How Nintendo changed my life and the acquisition of NSider2
If you are anything like me, a late-generation Xer, Nintendo changed your life. In 1989, when Nintendo came out with the Game Boy, I went from tortured family trips with my three siblings to harmony and peace as we all sat transfixed and somewhat in awe of the ability we now had to take our video games with us on the road.
Nintendo has come a long way since then but they came an even longer way to get to that point. Founded in 1889, Nintendo was a game card company for the first 90 years. Knowing they wanted to expand, Nintendo tried out being a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network, and an instant rice company. Fortunately for all of us, these ventures eventually failed, and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, playing card sales dropped, leaving Nintendo with 60 yen in stocks.
The mid-1970s spelled the change for Nintendo with the advent of their electronics products, culminating in their early 1980s release of Donkey Kong. The lives of parents on those long road trips would never be the same. Since then, Nintendo has evolved, creating games and gaming consoles including most recently (and notably) the Wii.
Gaming sites attract people ardent about discussing the current games on the market as well as older games. However, according to Wikipedia, "on September 17, 2007, Nintendo of America closed its official forums, the NSider Forums, indefinitely due to a major overhaul of their site."
In the wake of this, some members of Nsider Forums founded Nsider2. NSider2, or NS2 as it is commonly referred to, has grown to become one of the leading gaming sites with 13,000 registered members and traffic of over 2 million monthly page views, according to Google analytics. NS2 is more than just a forum, it is a resource with current news, product reviews, podcasts, blogs and more. It is a location to discuss and to learn about everything Nintendo.
We are excited to add this forum to the Crowdgather network of online communities and we look forward to seeing this site grow and thrive.
Despite the downturn, CPM rates were on the rise in 2009
On January 20, 2010 Pubmatic announced its findings from the 2009 Year-End Ad Price Index. The results were surprising to say the least. Although in 2008 many were speculating that ad pricing was going to plummet in 2009, the reverse actually occurred. In fact, the study shows that the average CPM of its non-guaranteed inventory rose 111 percent from Q4 2008 to 2009.
PubMatic’s brief indicates that the recession hit online publishers the hardest in 2008. But each quarter since the beginning of 2009 saw big gains in premium publisher ad pricing, ending with December 2009 prices reaching even higher than pre-recession prices.
Sequential Changes in Ad Pricing for Non-Guaranteed Inventory:
•Q1 2009 – Q2 2009: 57% increase
•Q2 2009 – Q3 2009: 31% increase
•Q3 2009 – Q4 2009: 42% increase
Mixergy Interviews Sanjay
CrowdGather’s CEO and founder, Sanjay Sabnani was recently featured on a leading technology blog - Mixergy. The coverage comes as part of the recent growing awareness of the Company’s social media business model focused exclusively on forum community sites.
Click here to watch the video interview.
"CrowdGather’s stock heats up" A profile at Trendslate.com
Crowdgather CEO, Sanjay Sabnani, was honored to be interviewed today at Trendslate.com. TrendSlate covers technology, business, and venture capital in Southern California.
The piece, CrowdGather’s stock heats up; CEO reveals VC is not the only way for startups to raise capital, focused on Crowdgather growth in the last year, our history and the strategy of going public.
Trendslate has displayed increasing interest in the forum space following the launch of Gravity.com into private beta by ex-Myspace executive Amit Kapur. There has been increasing buzz about forum-based companies and we were glad to share some the exciting news from Crowdgather.
An interesting highlight from article was the fact that Crowdgather’s stock "hit $2.00 today on over a million shares of volume. This is compared to $0.70 in May of last year when we raised our last financing. At that time our average volume was less than 10,000 shares per day."
Guest Post at Trendslate.com
Sanjay Sabnani, CEO of Crowdgather wrote a guest piece today for Trendslate.com. We invite you to check it out and to weigh in on your tablet opinions at PadComputerForums
The Emperor has no clothes: Will iPad’s non-technology woes delay launch?
Last week, Steve Jobs’ iPad launch highlighted perhaps the greatest manifestation of the company’s legendary reality-distortion field that we have seen to date. Apple and Steve went into the iPad launch with a negative trifecta of no domain name, no issued trademark, and no FCC approval. Despite these deficiencies we all saw the Emperor resplendent in a decadent outfit projected from the incandescent glow of a 10 inch tablet.
iPads, Tablets and Slate: Our launch of Padcomputerforum.com
Everyone (well at least everyone interested in technology) has been discussing the launch of the long-awaited iPad at CES. 
Interestingly enough, according to Techcrunch Apple did not purchase any of the iPad domains We took a look at this convergence of events and realized that launching an online community, www.padcomputerforum.com/, dedicated to these new devices would give people a place to discuss this technology with like-minded tech-geeks.
But what is an iPad, HP Slate or the host of other "pads" or "tablets" that are being marketed as the next big thing? Well, when I first saw one it looked to me like an over-grown iPhone, minus the phone part. I couldn’t understand the appeal or why anyone in their right mind would think it was a good deal to spend the low price of $499 for a device that was not a laptop or a phone.
But then my kid’s laptop broke and the idea of going out and spending $1000 dollars for them to type up reports or to watch videos on Youtube seemed even more ridiculous. As a household comprised of four avid readers it also may save us from being swallowed up by our books without needing to get a dedicated device like the Kindle. As I looked more into the capabilities I started feeling the lack of this gadget that I didn’t know until yesterday that I needed to get.
The iPad, the HPSlate and all the Android tablets are changing the face of technology. We are excited to be a part of that and we look forward to discussing this with you further at: padcomputerforum.com/
Social Media Campaigns Don’t Have To Be Scary!
Launching a social media campaign on an online community can be intimidating. You know that social media is working on Facebook and Twitter, but can it work on your online forum? With a little bit of thought and some useful new tools you can be better prepared to understand what will work and what won’t.
The first step is to figure out who is on your site. Are your members mostly men or women? What age are they? Do you know their income bracket? You can pay for this service through Quantcast, conduct a poll on your site, or get some basic information for free through Google Analytics.
Once you know who is on your site it is time to understand how these types of users interact with the web. To understand what your customers are ready for, I recommend using Forrester’s Social Technographics® Profile tool available here.
Through this tool you can create a profile for what type of media your users will be willing to create. It is critical to conduct this research prior to launching any social media campaign.
Also it is important to realize that although many of your members participate actively on your site they may not want to have their identity revealed. When you are first trying out social media campaigns on your site we recommend creating situations where your members do not have to reveal who they are in real-life.
It is also important to make the prize worthy of the campaign. Find out what will motivate your users and award accordingly. For example, if you have determined that most of your members are men between the ages of 18-24 you probably won’t want to give them a subscription to Elle magazine.
Some examples of campaign ideas are:
1. Photo Contest
Most users know how to add photos to a forum web site. The first step would be to decide what the theme of the campaign is. Make sure that the campaign concept is specific so that people will know what to do.
"Take a picture of yourself dressed in all blue."
2. Blog Entries
Have your members submit a review of a product, a blog or a story. Your members are already used to writing online so this could be an excellent way to get people involved. Again, keep the subject clear so that users know what is expected of them.
3. Graphic Design
Designs are fun but before you begin a campaign like this you need to be sure that your users have some awareness of Photoshop or other photo-editing software. It would not be a good idea to run this campaign on a site that is not media centric or alternatively a very large forum community would be sure to have some designers on it.
4. Video Contest
Getting a video from your camera, phone or computer to Youtube seems like it should be easy but for many users it is not. Many users find video to be intimidating and aren’t willing to take the step. But, video campaigns can also be highly entertaining and can generate a lot of page views. The key here is to expect that you may only get a handful of entries.
If you have any other ideas then send them our way!
Crowdgather’s Year In Review: 2009
One thing is for sure: We won’t forget 2009 anytime soon. It was a year of uncertain financial markets, of fallen heroes, punctuated by the loss of many celebrated artists. Yet it was also a historic year, with a new president striving to set a new tone and to inspire a population to innovation in the face of adversity. It was a reality check, where all of us were reminded that a prosperous nation is only capable of supporting lofty ideals when there is fundamental integrity and transparency in action.
Despite the depressed economy, Crowdgather rallied in the last year. Although we faced challenges, we were able to grow our network to include some exciting properties, notably Anythingbutipod, Matrixwatch, vBulletinsetup, MJHQ, and AdminFusion, among others.
We also learned that diversifying revenue stream is never a bad thing, and in the light of that we launched two service products for the forum world: RoamingThreads and Crowdgather Hosting. RoamingThreads allows members to stay connected with their forum while they are on-the-go, and Crowdgather Hosting is a hosting site designed to work with forum owners.
We look forward to seeing what this next year and decade will bring.
CrowdGather Launches Crowdgather Hosting
Picking a web hosting service can be one of the most important initial decisions that a company can make. Businesses can’t afford to to have their sites offline and the host literally has control of your presence online.
We are always looking for ways to better serve forum communities and to diversify our revenue base. After looking at what is on the market we believe that we can offer a superior hosting service. Hosting experts say good support is the most crucial issue for a small business owner. We believe our experience with forums will allow us to offer exactly the kind of support that forum owners need.
CrowdGather Hosting will initially sell Linux hosting accounts for use by forum members, but intends to offer vanity forum email hosting on the CrowdGather Forum Network by early 2010. We also will start offering forum hosting services for forum owners during the summer of 2010.
"Members have come to us looking for these services, but especially if we can integrate the hosting package with their forum experience in order to provide them with web accessible vanity email accounts associated with their favorite forum. We have also been asked for a hosting solution by forum owners and will work towards that initiative in calendar 2010 as well," said Sanjay Sabnani, CrowdGather’s Chairman and CEO.
Sanjay Interviewed by Young Entrepreneur Blog
Our CEO, Sanjay Sabnani, was interviewed yesterday by Young Entrepreneur Blog. Founded by brothers, Matthew Toren and Adam Toren, Young Entrepreneurs is a growing social networking forum for young entrepreneurs.
Adam and Matthew have a keen interest in both assisting entrepreneurs as well as highlighting entrepreneurs that are already making it. We encourage you to check out the interview with Sanjay as well as other interviews on the site.
Click here to read the interview.
