Patrick

Haha. That's funny if that's the case. Honestly, in reading it, it's kind of a bad photo, plus "10 Tips From Our Cover Feature" is just bad writing. Magazines don't say "Our Cover Feature" on the cover, they say what the cover feature is. And the "Halliburtons" text at the bottom is amateurish, as well, but that could have been added after the presumable cover was scanned. For what it's worth, you can see a lot of covers here: http://www.blackbeltmag.com/category/reprints/114 Thanks, Patrick

Interesting thread idea. Thanks for starting it, Bob. Patrick

Congrats Lupin1!

Welcome to KF, lastninja. Patrick

Yeah, here is Gizmodo's account: http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone I could understand if they fired him. But, it might be better to do something mentioned here: http://socialwayne.com/2010/04/21/apple-gary-powell-iphone-pr/

Nice timing! I was just about to post this photo: Via Digg.

That's funny.

Funny coincidence, but a few days ago I was working on putting together a media kit for KarateForums.com (helps us to sell more targeted ads) and I checked our numbers in Google Analytics (website analytics/stats program) for the last 6 months and 97.83% of visitors to KarateForums.com with a known connection speed are on some form of high speed internet. Thought some of you might find that interesting. Pretty good penetration.

Thank you for the submission. Patrick

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20002799-71.html Kind of a funny story. She was walking the dog at just the right moment. Via Digg.

Cool. He was my favorite player growing up (like a lot of young Yankees fans, I know). I remember when the team was pretty bad... for a period, our double play combo was Mike Gallego and Spike Owen. Heh. So, I've really appreciated the last 15 years or so.

I think I would have to go with Milk & Cookies. Boston Cream Pie, Dulce Delish and Mud Pie sound interesting, too. But, that said, I wouldn't mind giving any of them a try.

Welcome aboard, Kozak. Good luck with your test. Patrick

Welcome to KF, Mihail.

Congrats. Patrick

His off the field issues are a concern, but not a huge one. Most of them seem to come down to he said/she said situations and they are, by and large, Marshall's business. As far as his issues with the Broncos, I'm even less concerned about them. It's possible the Broncos coach may be at least partially, if not more, responsible for them. Given Marshall's track record, which is very durable, I didn't understand why McDaniels publicly called Marshall out before the last game of the season and essentially said that he was lying about the severity of his injury. Why would you do that to your star wide receiver that has 101 catches, 1,120 yards and 10 TDs? The guy had had 21 catches and 200 yards just three weeks prior. It doesn't make sense to me and it didn't then. So, I don't think McDaniels is totally innocent. My perspective on Sparano is that he isn't the type of publicly antagonize his players through the media. So, I'm hopeful we won't have those types of issues. Patrick

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft10/news/story?id=5085644 I'm really excited about this deal. I'm a Dolphins fan and he may be the best wide receiver we've ever had, talent wise (and depending on how it plays out). Can't wait to get him on the field and watch him in action.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=64937 http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/theotherguys/ Looks like it could be a pretty funny film.

According to IMDB, Rourke's character is Ivan Vanko/Whiplash.

Welcome esoteric2892. Glad to have you. Patrick

Welcome to KF, Dobie1979. Patrick

Here's the thread that Danielle mentioned: http://www.karateforums.com/share-your-facebook-url-vt37408.html But, please feel free to post your Facebook URL here instead. This is me: http://www.facebook.com/patrickokeefe This is KarateForums.com: http://www.facebook.com/karateforums Thanks, Patrick

Great to hear.

Hey all, I really appreciate all of the replies to this thread and the general understanding of the need to generate some revenue. I've been managing online communities for 10 years now. It's something that I'm very passionate about. So, I'll try to explain how all of this works. Running an online community is a job - whether it be your profession or a labor of love, it's still a job that has to be taken seriously. Online communities take time to run and, in general, the larger they are, the more time they take to run. They also take money to run, if they are to have long term stability, though it doesn't have to be a lot of money - depending on your definition of a lot of money and the size of the community itself. Most people don't have a deep understanding of what it takes, behind the scenes to keep a community like this running smoothly or, even more so, a community larger than this one and the time it takes to do so. And that's perfectly fine and, really, how it should be. On this site, I don't want anyone worrying about that stuff, but me (and, to some extent, the staff ) as that's what I'm here for. I just want members to talk, share and enjoy themselves. There is so much more than what you see, though. As an example, this site is coming up on 9 years in May. 9 years times 365 days is 3,285 days. Let's say that, conservatively I've spent an hour a day on this site overall on average, including time I was away, etc. 3,285 hours divided by 24 hours is 136.8. I've spent at least 136.8 days of my life (that's consecutive 24 hour days) on this site. It's probably more than that, but you get the idea. Before I'm done, I expect I'll have spent more than a year of my life working on just this community. At the end of the day, it's hard to ask someone to dedicate a large portion of their life to something that does not help them to accomplish their life goals as a person. That is the point where communities stop being maintained or cared for because you have to make a choice between running it and going to get a "real job" to actually further the lives of you and those who depend on you. JusticeZero made reference to this. In simple terms, with many communities (including this one), there would be no community if there were no ads - and there would be no ads if there were no community. They both need each other. Ideally, you can combine both so that you can accomplish your life goals, while also doing something that you love (assuming running your online community is what you love to do). For that to happen, there has to be money. If I love something and I enjoy something, I want the person or people behind it to be successful in life because that, in turn, generally means that the thing I love will be more successful, as well. Deciding whether a community is one of the "good ones" is certainly in the eye of the beholder as everyone likes different things. But, the more people that consider a community a good one, the more it takes to run it. Derwentbob makes a great point. For the most part, I don't think ads have an impact on whether or not a community is a good one. With this sort of thing, there are two ways to generate revenue. You can either get it from the people who use the site (premium memberships or TV licenses as DWX put it , paid access, micropayment systems, merchandise) - or you can get it from the people who want to reach the people who use the site (advertisements in many forms). Or you can do a mix of both. But, for any somewhat large community to have long term stability, the money has to come from somewhere, like any operation. People can pay for a website's expenses with their personal income, if the site is small enough and they have a good job, and that'll be fine, if that's what they want to do. But, for many, it can be difficult to have that be a drain, who might want to put the money toward something else. And in those cases where there is a "real job," the community has to be a secondary thing, professionally. Your "real job" has to take precedent because it is what is paying your bills and (hopefully) moving you forward in life. While there are some people for who it is all about the money and for who this is a numbers game, I find that the majority of people who run online communities care a great deal about how the money is made, including myself, and agonize over ad placement and finding the right balance between maximizing the "inventory" that the site can offer and creating an enjoyable user experience. I've run this community since day one; no one cares about it more than I do. I turn down so many ads here at KarateForums.com, both based on their format (no pop-ups, no pop-unders, no InVue ads, which is what GeoGiant referred to, no ads that automatically play audio, no ads that automatically expand, etc.) and content (no ads about tobacco or alcohol, no ads featuring risque content, such as ads that focus on a woman's chest, etc.). Whenever we take adjustments or test new things, it's not something that I take lightly. I am willing to try new things, however, as I believe that, without experimentation, we never learn anything and we never get better. So, I guess, in summation, what I am saying is that running a community is like any other responsibility or job in life. It's hard work and, it's hard to continually do hard work for someone, if you aren't being paid for it. It is my hope that everyone here is doing what they love to do, that their job is a labor of love for them. I know that's not always possible - real life is real life - but that is the ideal, so I implore you to make small changes that put you closer to a job that you love. At the same time, when you reach that point, you also have a reasonable expectation of being paid for your efforts and that extends to all undertakings, including managing online communities. I hope that this sheds some light on how this all works. Thanks, Patrick

Good idea for a topic, JohnASE. Thanks for starting it. Patrick