What annoys the ***** outta you/pisses you off...

[administrator]

Um, no... the chat room thing is literally in real time. I know the one over there has the chat room that everyone can enter and chat like you were on a phone and up in the corner in a button to join a private chat 1 on 1. When you see it, they make sense. I also don't think it stores the messages so no sever storage space needed.

It would make a political thread pointless as people could debate and when they are done the chat room is exited.

I see. We had something similar to that years ago, like an instant messenger type deal. But it grew more and more unpopular to the point no one was using it, so I removed it. Can’t even remember what it was called. Another issue with something like that is it’s going to cost to get it up and going and it’s really hard to monetize it also.

I’m not against the off-topic threads, but when 99% of posts are in one off-topic thread, that can be an issue for the rest of the site. I’ve started including ads in the off-topic forum without issue so far, as they seem to have relaxed their stance. Only issue is, the site traffic just isn’t there to sustain it. Too bad more visitors just aren’t interested in posting in the off-topic.

 

[administrator]

Agreed. I think all the big players prefer everything running through the other big players and in essence there is the illusion of infinite access, but reality is everything is Facebook, Reddit, Quora, Instagram, etc. DIYmobile is truly an outlier. Seems like the car forums do all right, but forums in general are dying.

The same company that bought diyma bought caraudioclassifeds.org and it’s nearly a deserted wasteland. Come to think of it, no has really used the classifieds forum here either lately.

 

[Old_Slapper]

I honestly don’t know much about helping with car audio, just keeping the site going. Which these days I fail at both

Are you into car audio or just this forum? What other forums do you have?

 

[Old_Slapper]

The same company that bought diyma bought caraudioclassifeds.org and it’s nearly a deserted wasteland. Come to think of it, no has really used the classifieds forum here either lately.

Car audio is our hobby. Therefore, we don't have any money to buy the stuff we really want. Just the cheap knockoff products we have been purchasing. Heck, I used new PPI gear in mine and my kid's vehicles. I wish I could have used Kicker, Fosgate, or JBL. The stuff I have seen, on here, is really nice stuff, but...

 

[administrator]

Are you into car audio or just this forum? What other forums do you have?

I’m not huge car audio geek, but always had an interest in having the best audio available. Thanks goodness this is the only forum I maintain

 

[supernov4]

The same company that bought diyma bought caraudioclassifeds.org and it’s nearly a deserted wasteland. Come to think of it, no has really used the classifieds forum here either lately.

Verticalscope office is not even that far from where I live.... should I go beat them up?
We need to start forum gangs like street gangs

 

[administrator]

Verticalscope office is not even that far from where I live.... should I go beat them up?
We need to start forum gangs like street gangs

Nah, they’re doing about as bad overall as this site is. Their stock is also in the toilet.

 

[administrator]

They’ve tried multiple times in the past to buy this site. But these days they’re doing so bad, they told me they aren’t currently buying anymore forums.

 

[administrator]

Example of activity in just one of the forums here back in the day:

 

[Deiimos]

For a good long while I removed the off-topic thunderdome threads from the new threads block on the homepage, even made it members only viewable. That didn’t help either, as site traffic still resembled an inverse chart of the US debt. So then I figured, hey, if off-topic is all anyone wants to talk about, why not start including it again in on the homepage and also make the site appear more active.

I guess the reason diyma is still fine is they haven’t lost 90% of their regular active membership like we have, due to a number of reasons, a lot out of our control. All other car audio forums are doing terrible that I know of. Home audio forums however are doing great, is why I started a new forum here on that.

Another thorn in the side is ads just don’t pay anymore. The site has made $6.38 this month on ad revenue. The costs to keep the site going are close to $200 a month. I guess we could get a lower cost server, but then if page loading speed is compromised, Google hurts the site rankings even further and that means even less traffic. There’s no doubt in my mind they’re trying to kill any website that they don’t have a direct interest in. Gone are the days when they were a trusted search engine. No one is trying that hard to take their place either and the Gov’t is just fine letting them be a monopoly.

Have you thought about doing a GoFund me type thing to try to get donations from the masses to help keep the site going since it has MANY years of information / history on it? I’m sure everyone has seen how Wikipedia asks for donations like once a year, same with Internet Archive Wayback Machine. And to be quite honest, I know nothing about GoFund me type stuff, so that may be a ridiculous suggestion on my part, but one thing I can say for certain, I’ve seen people get thousands of dollars for ridiculous stuff via the Gofund me type of sites.

At least CarAudio.com has been around forever, and has a lot of great info, especially for people with older vehicles and such. Lot’s of cool history here. While I’m a newer member here, I’ve been browsing the forums for 20+ years, just never signed up.

Forums use to thrive on sponsors or vendors, meaning brands would pay for a sub forum / advertisement and it would help pay for the site. All the brands either grew up and don’t need it, or just left to other platforms. I’m certain this option will likely never come back.

I wish I could post more, but often no threads that would need my input, already answered, or something modern / I have zero experience with which I can't answer, or brand recommendations which I don't like to do. This makes it to where I tend to not post much. I could post a thread of a box I built last year, or stuff like that, but its usually scrap wood build for old budget subs, very basic, and I'm sure nobody wants to see that stuff, so it's like, why bother.

With a URL of caraudio.com, that is as direct as it it gets for a domain name, you’d think there’d be some way to have it pay for itself, even with minimal traffic.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Example of activity in just one of the forums here back in the day:

View attachment 69946

The internet is dying man. Forums are dying. Just like big stores killed all the local stores, everyone has consolidated to using mostly a relative few big corporation platforms for all communications, it seems. What's sad is once all the small things are gone, like small Internet forums, then the big corps can ban who they want whenever. Like all the audio companies that advertise on Facebook- FB is evil, it's a big corp that has the power to just delete all your shit with almost no recourse, and when stuff like that happens, there's nowhere to go. Big tech and the corruption in gov are working hand in hand to basically monopolize all aspects of life for complete control. Like FB is a climate change promoter which basically means FB doesn't even want you to own a car. How are you gonna sell audio products when FB is all that's left to advertise on and they're aligned with political agendas where people aren't even going to have cars to own themselves to put stereos inside of? But whatever, make the money, screw everything else.

 

[supernov4]

Have you thought about doing a GoFund me type thing to try to get donations from the masses to help keep the site going since it has MANY years of information / history on it? I’m sure everyone has seen how Wikipedia asks for donations like once a year, same with Internet Archive Wayback Machine. And to be quite honest, I know nothing about GoFund me type stuff, so that may be a ridiculous suggestion on my part, but one thing I can say for certain, I’ve seen people get thousands of dollars for ridiculous stuff via the Gofund me type of sites.

At least CarAudio.com has been around forever, and has a lot of great info, especially for people with older vehicles and such. Lot’s of cool history here. While I’m a newer member here, I’ve been browsing the forums for 20+ years, just never signed up.

Forums use to thrive on sponsors or vendors, meaning brands would pay for a sub forum / advertisement and it would help pay for the site. All the brands either grew up and don’t need it, or just left to other platforms. I’m certain this option will likely never come back.

I wish I could post more, but often no threads that would need my input, already answered, or something modern / I have zero experience with which I can't answer, or brand recommendations which I don't like to do. This makes it to where I tend to not post much. I could post a thread of a box I built last year, or stuff like that, but its usually scrap wood build for old budget subs, very basic, and I'm sure nobody wants to see that stuff, so it's like, why bother.

With a URL of caraudio.com, that is as direct as it it gets for a domain name, you’d think there’d be some way to have it pay for itself, even with minimal traffic.

Yes we definitely want to see your scrap wood boxes, even if it's got bend nails sticking out and duct tape sealing gaps in joints

 

[administrator]

Have you thought about doing a GoFund me type thing to try to get donations from the masses to help keep the site going since it has MANY years of information / history on it? I’m sure everyone has seen how Wikipedia asks for donations like once a year, same with Internet Archive Wayback Machine. And to be quite honest, I know nothing about GoFund me type stuff, so that may be a ridiculous suggestion on my part, but one thing I can say for certain, I’ve seen people get thousands of dollars for ridiculous stuff via the Gofund me type of sites.

At least CarAudio.com has been around forever, and has a lot of great info, especially for people with older vehicles and such. Lot’s of cool history here. While I’m a newer member here, I’ve been browsing the forums for 20+ years, just never signed up.

Forums use to thrive on sponsors or vendors, meaning brands would pay for a sub forum / advertisement and it would help pay for the site. All the brands either grew up and don’t need it, or just left to other platforms. I’m certain this option will likely never come back.

I wish I could post more, but often no threads that would need my input, already answered, or something modern / I have zero experience with which I can't answer, or brand recommendations which I don't like to do. This makes it to where I tend to not post much. I could post a thread of a box I built last year, or stuff like that, but its usually scrap wood build for old budget subs, very basic, and I'm sure nobody wants to see that stuff, so it's like, why bother.

With a URL of caraudio.com, that is as direct as it it gets for a domain name, you’d think there’d be some way to have it pay for itself, even with minimal traffic.

The biggest way members can help is becoming a Premium member. I realize money is tight these days and with the low amount of new posts, I can see why that’s a tough sell. We had lots of sponsors over the years, but as traffic goes so do they. A gofundme may be a possibility also, if we even have enough members left that want to save the site.

Google removing and deranking the links over the past few years is a main culprit, along with AI search. The domain is indeed good for someone in the car audio industry. It was great for forum use, that’s for sure.

 

[administrator]

The internet is dying man. Forums are dying. Just like big stores killed all the local stores, everyone has consolidated to using mostly a relative few big corporation platforms for all communications, it seems. What's sad is once all the small things are gone, like small Internet forums, then the big corps can ban who they want whenever. Like all the audio companies that advertise on Facebook- FB is evil, it's a big corp that has the power to just delete all your shit with almost no recourse, and when stuff like that happens, there's nowhere to go. Big tech and the corruption in gov are working hand in hand to basically monopolize all aspects of life for complete control. Like FB is a climate change promoter which basically means FB doesn't even want you to own a car. How are you gonna sell audio products when FB is all that's left to advertise on and they're aligned with political agendas where people aren't even going to have cars to own themselves to put stereos inside of? But whatever, make the money, screw everything else.

I can name a lot of forums that are still on fire, including audio focused.

I do agree 100% on everything being condensed, with large tech and corps taking over. They shill lots of money to the gov’t to keep the ball rolling and to keep squeezing out the little guy.

 

[supernov4]

The biggest way members can help is becoming a Premium member. I realize money is tight these days and with the low amount of new posts, I can see why that’s a tough sell. We had lots of sponsors over the years, but as traffic goes so do they. A gofundme may be a possibility also, if we even have enough members left that want to save the site.

Google removing and deranking the links over the past few years is a main culprit, along with AI search. The domain is indeed good for someone in the car audio industry. It was great for forum use, that’s for sure.

I agree with @Buck some sort of direct donation button would be good
Alot of people myself included aren't really into the subscription idea because so much of that

The biggest way members can help is becoming a Premium member. I realize money is tight these days and with the low amount of new posts, I can see why that’s a tough sell. We had lots of sponsors over the years, but as traffic goes so do they. A gofundme may be a possibility also, if we even have enough members left that want to save the site.

Google removing and deranking the links over the past few years is a main culprit, along with AI search. The domain is indeed good for someone in the car audio industry. It was great for forum use, that’s for sure.

I agree with @Buck a direct donation button would be nice
Go fund me may take some off the top but still a good idea if its easier that way for you