Hi All
A lot of you have expressed reservations about the change in ownership of the site, and I can't say I blame you for worrying about the direction that this site is going to take in the future. Perhaps I would have had the same reaction had I been in your shoes.
So let me address the issues that have been raised so far one by one:
1) I did not post a response to your messages until now because I wanted to give as many of you as possible an opportunity to post your views before I posted a response that addresses all your questions. I appreciate and understand the emotion and involvement that all of you have with this community.
2) A lot of you have expressed reservations about the fact that I don't own a dog right now and that, therefore, my decision to purchase the site was a purely business decision. Some of you have suggested that I won't have the best interests of the site at heart.
Yes, I don't own a dog right now. However, I have already stated this in my first message and I will state it here again - just because I don't own a dog right, now, does not mean that I am not passionate about them. I used to have dogs when I was growing up and loved them to bits.
I do understand the emotions of dog owners, the love and bonding that you share with your pets - and the fact that this is the common thread that has brought all of you here.
Yes, most definitely, the decision to purchase the site WAS partly a business decision, as any financial transaction of this nature has to be. However, I am not sure how one can extrapolate from this that I won't have the best interests of the site at heart. In fact, I'd have thought that it would be exactly the opposite.
The best thing about this site is the community that you all have built. So, if I ever do something that would hurt the community and caused the members to leave, obviously, I would not earn a return on the investment that I have made in purchasing the site. I plan to earn a return on that investment by displaying advertisements to the general site visitors (see below for more on this) and obviously, if this community is negatively affected, the number of visitors this site receives will decrease, and the return that I earn from advertising will also decrease.
So, it's in my best interest to ensure that I do nothing that will negatively affect this site or community.
So why did I purchase the site if I don't own a dog right now? I own a few other dog-related sites (like
this site - it's a site that teaches new dog owners how to house train their dogs) and I wanted to extend the network of pet-related sites that I have. I have owned pet-related sites for more than 5 years now.
And I started those sites BECAUSE of my passion for dogs. So, the decision to purchase BPO is partly a business decision, and partly a result of my passion for dogs, the same reason I started the other sites.
3) Let me say very categorically that I had never ever entertained the thought of charging members to access this community. This site has always been advertising driven ever since Jaime and Michael started it, and I do not intend to change that, either now or in the future.
4) So what changes do I plan to make to this site? I have stated this in my first message and I am going to repeat it again here - I will do absolutely nothing to change the way this community works. Absolutely nothing at all. The community has been working so well so far that there is nothing really that I can do to improve it.
The only changes that I plan to make to the site involve changing some of the advertisements and sponsorships on the other pages in the site (i.e. the pages that ordinary visitors, and not the forum members, visit). That's all.
I will end by saying this - before forming your opinion about where this site and community is heading, give me some time to show you my intent in protecting and taking care of this site. And you will see that this community will keep running just the way it was running before (with the members and the moderators). And, as you will see when you continue to participate in the community over the next few months, I shall never ever do anything that hurts this community.
All that I ask is that you wait a few weeks or months before forming an opinion as to whether the change in ownership is going to negatively affect this community.
Thanks,
Nipa