- Joined
- Jun 28, 2012
Dear Overclockers Family,
It is the dawn of a new day at Overclockers.com. For the first time since 2003, Overclockers Forums is independently owned and operated. As of this month, a small group of the staff (mdcomp, EarthDog, and myself) have acquired Overclockers.com, including the forums and blog.
A History Lesson
Some of you may remember iNet Interactive, who we worked closely with for many years. They were a relatively small shop that helped us keep the site running and supported the community. In 2015, it was acquired by a large media company called Penton. Then in 2016, Penton was acquired by Informa, a $1.5-billion, UK-based firm. Overclockers.com, like several other former-iNet sites, was never fully integrated into the Penton or Informa portfolio. Ultimately, we were not a strategic fit as Informa sites tend to target industry professionals, rather than consumers/enthusiasts. I had been waiting for years for this opportunity to present itself and we sprang into action.
After several months of back and forth, we were finally able to close the deal a few weeks ago. Informa has been helpful in keeping the lights on and supporting us for the past six months as we worked through the details. Big thanks to Informa!
What to Expect
Leadership
The forums leadership will remain the same. Moderators will continue to run the forums and actively participate in all community decisions.
The blog will continue to be run by the same group of editors with key contributions from the community.
Advertising
We will actively pursue partnership opportunities with relevant advertisers to help cover costs. Our vow is not to bombard the membership with advertising, we will do our best to retain the status quo in terms of the ad real estate on the page. One of the perks of registering for the forums will be limited ads for members, while guests may see additional ads.
Content
To the best of our ability, we will continue to bring you product reviews, industry news, and how-to guides. As was customary in the old days, community submissions are encouraged. We will invest as much as we can in content that interests the community.
Some key initiatives are already in progress:
1. Affiliate Revenue - when you click on a link to Newegg, Amazon or another retailer, Overclockers.com will get a revenue share of any purchase you make. This should have no impact whatsoever on user experience but will help us to cover costs.
2. Server Migration - we will be moving to a new, dedicated server, completely separate from other Informa properties (details below).
3. Move to https - upon migration, we will be fully SSL/https compliant.
4. Better mobile experience - we will improve the mobile browsing/posting experience, be that through vBulletin mobile, tapatalk or some other means. This is still TBD.
5. Housekeeping - remove all iNet/Penton/Informa logos, optimize the site where possible, update software, etc.
How You Can Help
Contribute - Participate in discussions, post interesting news, share your opinions and be an active member of the forums.
Share - Tell your friends about the forums, share content on social media and just spread the word.
Volunteer - Want to write a review or editorial? How about donating web development expertise? Let us know if you want to help.
Long-term Values
We hope to adhere as much as possible to Skip, Joe, and Ed's original mission statement from 1998:
Although we share common interests, this place was always about being a community. We want to reinvigorate efforts around that:
That sums it up, we are almost certainly biting off more than we can chew. That is where you come in. None of this will be possible without the continued support of all the members (and guests) who visit Overclockers.com. We hope this can be a call-to-action, inspiring you, like it did us, to become an active contributor.
Scheduled Downtime
The migration to the new servers will begin on 6/30/2018 at 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. At that point, the entire forum will be locked so we can update the server we've been working on with all the latest goodies. We expect this process to take no more than a couple of hours and to be back online that same afternoon, just on shiny, new hardware!
Here's to all the years past and (hopefully) many more years to come!
- Austin, Joe, and Matt
UPDATE - MIGRATION COMPLETE
Please report any bugs in this thread -> http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/790998-Bug-Reporting
It is the dawn of a new day at Overclockers.com. For the first time since 2003, Overclockers Forums is independently owned and operated. As of this month, a small group of the staff (mdcomp, EarthDog, and myself) have acquired Overclockers.com, including the forums and blog.
A History Lesson
Some of you may remember iNet Interactive, who we worked closely with for many years. They were a relatively small shop that helped us keep the site running and supported the community. In 2015, it was acquired by a large media company called Penton. Then in 2016, Penton was acquired by Informa, a $1.5-billion, UK-based firm. Overclockers.com, like several other former-iNet sites, was never fully integrated into the Penton or Informa portfolio. Ultimately, we were not a strategic fit as Informa sites tend to target industry professionals, rather than consumers/enthusiasts. I had been waiting for years for this opportunity to present itself and we sprang into action.
After several months of back and forth, we were finally able to close the deal a few weeks ago. Informa has been helpful in keeping the lights on and supporting us for the past six months as we worked through the details. Big thanks to Informa!
What to Expect
Leadership
The forums leadership will remain the same. Moderators will continue to run the forums and actively participate in all community decisions.
The blog will continue to be run by the same group of editors with key contributions from the community.
Advertising
We will actively pursue partnership opportunities with relevant advertisers to help cover costs. Our vow is not to bombard the membership with advertising, we will do our best to retain the status quo in terms of the ad real estate on the page. One of the perks of registering for the forums will be limited ads for members, while guests may see additional ads.
Content
To the best of our ability, we will continue to bring you product reviews, industry news, and how-to guides. As was customary in the old days, community submissions are encouraged. We will invest as much as we can in content that interests the community.
Some key initiatives are already in progress:
1. Affiliate Revenue - when you click on a link to Newegg, Amazon or another retailer, Overclockers.com will get a revenue share of any purchase you make. This should have no impact whatsoever on user experience but will help us to cover costs.
2. Server Migration - we will be moving to a new, dedicated server, completely separate from other Informa properties (details below).
3. Move to https - upon migration, we will be fully SSL/https compliant.
4. Better mobile experience - we will improve the mobile browsing/posting experience, be that through vBulletin mobile, tapatalk or some other means. This is still TBD.
5. Housekeeping - remove all iNet/Penton/Informa logos, optimize the site where possible, update software, etc.
How You Can Help
Contribute - Participate in discussions, post interesting news, share your opinions and be an active member of the forums.
Share - Tell your friends about the forums, share content on social media and just spread the word.
Volunteer - Want to write a review or editorial? How about donating web development expertise? Let us know if you want to help.
Long-term Values
We hope to adhere as much as possible to Skip, Joe, and Ed's original mission statement from 1998:
Although we share common interests, this place was always about being a community. We want to reinvigorate efforts around that:
- Reach out to members who are no longer active - tell old friends about the recent changes to the site.
- Support Benchmarking and Distributed Computing Teams - share our teams’ successes and efforts more broadly on the forums and externally to help grow membership (and retake #1 world rankings!)
- Support/host meet-ups and events - nothing is more fun than 20 nerds in a hotel conference room with loads of LN2!
- Reward members - recognize outstanding members more frequently with promotions to Senior Members. Tap into our manufacturer relationships for prizes for giveaways or members-only discounts.
That sums it up, we are almost certainly biting off more than we can chew. That is where you come in. None of this will be possible without the continued support of all the members (and guests) who visit Overclockers.com. We hope this can be a call-to-action, inspiring you, like it did us, to become an active contributor.
Scheduled Downtime
The migration to the new servers will begin on 6/30/2018 at 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. At that point, the entire forum will be locked so we can update the server we've been working on with all the latest goodies. We expect this process to take no more than a couple of hours and to be back online that same afternoon, just on shiny, new hardware!
Here's to all the years past and (hopefully) many more years to come!
- Austin, Joe, and Matt
UPDATE - MIGRATION COMPLETE
Please report any bugs in this thread -> http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/790998-Bug-Reporting
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