Next Chapter for D-90 Source

[chrisvonc]

I'd like to take a moment to give you all some overdue updates regarding the site that will address rumors and speculations being tossed around in the forums. For the past year and a half, I've been dealing with various things in my life that have been taking away the amount of time to invest in the site as I have in the past. Thankfully Charles and Jim have been here to help watch over things.

The hottest issue that seems to be on everyone's minds is, who owns the site and what is going to become of it so lets clear that up right off.. Yes, the site was sold and is now owned by another Defender enthusiast, Andy Robinowitz, and was not sold to some evil faceless mega-spam corporation. Due to many factors in both of our lives, making this announcement at the actual time of sale a few months ago was not possible and is indeed long over due, but was regrettably unavoidable.

Almost six years ago, I was contacted by Andy, who was turned onto the site by another fellow enthusiast, inquiring if I was interested in selling the site. Receiving inquiries to sell the site has always been a fairly usual occurrence but generally sent from some legal firm entity. While I thought very little of the request, I did reply, politely declining and moved on. Over a year ago he contacted me again and we started talking more. As it turned out, Andy's enthusiasm for Defenders started with his own father being an owner and he is currently excited about rejoining the ranks of Defender ownership. Over the following months, Andy and I communicated quite a lot on the phone and with countless email discussions, not just about the D-90 Source, but with both of us each being multiple domain owners, we had a lot of other general web related topics and interests in common. I felt that Andy did understand and have a respect for this community, and more importantly, for the members that help make it the resource that it is. He was not looking at the site an advertizing dumping ground, honestly has a passion for forum communities, and after spending a lot of time lurking on some of his other site, I found them to be very well run.

I feel its important to also say that while I have never had an urge to let the site out of my ownership, providing for my family is the top priority in my life. A real offer was placed on the table that included keeping myself, Charles, and Jim staying here and fully involved with the site and I accepted. As you can see, Charles, Jim and myself are still here in our same roles of admins and moderators, and have no desire to leave our community and are excited for some of the new improvements that members have been asking for, will finally be going into place.

I'll let Andy post an introduction now so you all can meet the new owner of the D-90 Source.

[Andy R]

Hey there,

I'm Andy from Dallas, Tx and have been a Defender enthusiast since the mid 90s. My Dad owned a green 1994 Defender 90 that he bought from the owner of Land Rover Dallas. I was in my early 20s and my Dad was out of town a lot so I drove that beast quite a bit. I was hooked...

In the late 90s I worked for a consulting company that went public in the first dot.com boom. Luckily I sold the little stock I had and enjoyed some funemployement for a few years being a ski and snowboard bum. During that time I was doing some freelance work for Warren Miller (ski movies) and needed to figure out a way to get internet access while I was away from home (public wifi hotspots did not exist). I decided to buy a tiny 1961 Airstream trailer to convert into a portable office with a bi-directional satellite on top so I could work slope side in winters and stream side in the summer. Since I was living in a remote region of the Rockies and had very few resources to ask about how to fix up this old trailer, I turned to the internet. The only thing that existed was a Yahoo Group so I decided to start my first forum (AIRforums.com). Shortly after launching the forum I was offered a job (and was running low on money) so I moved back to Texas.

I grew fascinated with forums, watching them grow and evolve. It was amazing you could setup some digital code and it could take on a life of its own. Through a very random set of events I ended up adopting a forum that was going to be shut down on a topic I was not very passionate about. I worked with the members to create a team so they could lead the community themselves. The setup ended up working out well because they were the subject matter experts and I provided the expertise with the forum software, add-ons, servers, etc.

After a couple years of slugging through my new job, I got itchy feet for more adventure. I felt like the guy in the movie Office Space who hated his job and just wanted to go have fun. I decided I wanted to try and make a business out of fostering forums but the problems was they didn't make enough money for me to live off of. I decided I had to move somewhere cheap. I'm not talking the poor part of town but a place where the dollar was strong and the local currency was weak. I looked at moving to India, Africa, Mexico, you name it. Then I found the perfect place at the time, Argentina. It was 2005 and Argentina was just starting to rebound from a major economic collapse where they defaulted on their national debt (just like what's going on right now in Greece but worse). I could rent a great apartment with a cable modem for cheap, beer was $.50 and big fat steaks were about $5. I sifted through all my belongings, packed the stuff I wanted to keep into storage and took off for Buenos Aires. That's when I first contacted Chris expressing my interest in acquiring D-90 Source.

Due to visa restrictions I ended up renting places for 3 months and then moving to the next cheap country. I spent a considerable amount of time in Brazil where I got to drive my buddies 110 quite often. I also met a beautiful young lady who ended up hitting the road to go travel with me and now we are married with two beautiful kids. In all I spent 4.5 years traveling across 6 continents building my little business from my laptop. Social Knowledge is technically a one person company but I have a few amazing people I work with. Janet started as an Admin on AIRForums.com and over the years has become my right hand gal. She helps support the teams on each site making sure they have the tools they need to effectively manage the communities. You will also notice another Admin account named "Tech Admin", that's Jeff. He's our vBulletin and server guru and hopefully you won't see him around too much because that means something broke. We are not a big MegaCorp, just a few really passionate forum people.

I understand how awkward an announcement like this can feel. Having been a lurker here for many years it's obvious how tight this community is. The plan is to keep the current team in place and expand it a little so we can get a broader perspective from the long time members on how you all want this community managed. We know each site is unique and has it's own culture and will work to keep that intact.

One concern after a change of ownership announcement is made is that ads will be added to the site making it annoying to visit. I spoke at length with Chris about this and we both felt it was important to take care of the long time members by trying to keep their experience the same. We felt a fair compromise would be to grandfather all the members on the site who joined prior to this announcement and give them the ability to turn off the ads. That way the cost to run this place could be carried by newbies and guests. I also mentioned to Chris that I felt it was important to try and find small endemic advertisers who would be promoting Defender related products because it's more relevant and make the site feel better. I understand that this is a touchy subject and we will make every effort to make sure we can create a balance so the site can be self sustaining and at the same time not annoying. I just ask that you give me some time before freaking out and saying the end of D-90 is here, it's not.

We definitely plan to invest in some new toys for the site. I'd like to add a garage system so everyone can showcase their Ds, move the content from the various sections like Tech Articles, Custom Mods, Product Reviews, Trail Reports, etc into a content management system, edit the header of the page so it does not use a frame so we can navigate around more easily and other small tweaks. We already started the process of expanding our team and hopefully will be posting an announcement on that shortly.

I know it's going to take time for you all to get to know and trust me. I plan to earn your trust and hope that when everything is said and done you will respect me and look forward to putting back a few beers together one day. I do plan to buy a Defender but I am not exactly sure when. With a 2 year old, 3 month old, drama happening on at least one forum daily it's hard to find time for a resto project right now. I might actually look for a newer Defender down here in Brazil but the exchange rate sucks so that's not an option in the immediate future. Hanging around here will help me get educated so when the time is right I should be able to make a smart decision.

Both Chris and I will be available to answer questions in the Misc. section so if you have any questions please post them over there.

Andy