the site will have an even brighter future going forward.
Thanks and best regards,
Dave
10-04-2010, 11:44 AM
#3
Hey everyone!
Mark, thanks for all of the work which you?ve done to help in this transition. We look forward to you sticking around here for a long time to come in your new, responsibility free role.
Dave & Mark, thanks for creating such a wonderful place for 5series fans to hang out, and meet other like minded people!
You guys might want to know a bit more about me, so here goes.
I?m robb, aka ?astro? from AcuraZine. I helped start that site with a friend (soopa) way back in late 1999. We started a site (acura-cl.com) about a car that wasn?t even on the market yet. The 2001 Acura CL Type-S. Together we built that original site up, into what it is today, the largest Acura Resource on the internet. We sold the site to Internet Brands in late 2006/early 2007. Soopa transitioned away from the site, for many of the same reasons that Mark has listed above.I stuck around, and have been slowly increasing my role with Internet Brands since then. Going from 1, to 2, to 10, to the 60 something sites I help to oversee now.
I will be 5series.net?s direct link into all things Internet Brands. Whether it?s features you?d like added to the site, problems with site speed, or functionality, or suggestions to help make the site even better. If it?s something that the mods can?t do, chances are I might have a way.
Bob(speedlimit) will be here on the site, mostly in a listening role, but you can count on him being here, and available regularly. I will let him introduce himself further himself
You all probably have some questions about things like the servers, will they ever get faster? You probably also wonder what about the moderators who have helped to build and shape the site into what it is today.
I can assure you that none of us, have any intent of changing the make-up of the site. This means no staff changes on our behalf, if at all possible. Iceman, Rudy, das & lomag are all sticking around!
In terms of the servers and site speed, we intend to have 5series.net up and running on our own servers by the end of next week.
I am feeling long winded, but I definitely invite you to participate in this discussion, let us know your thoughts, ask us any questions you have that Mark, Dave, Rudy, Iceman or myself may not have answered yet, we?ll do our best to answer.
Anyway, I really look forward to learning a lot more about your vibrant community!
cheers,
robb
Mark, thanks for all of the work which you?ve done to help in this transition. We look forward to you sticking around here for a long time to come in your new, responsibility free role.
Dave & Mark, thanks for creating such a wonderful place for 5series fans to hang out, and meet other like minded people!
You guys might want to know a bit more about me, so here goes.
I?m robb, aka ?astro? from AcuraZine. I helped start that site with a friend (soopa) way back in late 1999. We started a site (acura-cl.com) about a car that wasn?t even on the market yet. The 2001 Acura CL Type-S. Together we built that original site up, into what it is today, the largest Acura Resource on the internet. We sold the site to Internet Brands in late 2006/early 2007. Soopa transitioned away from the site, for many of the same reasons that Mark has listed above.I stuck around, and have been slowly increasing my role with Internet Brands since then. Going from 1, to 2, to 10, to the 60 something sites I help to oversee now.
I will be 5series.net?s direct link into all things Internet Brands. Whether it?s features you?d like added to the site, problems with site speed, or functionality, or suggestions to help make the site even better. If it?s something that the mods can?t do, chances are I might have a way.
Bob(speedlimit) will be here on the site, mostly in a listening role, but you can count on him being here, and available regularly. I will let him introduce himself further himself
You all probably have some questions about things like the servers, will they ever get faster? You probably also wonder what about the moderators who have helped to build and shape the site into what it is today.
I can assure you that none of us, have any intent of changing the make-up of the site. This means no staff changes on our behalf, if at all possible. Iceman, Rudy, das & lomag are all sticking around!
In terms of the servers and site speed, we intend to have 5series.net up and running on our own servers by the end of next week.
I am feeling long winded, but I definitely invite you to participate in this discussion, let us know your thoughts, ask us any questions you have that Mark, Dave, Rudy, Iceman or myself may not have answered yet, we?ll do our best to answer.
Anyway, I really look forward to learning a lot more about your vibrant community!
cheers,
robb
10-04-2010, 11:45 AM
#4
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And a warm welcome to our new owners IB, represented on our forum by Robb M. and Bob (speedlimit).
Welcome aboard guys!
You surely have bought the right forum, as this is the best BMW forum on the web!
Welcome aboard guys!
You surely have bought the right forum, as this is the best BMW forum on the web!
10-04-2010, 11:49 AM
#5
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to the new staff.. 
10-04-2010, 11:50 AM
#6
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Welcome Internet Brands to 5Series.net! Out of all the automotive related sites IB offers, it's an honor to be the first BMW related one on the list!
I'm confident that all of this will be a win-win situation for everyone -- with the resources now available to us from IB, we're hoping that we'll now be able to take the site the the next level!!
As the others have said above, the intention is not to make any major changes to the way things are done around here so, with that, I guess I'll say, "See you around the forums!"
I'm confident that all of this will be a win-win situation for everyone -- with the resources now available to us from IB, we're hoping that we'll now be able to take the site the the next level!!
As the others have said above, the intention is not to make any major changes to the way things are done around here so, with that, I guess I'll say, "See you around the forums!"
10-04-2010, 12:00 PM
#7
Admin Emeritus
Hi everyone! I want to thank the 5 Series team for the warm welcome! My role will primarily be to interface with the moderating staff to help when asked. I encourage you to continue to use the moderators as your point of contact for forum issues. We have a lot to learn and they are the 'experts' on your community. Thanks and have fun!
Bob..
Bob..
10-04-2010, 12:04 PM
#8
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Interesting change. Welcome IB and the new moderators to the forum. I think the first order of business is to take out the trash by banning some forum idiots like C's Bimmer. 
Inside joke. He's just a mentally retarded, sexually confused guy that we let hang around here for amusement. HAHAHHAHHAHA
Kidding aside, one question I have is if there would be any changes to how vendors do business under IB? Up to this point, there hasn't been any required vendor fees and most people, individuals as well as vendors, simply contribute money to help with the upkeep of the forum. Will that change?
Thanks,
Tony
Inside joke. He's just a mentally retarded, sexually confused guy that we let hang around here for amusement. HAHAHHAHHAHA Kidding aside, one question I have is if there would be any changes to how vendors do business under IB? Up to this point, there hasn't been any required vendor fees and most people, individuals as well as vendors, simply contribute money to help with the upkeep of the forum. Will that change?
Thanks,
Tony
10-04-2010, 12:15 PM
#10
one question I have is if there would be any changes to how vendors do business under IB? Up to this point, there hasn't been any required vendor fees and most people, individuals as well as vendors, simply contribute money to help with the upkeep of the forum. Will that change?
Thanks,
Tony
Thanks,
Tony
That is about the only change which we foresee making in the short term. Our account management team will reach out to those members who are creating threads in the vendor section, and we'll hopefully bring them all onboard with us through the transition.
I'm not certain of the time frame, most of us will only be seeing the site for the first time today.
cheers,
robb