The Future of BeoWorld Membership Levels – Your Thoughts?

[9_LEE]

First of all, thank you to all members who contributed to the Prize Draw discussion we recently had, and thank you for helping us reach the decision of an Annual Draw going forwards. This will certainly prevent BeoWorld from being in a loss-making situation and will secure the site as it is for us all to enjoy, right now.

So, going forwards into the future is the next thing to think about.  Software will need updating, many annual licences need to be paid for to enable the various elements we need for functionality and ease of use, we need to update and maintain the server we run, we will need to update the actual look and feel of the site, and if we need a total revamp at some point – this will be expensive, as it always is.

Technology doesn’t stand still as we sadly found out with our old forum which became totally unworkable after the platform and software was long discontinued. Keith kept it on life support for many years with custom written patches and workarounds – but in the end the new-tech hackers got into the old-tech software with its inherent weaknesses and we had to very quickly flip to where we are now.

After a long discussion the other week both Keith and I identified that in order to actually make a small amount of money to put in our ‘improvements’ fund we’d need to have a think about not only breaking even every year – but to make a small amount to invest back into the site in the future. This led us to think about the current varying levels of membership and how best to fairly monetise them whilst also giving access to everyone on the world wide web.

So, we have the saying “If you’re not paying, YOU are the product”. I’m not sure where it was first said, but it’s very true. Companies who offer amazing platforms for free need to be getting their money from somewhere and most of it is simply the selling of your data, or having huge amounts of advertising. BeoWorld has neither, and never will have.

Currently we have three levels of membership as you know.

Bronze : Allows you to post on the Forum

Silver : Allows you to access User and Service Manuals

Gold : Allows Silver Benefits plus free entry into Prize Draw.

Our initial thoughts were to trim this down into two levels. One where the basics are free to anyone and everyone, and one for the person who really wants to use the site to either set up equipment, repair equipment, gain specialist advice and insight, and to generally get something they’d pay a specialist to do for them if they didn’t have access to BeoWorld. If they are prepared to pay elsewhere, then we didn’t think it unfair to charge ourselves – but obviously less.

You’ve then got to break it down into what should be free, and what should be ‘chargeable’ so to speak.

A free service, in our opinion, should be the ability to discuss products, share opinions and get general help in the set up and use of your Bang & Olufsen products. A broad brush, but one of general help and support for everyday Bang & Olufsen users. At the end of the day we want people to talk about the brand, be enthused and impressed, and buy the products – which is rather in line with the ethos of the actual company.  Although on an official level I’ve heard absolutely nothing from Bang & Olufsen for some time now, I’m sure we are still appreciated?

To the “Paid” service.  Now that the Prize Draw is once a year I think it doesn’t give Gold Membership the (insanely good) value it used to have, so we can perhaps absorb it into another level of paid Membership and make it a very pleasant ‘Bonus’.

So, what other paid ‘perks’ can we add?  Well, we have them already – we have a huge database of user and service manuals, plus we have stacks and stacks (in multiple large boxes) of others, all waiting to be scanned in and uploaded to our server.

This leads us to my initial thought of just two levels of Membership, and here are my suggestions.

Basic (Free) Level.  My thoughts on a name could be ‘Standard Member’, or ‘Basic Member’ or I’m open to suggestions.  Whilst I’m not looking for a derogatory term in any way it needs to reflect that this member is non-paying (yet is still obviously very welcome!).  This will get the member access to the current forum and be able to ask and/or answer any questions he or she may have.

The ‘Paying’ Level. On the paid level I am thinking this will gain you access to the whole uploaded User and Service Manual Library (we are working on a far better referencing system right now to let members know exactly what we do and don’t have). It will also offer the Prize Draw once a year, of course.

In addition to this we wondered if we may be able to offer access to the Archived Forum – or wether you think this should be available to everyone? It could certainly be a ‘perk’ for paying members if it can be ‘walled off’ so to speak. Is this a good idea or a bad one, I don’t know.

With regards the huge amount of additional manuals we really have, but don’t have (literally) hundreds of hours to scan and upload we could list them as ‘uploadable’ and in hand. We could charge a flat fee to pull the hard copy from our archives, then scan and upload the manual to the database.

I’m sure there may be more ‘perks’ we could add for paid members though, and I’m sure you could maybe think of some? Suggestions please…

Finally – the name of this new level..  I’m thinking ‘VIP Member’ perhaps?  Or ‘Full Access Member’?  Again – suggestions please.

Once we have a clearer roadmap of the two levels, and what they can offer, then we need to think about pricing. That’s another discussion – but for now let’s change the shape of the BeoWorld Memberships, simplify and streamline, and get the next stage of this website underway.

Over to you!

[Millemissen]

Hi 9LEE and Keith
Thank you both for thinking ahead – we need that!

9LEE wrote:
‘So, we have the saying “If you’re not paying, YOU are the product”. I’m not sure where it was first said, but it’s very true. Companies who offer amazing platforms for free need to be getting their money from somewhere and most of it is simply the selling of your data, or having huge amounts of advertising. BeoWorld has neither, and never will have.’

This is one main reason I stick to the Beoworld forum.
I’d like as much basic knowledge of B&O and the possibilities etc as possible to be free – including the access to the old and the old, old forum.

——

Call the interested person, who wants to write/ask or even contribute a ‘Basic Member’.
No trying to ‘sell-stuff-or-wanting-to-buy-stuff-posts’ however, should be allowed for the basic members.

The member with full access to everything could be called ‘VIP Member’.

Whatever you decide, it is a good idea to have only two levels.

Of course it needs to be visible on the website what the difference/the benefits of being a full/VIP member is…..including that one then contributes financially to the future of the forum.

MM

[chartz]

Hi Lee and Keith,

The basic forum user could just be called Beoworld Member, and we could be called Active Member or Donator or something like that?

I think the archived forums should be opened to everyone though.

Yearly draw it is then, and perhaps the full access to manuals is enough. Perhaps something that would cost nothing, like a free manual download per month for every member?

Best wishes,

Jacques

[Guy]

Hi Lee, Keith and all Beoworlders,

Firstly, happy with an Annual Draw – good decision!

Ref membership, how about just ‘Basic Member’ and ‘Premium Member’?

I agree with MM that archived Forums should be available to all registered members for free.

Additional benefits of ‘Premium’ status should include:

• Annual Prize Draw
• Manuals, where available
• Ability to Buy/Sell and post ‘Wanted’ ads – we need to tighten up on this, as there are very few places that you can ‘trade’ (private sales etc) within a respected enthusiast community.

Finally I think a flat fee to pull, scan and upload hard copy manuals is a very sensible way forward – there’s quite a lot of work involved hence I am sure that whatever fee is chosen will be very good value for the paying Member.

That’s all for now!  Have a good weekend all ?

[Madskp]

Hello Lee and Keith

Im fine with the idea of reducing the memberships types to two, maybe it will make it more transparent what you pay for. No great ideas for naming.

I think it could be a good idea to have information about paying membership benefits presented up front, so it’s easy to see  what you can get by paying, and prefereable also on the forum pages as a lot of people may not get to the forum by the main page but by Google.

It could also be worth to make mention that it is not only about benefits, but also the support of running Beoworld and keeping it alive.

I think someone mentioned it in the other thread, but I also think that a visible donation button on both the main page, and on the forum pages with a note about supporting Beoworld could be a great idea.

An other idea for added benefit for paying members could also be acces to unofficial solutions developed by the users. As an example of that is Matadors exelent diagram in this thread https://forum.beoworld.org/forums/topic/beolab-3500-and-1611-converter-settings/page/4/#post-14017

Of course that one is out in the wild, but I am working on something alike to document other solutions from that thread. This way people can choose not to pay and find the solution the hard way by going through the thread, or pay to get a nice and easy understandable (hopefully) page where it’s all shown.

Let me know if that is something that could be interesting?

Great idea about the hard copy manual’s. There will probably be something interesting in that archive.

 

 

[NQVHNWI]

Good Day everyone, Lee and Keith

I have given this posting a degree of thought but have to admit a degree of ignorance to the working behind the scenes and the relationships with Sponsors, suppliers and B&O themselves. I’m also ignorant to the costs of a web-forum, hosting and development costs.

Shooting from the hip, here is my view-point: –

• The current forum is stale, has a limited number of niche Users and a very unappealing interface. There are too many sub-forums based on legacy site designs. Consolidate and simplify would be my first thought?
• There is or has been too much “control” or moderation on-site, based on keeping things civil – whereas in the other forums I regularly visit and participate in don’t seem to have that problem. There is too much onus on forum members “protecting” B&O operating revenues with keeping B&O secrecy. As far as I can determine, product releases are released unofficially either by Dealers/re-sellers, those with ties to B&O or B&O themselves. We are too quick to stifle “finds” on the Web, for the sake of upsetting B&O – when it is in fact it is in all in the public domain. Therefore a light hand or an even-lighter hand (let it rip) would be welcome. Stiffen-up buttercup.
• I perceive B&O doing very little to help this forum? My view is that Beoworld has long-served its purpose for B&O who I believe want to focus on HNWI’s rather than those of us who may tend towards the more to vintage and David-Lewis legacy era equipment. There may be a few “visits” or “previews” here and there given by B&O to some of the more enthusiastic members/moderators/Sponsors – either directly or indirectly but little that actually helps the site? Therefore like the so-called “Special relationship” between UK and US politicians, its not really Special and arguably not a relationship either? BeoWorld needs to decide where its position is?
• Manuals. Most legacy manuals are already out in the public domain (up to the Beolab5/7/9 era – I have not for instance seen the BL90 or Eclipse/Harmony manual out there??).  I think/assume there is very little out there (B&O probably want more control of this now than premature product leaks?). I do not see this as a USP for paid membership tiers.
• Circle-back to point 1 again. I participate in a number of forums (B&O/Auralic/some watch forums/Wood-working and motorcar forums – where my hobbies/interest lie). I am also drifting more towards Mikipedias Discord B&O site (more on that in the next point).   https://community.auralic.com/ and https://community.naimaudio.com/ are examples of Company-provided but not Company-controlled/dominated web forums. They are relatively fresh, clean and easy to search/reference. There is a very “light-touch” in terms of moderation and in-particular, the Auralic forum is very well behaved and sparsely populated with interactive Auralic employees.
• I assume there are costs to these sites like Auralic and Naim (there is very little advertising on these sites – if any) and either has a modest support by the OEM or use your data for a “free” web-site access. I would state here that web-forums today are so well-developed and extensive, that the prospect of preventing “you are the product” is well-past its sell-by date. Every data-miner in the world probably has multiple layers of intel on us all and out habits. With the advent of ChatGPT and other advanced algorithms, it is only a matter of time that these programs scan the entire interweb over multiple, separate and un-related forums and could therefore work-out our various aliases, interests, political leanings etc…etc…and know who we are. Therefore, I would dismiss “we are the product” argument as a constraint. Its going to happen one way or another.
• Discord is developing more and more as the future of chat forums. Mikipedia has develop his own excellent site (too many sub-forums for my taste, somewhat harder to reference info etc but quite dynamic and seems to have a much higher frequency of well-mannered regulars contributing than Beoworld). I don’t know how Mikipedia supports this Discord site (free, small annual fee, data-gathering) but he does, alone and it works very well.  There is also a perception that his site leans more towards the “later-day” products and gossip rather than older legacy products. Either-way, he’s not charging £0/£15/£30 per annum membership fees for a growing and improving product over BeoWorld?
• Now I am fully aware that B&O is still a stuffy and undynamic and Conservative company. B&O have failed twice as far as I can recollect in its own Web-forum aspirations. I’m also aware they are now more interested in HNWI’s – now that us “Useful-Saps” have bailed them out (again) by buying countless discounted BeoPlay products that they can now once again neglect us (in a recession) and focus on the folly of chasing the dream of too-many-high-end-high-price products with a 30-minute shelf-life for the uninterested uber-rich and destroy their loyal buyer base (again)??  However, I do wonder if – there is a possibility for one-off support for BeoWorld by B&O to setup a new modern web-forum for BeoWorld to manage and tune to both B&O’s future pathway and BeoWorlds legacy stance? Im sure it’s a well trodden asking B&O path but I’m only asking?
• As per my earlier points, I’m against paid and tiered membership. Its not because of personal snobbery or affordability on my part but that (again my perception), is that this leads to a “tribal” take-over of the forum and ends up losing more regular contributors than it gains. I see Beoworld right now in this position and its withering-away.
• As a means to funding the site – I wonder – as a suggestion if it is possible/feasible for Beoworld to have an online shop? A shop that at one end can sell BeoWorld merch, but at the other (hopefully sponsored by B&O), selling a few BeoPlay-level products, with margins helping to support forum costs? This may not help the Dealers but not wont help BeoWorld and with Amazon, both stand to lose-out if you don’t?
• The prize-draw is nice but not essential. I viewed this as a way to generate membership fees with a draw-down of Lee’s stock (and business profitability) as a generous benefactor? I think streamlining the Web-forum this is not required – and to be frank, very few Web-forums offer anything like this (Fees or prizes). I think it is an unsustainable practice in numerous ways.

Anyway, this list is given as useful/not-useful feedback as an honest opinion that hopefully helps give the Owners of BeoWorld my perspective at least. Make of it what you will for what it is worth?

With regards and respect.

10%

 

 

 

[MaxH]

I agree with most of Mr10Pecent’s comments.

With huge, and the upmost respect to the time, effort and financial outlay that the present owners have contributed, the questions that should now be asked are:

Who’s purpose does the site now serve?

What is the appropriate vehicle to serve the purpose?

Is it a growing or declining purpose?

Yes, there are technical questions that get answers but the Discord forum can also provide this as well and its interactive design is more appropriate to the modern-day forum/blog user. It’s a great resource for legacy products, but apart from this, and useful interventions from Geoff Martin, I think it has a very limited and diminishing value due to the growth of contemporary media.

I assume it does not serve the purpose of B&O because financial help is not the only way that contributions’ to forums can serve a purpose (see the comment regarding Geoff, above). In fact, the absence of any official support, whilst the forum being hyper-sensitive to anything that B&O (may) disapprove of, is difficult to comprehend. I regret that Discord is also going in a similar direction.

Does it serve the purpose of the owners to attempt to construct a new forum model, involving fees and different tiers, when the real problem is that the structure and framework (indeed, the attitude) of an old-style forum is rapidly becoming outdated?

In this three-way, who does it serve? question, there must be at least two out of three stakeholders getting significant benefits and a judgement made whether the time, effort and financial outlay is worth it.

Can the forum play its part and bring its benefits within the framework of Discord would be one key question I would ask and if the owners feel committed to continuing in their current efforts then they have my best wishes.

Please don’t shoot the messenger. I have tremendous respect for what has been a useful resource for me.

 

 

[matador]

Mr10Percent wrote:

Shooting from the hip, here is my view-point: –

Everybody should think twice when he daily drives a Dacia and he quotes a guy who drives a beautiful Aston Martin…

Nevertheless Mr 10 Percent has said every little bit of what I would want to say but better than I would do.

One thing only on your/his first point about moderation: as a freshman moderator I do know that some of the more delicate point are always a big talk between moderators to find the best compromise. The ‘incident’ you talk about hasn’t leaded to any post moderation or deletion after we talk between us and agreed on what yourself conclude: if it’s on Beoworld it is already somewhere else. I can’t remember, but maybe I’m just not aware of it, content being deleted because it was to early disclosing. That said, I aisles agree on the fact that Beoworld is not the place to know about future products or rumors or Beogossip.

We, here in France are wondering if this this not the end of the fifth republic, a system that has ruled us for years but may not work anymore… I wonder if Beoworld is not, the same way, at the end of an (good willing) era and make some (common monetizing) compromises to keep the knowledge alive.

 

Thank you Mr10%

[Guy]

matador wrote:

when he daily drives a Dacia

Me too! (I sold the VW on the left ?)

(and apologies to the moderators for thread drift … ?)

[matador]

You and your black boxes…

[Guy]

matador wrote:

You and your black boxes…

Ha ha! Actually fashionably very dark grey ?

[9_LEE]

Thank you to all who contributed to this thread thus far. I’ve desperately been trying to make time to sit down, digest it properly, then give my thoughts to what has been said.

I’ll try to offer my responses on key points :

Mr10Percent

1. Unappealing interface. Yes, I actually agree. This is what the standard, slightly stylised ‘look and feel’ is. It’s customisable, and this is my next job along with Keith to sort. We may need to pay a web developer to do it, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Essentially though, I agree it looks pretty dull.
2. Control/Moderation. – Being a site which supports B&O as a company and a brand there have been a couple of times where B&O have asked me to delete something so it doesn’t completely ruin a product launch they’ve spent many thousands of hours, and many hundreds of thousands of DKK on.  I have respected their request and deleted whatever article was leaked – and for this they have been grateful for (at the time).  However, official contact from B&O has been non-existent for the past few years – so do I feel I owe them anything?  Well, you guess. Geoff Martin is our only link to the company at present, and he does keep in regular contact. He is far too professional to ‘blab’ secrets, so he basically chimes in with help, opinions and facts – for which we are all grateful.
3. As above – our ‘position’ with regards B&O officially is currently, well… nothing. Obviously it goes without saying that the fantastic trips to Struer, previous prizes for the draw (many years ago) and product launch reviews they took me on are all very special memories and ones we are grateful for. In fairness, I don’t feel aggrieved in any way. B&O as a business is struggling – and keeping some fans happy will be rather low on their list of priorities.
4. Manuals.  You’re wrong on this one. We have plenty of manuals (uploaded and not uploaded yet) which all the other sites don’t have. We even have some which B&O don’t have!  I think we can offer some value there.
5. ‘We are the product’.  Okay, this is something we are very much against. We don’t collect data, we don’t use data, we’d never sell any info or data we have. If other sites wish to do that, then hey – whatever. We are absolutely focused on security and privacy.
6. Discord/Mikipedia : I haven’t visited his Discord for a long time, but I genuinely wish him every success!  The more exposure B&O gets as a brand, the better. Some people find Discord cluttered and confusing as the group grows (I have dropped out of quite a few Crypto discord groups as they just descended into a shouty mess) – but I’m sure Mikipedia will be up to the task. We do get less interest in the ‘latest’ products here now, and most of the traffic is directed at classic and legacy products. Maybe that’s our new ‘Niche’ – who knows…
7. Working directly with B&O on a Forum.  Well, in the past we’ve mooted it – but they have always said they’d rather have a completely independent element here, without any ‘big stick’ over it in the form of B&O.  Was that a polite way of saying they weren’t interested?  Who knows..  Either way I think that’s the last thing on their minds at the moment. They’re managing a chip-pan fire, and the last thing they want to be doing is chopping salad.
8. BeoWorld ‘withering away’.  I think perhaps from an ‘enthusiasm for the brand’ way you may be correct. The company isn’t setting the world alight with regular product launches of world-class products, but when money is tight you can’t.  Withering away with regards traffic, the answer is no. Traffic is the same as it always has been. No decline.
9. BeoWorld ‘Merch’…  A complete waste of money and effort. Last year I sent about 150 BeoWorld t-shirts to a homeless charity. I bought these and had them all embroidered in around 2004. Almost 20 years sat in boxes, unsold. Also, what we did sell we made next to nothing on. Futile, and a complete waste of my time. I won’t be doing that again..
10. Prize Draw.  I think once a year is perfect now. It says ‘Thank You’ to the paying members, gives a bit of a unique spin to the site, and brings genuine happiness to the winners. I don’t mind putting in the leg-work if it’s once a year, and with current revenues we can now afford it.

[9_LEE]

MaxH

1. The site still serves the purpose of the B&O enthusiast and collector. There are a lot less of them around these days though, and anyone who denies that is lying. People have defected from the brand to others in a constant stream for at least the last 10 years. I see it in my daily business dealing in pre-owned B&O. All I see is people leaving the brand and ‘selling up’ their products.  Rarely, if ever, do they come back.  We now see a huge uptick in people looking to restore and use classic products, so this seems to be the buzz area. As so few people are now buying the very latest products there’s just not the buzz around.  Also, the ‘High Net Worth’ buyers get their dealer to install it, and that’s it. They’re far too busy being rich and making money to mess around on internet forums. They are cash rich and time poor.
2. Appropriate vehicle?  Well.. perhaps Discord and the like for the younger, more dynamic members who want fast-paced chat and lots of noise. It’s all a bit more calm and sedate here. Maybe we’re the ‘oldies’ now. Who knows.  If you have any suggestions?
3. Growing or Declining?  Good question.  I think the new product chat is declining. Of course it would do – less people are buying the stuff.  However, the classic and vintage seems to be growing and growing.
4. I see all your other points, of course.  Will BeoWorld eventually become irrelevant and die completely?  I genuinely don’t think so. We have a hard-core of members who, as the site stands, will make it financially viable and enable the site to exist. Could it change? Of course. When? Who knows. If B&O goes bust, or gets bought out and becomes largely irrelevant, then BeoWorld will no doubt be a ‘specialist repair and restoration’ forum I suppose.  However, if B&O turn a financial corner and start being world-beaters again then the talk will ramp up for the new products and that previous enthusiasm will return.

I’ve always compared B&O to being ‘your football team’.  When they’re doing badly you don’t go to as many games, you don’t watch them on TV as much, and you’re not that interested in talking about them.  However, when they’re top of the league you go to all the games, you talk about them, you watch them on TV , you wear the branded clothing and so on.  It’s a chicken and egg thing. The success of the forum has a lot to do with the success of the company.

As it stands, B&O are trying their hardest to turn that corner. There’s no way we can help them apart from buying lots of products, and sadly a lot of them aren’t what we want – or are at a price we can no longer afford (or justify)….

[MaxH]

Lee, many thanks for the thoughtful response, it was appreciated.

Your statement: ‘ We have a hard-core of members who, as the site stands, will make it financially viable and enable the site to exist’, puts a different perspective on things. If you have the membership, resources and commitment to continue then please do so and I will be happy to support the site in any appropriate way I can.

It seems that I am a rare beast in that I gave up the brand for over 20 years returning to the flock some eight years ago and, incrementally, purchasing almost the entire range of new products – no legacy products for me (much as I admire them). Consequently, I have done my fair share of supporting B&O financially and don’t regret it in the least.

The common denominator on Discord is the enthusiasm for the brand and it is not populated exclusively by young, noisy members – simply the current and future buyers of B&O equipment. Just a quick scroll through the recent posts shows people buying Theatres, 28s and 50s in addition to the lower-priced and legacy products.

The question for you is do you also wish to attract this audience and, if so, how?

 

 

 

 

[Author]

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