Birthday Bonus Club
20th Nov 2009 16,317 Members - Birthdays today 41Today's Visitors 2,766 Pageviews 6,168
Up for Sale
After much deliberation - and soul searching - I have decided to put Birthday Bonus Club up for sale.
As you know, BBC is a free service and it can only remain so by the sale of advertising and we are simply not selling sufficient advertising to cover our costs. However, before I put the website up for sale, I would like to offer its members the opportunity to “buy in” and participate in the administration of the site.
This will work like this …
- I will offer 40,000 shares at $1.00 per share - two independent sources - Website Outlook and Cubestat indicate a value in excess of this figure.
- I will retain 5,000 shares for myself and staff.
- You may bid for any number of shares by logging on and clicking on Share Bid - you will not be charged any money until a decision has been made as to the viability of this approach.
- The bidding period will run until Midnight (GMT) on Friday 7th August and a decision will be made over the weekend of August 8/9.
- Bids will be evaluated on a first come, first served basis depending on volume. If the plan goes ahead, successful bidders will be informed by email on Monday 10th August by email with a request for payment.
The money raised through this offer will be used to redevelop BBC as a social network and to completely review the our advertising offerings. I am currently experimenting with Elgg and results are very encouraging. It will also be used to cover costs for the next twelve months after which, costs will be covered from advertising revenue. I am also quite happy to offer my service for the same period at no cost to shareholders.
What do you get out of this ?
- The opportunity to participate in the running of BBC and in determining its future direction.
- The BBC website currently has an advertising revenue potential of $90.00 per day. If this can be achieved - and maintained - then your $1.00 share would return a half-yearly dividend of 27 cents and a growth of 9%
- You will have the chance to trade your shares at any time.
Personally, I believe that BBC can go a long way but, unfortunately, I can no longer afford to keep it running on my own resources. So - if you like the idea, please bid for your shares before Friday 7th August.
Facts and Figures
- Currently, we average 9,000 unique visitors per day with 22,500 pageviews.
- We have over 15,000 members and, on average, we sign up 30 new members daily
- Our Alexa ranking is 50,682 (35,382 in USA) with a Page Rank of 3.
Your comments on this plan would be much appreciated.
Tom
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July 20th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Hi Tom
What a shock.
I am sad you are leaving, but I bet we can continue to run the company. I think it’s a great idea.
Let us know what else we can do.
Again, I am sorry this had to happen.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I just joined the club 3 days ago and am very sorry to hear of its pending sale.The BBC concept is quite brillant and should have much more success as time passes. Who wuldn’t put $60 in alertpay and forget about it ,to recieve a birthday payout especially if the matrix is full. With over 15,000 members, Why don’t everyone pay $2 to be a shareholder and continue to have you guys run the site? Also lets entertain ideas on ad cost to keep it running. I call on all members who feel as strongly as I do ( and I haven’t even made a dollar as yet) to do what we can to save the site. James
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:14 am
And why not ask for donations to members who meet years? If every day there are more than 40 birthday and every member on his birthday will donate $ 4. Receive approximately $ 3600 dollars a month or just over $ 43,000 dollars a year and as more users gain income.
Excuse my English is translated by Google
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Gosh, just my luck. I just bought some advertising because after several tries, I could not delete the ad mistakes and repeats caused multiple ads to be placed….so I went ahead and paid for the multiple ads to be placed.
Now, seems to be that the ads won’t help my soon to be BD, July 26…now I don’t expect ANY B.D. “surprises” in my Alert Pay account.
Have seriously started to think about starting my own BD Club…but not to the tune of $40,000.
Sorry I didn’t read about this or get a member e-mail about the SALE sooner.
Vicki
July 24th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Yes, I’ve paid for a lot of advertising as well. Given gifts that were never credited to my Personal Rating. Went through MAJOR misery with AlertPay. Still not verified with them even after I had money transferred from my bank. NOW, I cannot access that money.
Good luck selling the club. I love it in concept but it has been a trial. In particular because of the resistance to accepting PayPal as a mode of gift payment.
Francee
July 26th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I will be willing to donate or buy shares to help Admin. cost.
or come up with ideas to generate other monies.
Mary
(4444Money)
July 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Tom,
I hate to sound harsh, but in the best interests of the club, you should sell it outside of the network. Offering shares to unknown and unproven people, then trying to work with them will cause even more problems.
It needs to be run by a management team that will offer good regular communication to the members. The previous lack of communication has caused many members to doubt the club, and this in turn has led to the slow down of advertising revenue. Many more people, including me, would have continued to pay for advertising had we had more confidence in you.
The BBC is a brilliant concept and deserves to succeed, but the time has definitely come to relaunch it with new management.
I thank you for conceiving and giving birth to it, but it’s a fact of life that not every inventor is good at the business side.
I sincerely hope you can find an interested buyer, and thereby recoup your costs and go forward with something more suitable to your undoubted skills.
Good luck with everything.
Jill
July 28th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I have made 3 gifts in the last 3 months,and there has been no change my stats.
What Gives ?
donel
August 4th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Hi Tom, I for one would be disappointed to see any of the above happen - and what’s more - I don’t believe you should have to give away the farm in order to keep BBC going.
There are many options available that I can think of off the top of my head, the simplest of which would be to simply initiate a small annual fee - say $5 - a “thirteenth birthday” for BBC to which we all contribute
I for one would be more than happy to pay this small fee and I am sure many other members would too.
If anybody is too stingy to pay that, then they will not be paying people’s birthday gifts either, and will soon be dropped off anyway, so you won’t be losing anybody worth keeping.
Current membership numbers indicate you would raise more than you need instantly by simply asking us all for a $5 annual membership fee now.
Oh, and one other thing - that would the allow you to discontinue the need for the offensive and in-your-face advertising which is apparently failing anyway, so members would no longer be visually assaulted by all those ads every time they log in.
I think you got it right by banning spamming and advertising in the forum and PMs and that paid advertising is pretty much a total contradiction of the ethic behind banning it in those areas in the first place.
Oh, and just before I go - when I joined, I noticed many members asking for a higher level of participation than $5 - like $50 or $100 for people who want to seriously embrace this concept. Maybe it’s time to think about such a level and structure it in such a way that it raises some ongoing revenue for you.
Would be very interested to hear what other members think.
cheers, and best wishes,
Karen
August 6th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Things to be considered by all who want to continue BBC:
-good concept
-possible other payment processors
-updating birthday gifts confirmations for gifts given by new management
-who is going to manage program
-change in policies
This is only a partial list of things to think about and want answers to for the future of BBC.
Good luck and best wishes for your future and ours.
Marion aka edragon
August 6th, 2009 at 2:17 am
Dear Tom,
I am really sorry to hear about the problems you have found in going on with the project. I really hope you can manage to have some valuable help from possible shareholders. I joined BBC when it was in its testing period and with little effort my downline today has more than 1000 people. I got a very good birthday bonus in January, only 22 days after the project was launched. I do believe with some more hands in it it will work. I wish I was able to help in some way. I may bid some shares or even donate if the option is given. Don’t give up.
Paula
August 13th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Dear Tom,
I just joined - just now! Reading the information about the sale going on, as we speak, after signing up and upgrading my AlertPay account, leaves me feeling a tad uncertain. This club is a fun and refreshing idea. I like the idea Karen had regarding a $5 annual membership. Seems very fair and do-able.
Please keep us posted.
Thank you.
Dawn (your newest member)
August 14th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Things to be considered by all who want to continue BBC:
-good concept
-possible other payment processors
-updating birthday gifts confirmations for gifts given by new management
-who is going to manage program
-change in policies
This is only a partial list of things to think about and want answers to for the future of BBC.
Good luck and best wishes for your future and ours.
Marion aka edragon; Things to be considered by all who want to continue BBC:
-good concept
-possible other payment processors
-updating birthday gifts confirmations for gifts given by new management
-who is going to manage program
-change in policies
This is only a partial list of things to think about and want answers to for the future of BBC.
Good luck and best wishes for your future and ours.
Marion aka edragon;;
August 16th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Tom,
I also just this instant joined only to see this post.
A lot of great comments here, particularly to the effect of adding a 13th BD to keep this site going, or a $5 annual fee to the members, etc.
I confess that reading this I feel uncertain about telling any of my friend about it, in fear the whole thing goes away in the near future, so I will wait a little while and look for updates here before I bring anyone in.
I certainly hope this stays around. It looks like a wonderful concept.
Thanks,
Christine
August 17th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Tom,
I concur with Christine (8/16/09)–I also just signed up, only to encounter this post. I would be hesitant to share anything w/friends and family at this time, so I too will “wait and see.” The $5 annual membership fee seems like a very reasonable solution. Hope to hear good news soon…
Regards,
Michael
August 18th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Hi Tom,
Wish I would have received notice in time to bid for shares.
I love the BBC and do hope it continues. Lots of good suggestions here.
Stay with it and work through the problems. It will be worth it to your and the members. It’s such a beautiful idea!
Abundant Blessings,
Suzanne
August 21st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Hullo,
I just went through the whole set up with Alertpay thing.
Just joined. It’s very disappointing to hear about all the transitions.
Creates a sense of instability and change that make it difficult for me
to feel comfortable sending my referral link out to others.
Will we be notified of developments as they occur?
When will you be “gelled” enough for me to send out referral link?
Or can not you not even guessitmate that?
I love your concept and execution of BBC…
Best wishes,
Cynthia Lee
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 am
Hi
I like the idea of birthday bonus club very much and has done a lot of advertising
on thid club…but was quite disappointed, i received nothing for my birthday in june.
this club seem quite successful as i could see many people advertise it.
lee hui
August 24th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Tom,
I too just signed up to find this disturbing notice about selling the site. I do hope that something can be done to keep it going, as it sounds like a great idea and i know my sponsor got a nice $700 on his BD. So, I hope this is around in 8 months for me to enjoy that BD surprise in my account.
I’m game to paying a annual fee of $5 to keep this going as was mentioned by others.
Wish you the best of luck
Gary
August 26th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Tom;
I can understand your frustration, but you have a winner if you make a few adjustments such as take on paypal as a processor as most of us are familiar with it and utilize paypal in many facets of networking. Think again before throwing in the towel. How does this strike you and the members, five dollars initially at time of signup, two dollars per month afterwards, not very much to put out to receive hundreds on your birthday. My thought to the amounts given will absorb the 2.9 % +.30 you would have to pay pay pal leaving more than enough to keep our heads above water in this exclusive endeavor to help others during this time of depression without draining anyone’s savings. you need to stick with it and go with the flow because we are all pulling for you.
MEL
August 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I was surprised to come to the site and find out that it was up for sale! I wish something had gone out in the form of an email to let people know sooner what was happening! Communication is always VITAL about something like this.
My thoughts are that you stick with it as it is a great concept and not found anywhere else on the Internet that I know of.
I do like the idea of a five dollars a month membership so that something is always coming in and you aren’t always footing the bill, so to speak. Think about it,especially since we are experiencing economic difficulties and any little bit of revenue helps everyone involved.
I really sincerely hope you keep this club going with many of us ready to do our part to make it work.
To Your Success!
proud member of birthday bonus club
Estelle
September 8th, 2009 at 3:41 am
I’m another very surprised member (not least because I requested to cancel my membership months ago). I’m here because I received an email today as an existing member, Must suppose my request didn’t work!
The share scheme? I did not receive a message about that.
Anyway, I’m sorry to learn about the troubles and the strain taken by the owners of BBC. Hope it all works out for you in the end. I’ll hang on as a member as a feeble gesture of support.
With my best wishes going forward,
Dave