patrick.net

Founder effects are important...so, if I myself was going to start this thing (I have thought about it plenty), I would be starting from zero traffic....you, however have your own founder effect/momentum/relevant traffic...which is why I have suggested this now & before...it would be much easier for you to compete with them than for me...also, from a technical perspective this is something you can easily do I would guess, so the resource investment would not be that huge...your traffic population is the perfect audience...also the people here would be happy to give you feedback w/ respect to features & functionality, so your market research would be free...why the heck not??...could also do real estate for sale & for rent... build it, give it a try...I would certainly also consider investing myself...

So you would have a place that combines real estate market, news & forum...pretty nice combination...it would be pretty cool to let registered people comment on the postings too...I have a feeling you would get plenty of opinions...since you are competing with CL (free), you have to go with something dead simple, fast, clean and user friendly, and add more value to allow you to charge even the low price...(mapping, better search...)

Dsdf4 says

it would be pretty cool to let registered people comment on the postings too...

I've already heard from landlords that they definitely do not want the general public to be able to comment on their listings.

So there's a conflict already. I'd feel obligated to allow open discussion, but customers don't want that.

Dsdf4 says

it would be pretty cool to let registered people comment on the postings too...

I've already heard from landlords that they definitely do not want the general public to be able to comment on their listings.

So there's a conflict already. I'd feel obligated to allow open discussion, but customers don't want that.

That's a minor point anyways...so you can let the poster choose whether others can comment or not...some people may opt in because they want the additional traffic (e.g. if they price it right, good location, well kept...) others may not...either way if the feature does not work you kill it if it does you keep it alive...just like you do in the forum & elsewhere...

Patrick - Lemme give you a corollary.

HuffingtonPost

They were and are a "free" content site. They have an attractive layout, provide relatively good content, makes money from ads, and Arianna Huffington didn't make a dime until AOL acquired them for 350 million.

There's your business model.

Patrick, what forum engine do you use? Doesn't look like any of the popular picks (vbulletin, phpBB, etc)

True, it is slightly disorienting at first to see the first comment after the original post refer to some earlier comment which is not visible. I don't see a better solution though, since the most recent comments are the ones most people want to see.

In other forums I have used you see the newest comments that you have yet to read. In other words, if you come to a post that you haven't seen yet, and it has 500 comments, you start on page one. Next time you return to that thread, it starts you on the oldest page that you haven't seen. It may do this based solely on dates (last time you viewed a thread) or on what you actually read...not sure. In any event it's a whole lot less confusing.

lenar says

Patrick, what forum engine do you use? Doesn't look like any of the popular picks (vbulletin, phpBB, etc)

It started out as Wordpress, but not much of the original code is left now. It's mostly my own creation at this point.

It started out as Wordpress, but not much of the original code is left now.

Thx

Hey patrick, is it just me or is there something (buggy?) Going on where sometimes when I click on a new thread, I cannot make a comment? As in there's not the usual typepad to type in. Just the OP link and their comment but no means to leaving a comment. Only happens some of the time,,,,off the top of my head, the thread on Obama commenting on Akin, and last week a thread titled "they tried to kill me with my kids"

Could be a bug.

Can you get a screenshot when it next happens?

/?p=1215592

Can you post comment in that thread?

I searched for the one title "they tried to kill me with my children" and couldn't find it. Probably for the better, nobody should have to be subject to read news like that,,,,its better left unspoken about

Ah, that user paid to be a Premium Member:

http://patrick.net/subscribe.php

So he bought the right to restrict the discussion to other Premium Members, and that's what he did with that thread. Dunno why. It was really intended so that any people listing property on the forum could control the comments in that case.

I think he's a she ;)

That other one I cannot find now was a tovarichpeter posting, and id find it odd with all he contributes that he would have done that with that link, intentionally. Is it something that could be happening by mistake?

I rarely visit this site anymore. Once, it was the 'go to' place for news and information on real~estate in the US. Now, not so much. It's more closely aligned with The Sandbox at the IMDb forums. Filled with political prattle and flaming over silly things. It appears that the donations have petered out, and how could they not, as Patrick took public political stances which pushed half his audience away.

It was fun while it lasted and it also served as an important resource for real~estate news.

Tant pis.