Fate of the MrColumbia web site

[MrColumbia]

It's been over 10 years that I have had my MrColumbia web site. It has brought me much enjoyment and I've made a lot of friends and found some great bikes over these years, most possible because of the site.

Now things are changing and it is time to move on or bring it to an end. I am looking for opinions and suggestions to help me decide what to do with it.

A couple of things are making me think this way. One is the cost of hosting the site has gone up dramatically this year. Another is my web hosting site will no longer support the web building software that it is constructed with. This brings up the obvious, the site is starting to look very dated. What I thought was pretty decent looking 10 years ago is pretty primitive by todays standards. Back then everybody looked at the internet on a PC with a large screen, today on a cell phone is standard. I see web sites today that are pretty slick and eye catching. Lots of cool animation and and other things that catch the eye of todays faster paced, lower attention span viewer.

At the time of me writing this my counter is at 1,122,661 and I am pretty proud of that. As I have stated, there have been many benefits for me but the work of answering the thousands of emails annually for what I am getting out of it is starting to get old as well.

Please don't misunderstand, I am not quitting the hobby or selling off all my stuff. What I am looking for is good practical ideas on how to proceed with the MrColumbia web site. It's fate is in your hands.

Thanks in advance for everybody's consideration in this matter.

 

[kreika]

@Dave Stromberger

 

[CWCMAN]

Pass the torch to someone who is motivated and willing to bring it to the next level.

 

[bike]

Dave may be able to find you a better host at a lesser price. Some ads may pay for hosting.
I think it is just fine, but your point on phones is well taken (personally the phone is too small-images hard to see and my fat fingers cannot punch the keys)

http://www.vintagecolumbiabikes.com/

 

[Dave Stromberger]

PM sent.

 

[tryder]

Some of us are not particularly fond of "smartphones" or s...
Due to the fact that Pope/Westfield/Columbia is oldest and perhaps most historically important American Bicycle Manufacturing Company in the history of the world I would like to see The Mr. Columbia website either modernized or folded into the Cabe.
I certainly have enjoyed your website over the years and appreciate everything you have done.

 

[bikiba]

1. You can get a free blogspot account with google. If you were willing to modify the way you create the site. It also looks good on the phone. http://www.blogger.com. With every google account you create you get 15GB of space and if you upload optimized images you get unlimited storage. You can store files and link from google drive. etc etc

2. you could turn it in to a FB page. I think FB has unlimited storage... you can still use the google account to store/youtube for videos etc. Looks great on a phone.

im sure there are a lot more options

 

[catfish]

Say it aint so! Very sorry to hear this. Ken you have done the hobby a great service and your site will be missed. Hopefully someone will take the site over and keep it alive. Thank you for all you have done,
Catfish

 

[Shawn Michael]

I too am great full for all you have done. Your site has been a great resource for many of us in the hobby, and I would like to see someone take the torch. The majority of the time I do just use my cell phone too, but I know lots of people that only have a pc or no data package for a phone.
Best of luck,
Shawn

 

[Saving Tempest]

Some of us are not particularly fond of "smartphones" or s...
Due to the fact that Pope/Westfield/Columbia is oldest and perhaps most historically important American Bicycle Manufacturing Company in the history of the world I would like to see The Mr. Columbia website either modernized or folded into the Cabe.
I certainly have enjoyed your website over the years and appreciate everything you have done.

At Phoenix Audio Community Forums we archived the Sound Thinking forums when they closed. This is a great way to preserve a site, even if as read-only. And since our owner already has a few sites under his belt (and he does operate Bicycles Inc. for Pete's sake) I would hope to see the site under the wing of Nostalgic.net perhaps.

And how old is your platform? I'm a member of a small forums group that still uses a rather old version of phpBB, and that was the second of those I've been part of. I was also part of a forums site still using vBulletin 3.8x and have been in groups using JELSOFT as of 15 years ago. Your host is probably a bigger problem.