On Thursday Nov 21, I lost my mother. I was out of country for a conference when she died in her sleep. I hope she died peacefully and without much struggle.
She suffered a lot - early marriage, 3 kids even before she turned 25 and a whole lot of other stuff. After 2009, her health took a tumble. Surgeries, frequent hospitalization and so many medications. Her last 4 months (since end of July) was even bad - mentally she had given up the fight and was in constant fear of dying, especially without me being around her.
Unfortunately, her worst fears came true and when her time came, I was not there. Thanks to a good travel agent friend who pulled strings and managed to get me a flight back home.
Since that time, I have been thinking about a lot and more so about this website.
99% of all the photos that I share is from her. In the last 6-7 years, this website kept her active, kept her doing something and she felt she had to do something.
Now, that is not there.
My professional work keeps me tied up for most part of the day and that brings the money for everything including running this website.
While the site has ads, it does not make enough. The cost of the hosting each month is approx $200 (we are a huge site in terms of the database size, so regular shared hosting or low cost hosting does not work for us) and the ads on the website makes less than $100 each month. Only once or twice in a year, the site makes a little bit more.
But, ad revenues have been on a decline for several years.
Less than 10 members have ever taken up the paid upgrade.
Several members (active and those passing by) have asked me to do various things, but due to bandwidth issues (both time and money) I have not done much.
The site was started in 2006 to provide a platform. In the first few years, through the website we helped several people with funds for education, healthcare and I also took part in matrimony activities.
With providing funds, I have a strong view that the site should not be seen as a free ATM. So I have tried to stay away from it.
The matrimony activities were good but there was a lot of ego and in-fighting and I pulled out of it. Those members tried starting a website like this but it shut down after 2 years. The same members may be here using a different id.
Now, I am contemplating a few directions for this website.
1. Run it as is - hope we get good members who are willing to contribute.
2. Hire a full time person who can contribute content and stuff.
3. Sell this to people (individual or group of individuals or entity) who can take this site in a direction that I have not done so.
Challenges:
1. If I run it as is, then there may not be much to do. We may not get new members who might be willing to contribute. It's a 50-50 chance. Acquiring new members might also mean I promote/advertise this website.
2. Good people and esp. unbiased do not come for free and cheap. It's going to cost.
3. I have tried this in the past but no takers and the one or two who wanted offered very less money than what I was expecting.
I am putting this in the open so you know what is happening. I will probably delete this thread after a few days but I thought I should let the existing members know what's going on.
Thank you for everything.
She suffered a lot - early marriage, 3 kids even before she turned 25 and a whole lot of other stuff. After 2009, her health took a tumble. Surgeries, frequent hospitalization and so many medications. Her last 4 months (since end of July) was even bad - mentally she had given up the fight and was in constant fear of dying, especially without me being around her.
Unfortunately, her worst fears came true and when her time came, I was not there. Thanks to a good travel agent friend who pulled strings and managed to get me a flight back home.
Since that time, I have been thinking about a lot and more so about this website.
99% of all the photos that I share is from her. In the last 6-7 years, this website kept her active, kept her doing something and she felt she had to do something.
Now, that is not there.
My professional work keeps me tied up for most part of the day and that brings the money for everything including running this website.
While the site has ads, it does not make enough. The cost of the hosting each month is approx $200 (we are a huge site in terms of the database size, so regular shared hosting or low cost hosting does not work for us) and the ads on the website makes less than $100 each month. Only once or twice in a year, the site makes a little bit more.
But, ad revenues have been on a decline for several years.
Less than 10 members have ever taken up the paid upgrade.
Several members (active and those passing by) have asked me to do various things, but due to bandwidth issues (both time and money) I have not done much.
The site was started in 2006 to provide a platform. In the first few years, through the website we helped several people with funds for education, healthcare and I also took part in matrimony activities.
With providing funds, I have a strong view that the site should not be seen as a free ATM. So I have tried to stay away from it.
The matrimony activities were good but there was a lot of ego and in-fighting and I pulled out of it. Those members tried starting a website like this but it shut down after 2 years. The same members may be here using a different id.
Now, I am contemplating a few directions for this website.
1. Run it as is - hope we get good members who are willing to contribute.
2. Hire a full time person who can contribute content and stuff.
3. Sell this to people (individual or group of individuals or entity) who can take this site in a direction that I have not done so.
Challenges:
1. If I run it as is, then there may not be much to do. We may not get new members who might be willing to contribute. It's a 50-50 chance. Acquiring new members might also mean I promote/advertise this website.
2. Good people and esp. unbiased do not come for free and cheap. It's going to cost.
3. I have tried this in the past but no takers and the one or two who wanted offered very less money than what I was expecting.
I am putting this in the open so you know what is happening. I will probably delete this thread after a few days but I thought I should let the existing members know what's going on.
Thank you for everything.
