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WHAT'S NEW 23 October 2000 Considering it's been well over a year since my last official update regarding this site, I thought it's time for some catching up and letting you know what is under consideration moving forward. First, we are looking to Year 2001 to be a time of expanded services for ConsimWorld.COM. While I appreciate all the kind and supportive words from everyone, the potential of this site given its reach and penetration is not meeting my expectations. The challenges I have faced in expanding services include my increasingly-demanding work schedule, and not finding a suitable process to involve others in maintaining and running this Web site. Furthermore, my personal wishlist for CSW moving forward is somewhat constrained with the realization that I may be undergoing another family move for professional reasons. I hesitate pursuing such changes now given the potential hit to my schedule should out-of-state relo be called for. Looking on the bright side, all this should be settled by early next year...so let's see what happens. In the days and weeks ahead, I'll be moving forward to schedule the first CSW-sponsored event, MonsterGame.CON. This will take place in Las Vegas, NV, and I'm aiming for a mid-to-late April event date. As more details become available, I'll be sure to make an announcement. In the meantime, the discussion board continues to find new members without showing signs of letting up (and this without any formal promotion of our site). We have now surpassed the 8,000 member mark. As a result of the amount of traffic generated at our discussion board, we had to undergo some structural changes. We continue to push the upper limits of the dbase size used to support our discussions groups, but so long as funding and server performance continues unabated, I keep my fingers crossed that all will continue smoothly moving forward. Speaking of funding, all this would not be possible without our supporting membes. We will be scheduling our annual fundraiser drive for this November, and I want to thank everyone in advance for their support. Respectfully,
30 May 1999 :: Whew :: Quite a bit has transpired since I last posted a general update regarding ConsimWorld.COM. Namely, the sudden acquisition of my former employer, GoLive Systems, by Adobe Systems, the birth of my second daughter (Haley Alexis Kranz), and most recently, a house move originally slated for Seattle but instead changed to AZ at the last possible moment. As you can well imagine, all of this occurring inside the last four months has played havoc on my schedule and best laid intentions for this site. These are the causes for the significant time lags in reporting news, and other services of the site being put on hold (such as launching the Member Directory and Game Review section). There was also quite the scare in perhaps not being able to secure a suitable co-host site for the ConsimWorld.COM Discussion Board once I had to relocate it due to our local business office shutting down (where the servers were previously hosted). Fortunately, I fell upon an excellent ISP with reasonable rates, such that my out of pocket/annual expense for the move is in the low four figures...the cost of which can be covered by an annual fundraising drive. As I get settled in my new home, I plan to gear up again for getting more stories published online. Around July, my dedicated gaming room should be in full operation, which will greatly ease the process of producing product digitized art as new products come in. My top priority at the point is to catch up on several titles that have recently been published, that have fallen far overdue for OUT OF THE WRAPPER coverage. I'll be focusing on this area in the coming days, including posting the results of our new Game Rating service in early June which I'm sure our members will enjoy. Moving forward, I have plans that do not quite have a set delivery timeline laid in stone...so I won't get into any details now. Rest assured that my goal is to increase the amount of services available at this site as time and resources permit. The key word here is "time". I encourage members to submit a News Story, as all of you can consider yourself a Virtual ConsimWorld.COM Roving Reporter. I could surely use your help and added bandwidth in covering the latest goings-on in the industry! Since I'm on the road every week, it's very helpful to receive contributions from others on any information they feel is worth sharing. I carry this Web site on my laptop with me during all business travels just in case I can get a late-breaking story online. In closing, my apologies that things have been a mite slow lately. As you can see, I've been quite busy in managing various facets of my life. The good news is that all changes have been for the better, and I greatly look forward to enhancing this site moving forward. As always, your feedback is valued and appreciated! Respectfully,
27 Oct 1998 In an effort to help drive news content and member participation, ConsimWorld.COM announces an opportunity for all members to submit a News Story to help us provide comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of the historical gaming industry. In essence, we are opening a "Virtual Newsroom" of sorts in which all members can provide leads or report news on the historical gaming industry. Members will receive full credits as these stories are published online. This not only maps well with our Design Goal of fostering a member-driven web site (as is our Discussion Board), but also allows us to redouble our efforts on editing in-depth Game Reviews for publication and launching our Member Directory in the coming weeks. We look forward to working together with our members in providing the latest, most comprehensive historical gaming coverage on the Internet.
6 Oct 1998 As we near the conclusion of our third week of operation, we have already begun work on our Phase II Site Implementation. Presently, we are completing various Form Pages for the site. Most of these can be found when submitting information for our Community area (events, clubs, connections, etc.). We consider this stage vital as we want to provide a forum for two-way communications with our audience (for Member Surveys and responses to stories). You'll notice ConsimWorld.COM increasingly looking for ways to solicite member participation in the future. We have also added a Feedback Form, and urge members to let us know how we are doing and how we can better serve your needs. Next up will be our database-driven Member Directory (which will entail significant configuring and testing before going live). In terms of driving initial content and traffic, we see the following results. We are averaging about two news articles per day. We made some good progress with our "Out of the Wrapper" section, although we still have several recent releases to announce. Our web site Page Hit Count is averaging an impressive 4,000 individual hits per day (that's actual pages visited). We've added an official Book of the Month Selection, and are very pleased with the positive response we received with our all-too-brief interview with Colonel David Glantz. We are considering offering Book Review services in the near future. We are also on the verge of having our first Product Review published online. Respectfully,
17 Sep 1998 In a word: EVERYTHING! As is customary during the initial launch phase of any Web site, we ask for your patience as we work to add more content on a daily basis. We are not yet up to "full speed ahead" mode. We should be hitting 100% capacity levels by the end of September. As of 16 September, we have completed our Phase I Site Implementation, and are presently focusing on driving content. Presently, we are working on populating the Community area of the site, getting photo shoot sessions scheduled of new products for the Out of the Wrapper area, and awaiting initial Product Review submittals from our Partners. If you have an organization or event you wish to promote, please do not hesitate in contacting us. As initial content builds and we are hitting 100% capacity, we will move forward with Phase II of the Site Implementation. Phase II includes our Member Directory which will be a searchable database of member profiles. A convenient way for our members to network when not frequenting our nearly 5,000 member Discussion Board. We will also introduce several Form pages throughout the site to assist in the gathering of feedback, information, and to conduct QuickPolls and Surveys. I thank you for your understanding as we are only now able to fully-focus on driving content now that the initial site implementation has been completed. You should see a marked increase in content in the coming days and weeks, and we are excited to bring this to you. Respectfully,
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