Hard Charging....

I’m not pledging, it’s not that I don’t support the site or Blipfoto, I just think if we are having to work this hard at saving the site then the club (because that is what it really is) maybe isn’t sustainable. In addition and without being critical of the outline business plan, I have been involved and run online communities for over 10 years, and I don’t think that to sustain and build a community like this and continue to develop, £120,000 per annum is realistic, even at double it would be tight (and I’ve seen projects fail at that cost). I know that the directors are hardworking and would put much of their time in for free, but you need staff (IT and Developers as well as admin), committed and dedicated, and paid appropriately.
 

So let’s be realistic, the 3698 blippers who posted in November 2015 would probably at some point need to pay a membership much higher than £32:50p, and with the best will in the world I think that most casual blippers wouldn’t pay for it.

That would mean that we would need the “hardened” core of blippers to pay to subsidise the new accounts. I don’t know how many of the 3698 are regulars, we haven’t seen the data for how many people have maintained a blip journal for over a year. But let’s be generous and assume that half of them are committed and regular, that immediately means we need to up the membership estimate to £65? I would probably not pay it, after all you can get your own domain name, and fully functional wordpress installation using a photo theme for under £30 per year. And of course you could opt for a free one if you don’t mind the adverts.

So what we would really be paying for is the comments, hearts and stars. I already interact more on Twitter and Facebook with my “Blipfriends”, follow most of them on Flickr etc.

I have also been wondering a lot about “licencing”, I am getting more and more interested in “open” and wherever I place my photos now I will want them to be under a creative commons licence. Maybe we could have a “blip commons” (although we probably wouldn’t be allowed to use the name).

I hope for the best for this community, and I genuinely hope for the success of the buyout, but as a “founder member”, then “life member” I think I am nearing the end of this journey, I will continue to post a photo a day, on blip for now, but I will also be posting somewhere else.

Best wishes to all.

Lawrie