[Simkie]

With all the whining and moaning about the new format (and I am including myself there!) I thought perhaps it would be useful for COTH to hear from the users here about what WOULD make us pay for a premium membership, or about what would make existing premium members re-up their existing memberships. I certainly understand this playground costs money to run, and while I imagine a good amount of money comes from advertising, I bet attracting premium members is also important.

I'll start:

INLINE PHOTOS: photos that load IN the thread--no links you have to click or thumbnails you have to download.

Variable width discussion windows. I have a 24" monitor COTH. LET ME USE IT. Get rid of the fixed width crap. The box I am typing in now is only 5" wide.

Custom colors. Let ME pick the colors for titles, etc. Or have several "sets" available, so I can pick what works for my eyes.


What else, guys? What would make you pony up some dollars?

[MMavin]

Mobile App or at least mobile enabled pages!

[joiedevie99]

I pay for paper delivery of the magazine. I think that should entitle me to premium status without having to pay extra.

In terms of improvements, I just want the red on unread threads to go away.

[Renn/aissance]

The perks to premium membership, as they are now, are minimal. I do not consider them worth the fee to subscribe.

Being able to post inline photos would be a major plus. Yes, I understand the issue with dial-up. We are no longer living in 2002. While many users are still on dial-up, I should say the majority of us are not. One can code in an override to limit the size of an image as well as the number of images per post.

While I wouldn't consider it necessarily a premium perk, I would pay for a mobile COTH app.

[jn4jenny]

Ooh, this is fun!

I'd pay for a mobile app, for sure.

Other things they could do to make me buy a Premium Membership or otherwise support them:

1. Have an annual fund drive instead of nagging me constantly to go Premium. Yes, I realize a lot of people wouldn't give. But I bet there's a lot of us out there who appreciate this forum $5, $10, or $15 worth but not enough to shell out a whole $20. How bout you hit me up once yearly instead of me having to adblock your massive banner about Premium Memberships? You win and I win. Heck, I'd probably be more likely to throw you a full $20 if there was some concentrated funding drive--like, one week of the year when there were loud stickies at the top of the forum that linked to a fund-drive page. Or, God forbid, pop-up banners about the funding drive (for maximum humor, add a photoshopped F-150 COTH Forums truck in this pop-up ad.)

2. Call it stupid, but I'd pay to have a little avatar pic that showed up next to my screen name. I have that on other forums, and a lot of folks have their horses in them. It's fun.

3. I might pay for a bigger PM box. Maybe that's just me since I get tons of saddle-related PMs all the time and am constantly cleaning the darn thing out.

4. Sort of related to joiedevie99's post, I might be induced to pay for Premium if you offered me a special COTH issue (or two) a year. For example, I don't want or need the COTH magazine every week of the year--but I'd love a site where I could pre-order just a single week, like "The week that Wofford's predictions for Rolex come out" or "the week my friend will be showing and her results will be in the COTH."

5. Related to #5, perhaps you could offer me some other minimal-cost piece of symbolic swag. Some lame ideas but ones that I'd actually care about:
--a COTH magazine key chain, bumper sticker, decal, etc. Again, you guys win and we win too. You get the visibility you need in the horse community, and I get to feel like my $20 went somewhere.
--some kind of dumb piece of swag that would identify me as a COTH member at get togethers. Like a "Hi my name is jn4jenny" badge, except less lame than that, and not ghetto/homemade like I would put together myself. It's fun to run into COTH forums members in real life. If premium membership would get me badge swag to wear at big events like Rolex etc., I'd wear it.
--give me some feel-goody symbolic quantification of how much my subscription helps. Like Simkie said, I'm sure this playground isn't cheap. But I'd like to know how far $20 really goes. Could you do something like National Public Radio does, where for X amount of money, you can buy a "day" and the DJ will announce your name a couple of times and read whatever dumb thing you want them to read (like "Hi to the best husband ever?") Can I, like, buy a day on COTH forums and have a little thank-you thingie at the bottom of the page saying "Thanks to Premium Member jn4jenny! Every day, we thank a forum member who helps support this forum. Sign up for your own COTH Forums day here!"

[SAcres]

I would pay to get rid of the red text. It's horrible, absolutely horrible. Whoever decided to use red should be fired, as they obviously have no design sense.
Please, I'll pay any amount, just make it go away.

I'd definitely pay for avatar and in line pictures, although I feel like it might be good to limit the amount of pictures posted per post.

No ads!! I think the majority of COTH posters would pay to get ads removed, or at least the non-horse related ones and the bottom page pop up ones.

I would pay for a mobile app too! The COTH ads aren't mobile user friendly.

[Tehzebra]

I would pay for an avatar picture! They dont have to be huge. (with the option to show/hide avatars for everyone in options)

I'd pay for mobile!!! I can deal with ads so thats not a big things for me but others I can see where it would be.

I like the idea of a "thanking" line, too.

[Superminion]

Count me in for the mobile app. I'd happily pay for it!

Also the small avatar pic. I'm not a member of any other forums, but I think it sounds like a fun idea.

What does the premium membership actually GET you, for your $20?

[Laurierace]

I have placed dozens of horses off the track via this forum. I have found that I can't get people to bat an eye unless I post pictures so the premium membership that allows me to post pictures has been more than worth it for me. They better fix the way the pics show up in the new format however because if they continue to show up as just another link that is not going to cut it.

[Toadie's mom]

I pay for paper delivery of the magazine. I think that should entitle me to premium status without having to pay extra.

In terms of improvements, I just want the red on unread threads to go away.

this

[JenEM]

I think that if paper subscriptions entitled you to Premium membership, I'd renew my subscription, which I let lapse about a year ago. I'd been toying with the idea of doing it anyway, as I might actually be competing places that would get in the results in 2013, but if it came with a Premium membership here, that might be enough to tick me on over the edge to resubscribing.

Honestly, I'd like to be able to see pictures without downloading some tiny thumbnail, and to have a little avatar picture (make it resizable to something small, like 100x100) by my name.

So far as I understand now, Premium members can pick their title (rather than merely "Greenie" "Training" "Schoolmaster" etc), post those itty bitty picture download link images, and post things in Events. Is there anything else? Because that doesn't seem worth $20 a year, unless maybe you're a facility owner/manager that has a lot of things to promote in Events.

[Winston the Corgi]

Variable width discussion windows. I have a 24" monitor COTH. LET ME USE IT. Get rid of the fixed width crap. The box I am typing in now is only 5" wide.

THIS THIS THIS THIS. Since the upgrade my forum window has gotten tangibly smaller - and much less user-friendly. Even on a smaller monitor (I'm on a 15" MacBook Pro running Firefox 15.0.1) this is ridiculous.

TOTALLY support this and urge consideration!

[Winston the Corgi]

Also wanted to add: I've been on COTH forums for over 10 years and I've been through LOTS of variations of the site, including the move to BB (I remember the pre-BB forums).

To be honest, and I hope I am not sounding hyperbolic here, this is the least user-friendly version I can ever remember.

[Winston the Corgi]

Another interesting note: the people commenting on this thread registered in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2009. We have a lot of long-time forum participants here with ideas....just something to keep in mind.

[StGermain]

I mentioned on the other thread that another board I belong to doesn't have ads or popups for premium members. I'd pay for that, definitely.

StG

[danceronice]

I definitely like the idea of 'magazine subscription=premium forum membership." I might actually subscribe then.

NO ADS. (Though that is really a general statement--the pop-up is crashing Firefox, and it did it at my parents' place, so it's not just that I"m on dial-up.)

In-post pictures.

This is a really, really ugly forum upgrade, btw. The red is in particular not attractive.

[Trakehner]

I pay for a premium membership...seems only fair to give back a little.

I hate the new format, really hate all the bloody ads, it's like trying to read a narrow newspaper column. It's horrid....I really hate the ads on the side, they've just gotten way too intrusive (that current & repulsive Animal Planet ad with the tatooed yelling cow over stereotyping pitbulls....oh pleeze!)

[pds]

I pay for paper delivery of the magazine. I think that should entitle me to premium status without having to pay extra.

In terms of improvements, I just want the red on unread threads to go away.

THIS ^^^

[Polydor]

Mainly a bump to keep it close to the top so that Mods can hopefully let the powers to be know about it.

Love some of the ideas !

Not big on avatars only because it means one more thing to load ( I'm basically on dial up and wireless at that !) but if we could choose to show them then maybe.

Do think that if you subscribe then you should be a premium ... paper copy or digital. I would buy the digital subscribtion if that was the case.

P.

ps. And would pay to get rid of the red as well!!

[gothedistance]

Simply because they asked. I saw the entreaty, and thought "why not?" I like this forum, and $20 is cheap enough for a year's entertainment ...and, more often than not, education. I'm happy to help support the cost of keeping this forum online.

Plus it was nice how simple they made the process - one click to PayPal. Sweet!

I was a premium member before, happy to be one again.