Hey guys! It's been a long time since I've made a thread in Community Discussion, and while it's one of my favorite forums, it doesn't see much activity. :sweat:

So now that there have been so many changes happening 'round these parts, I'm hoping that this forum will start hopping! :D Let's see those new threads guys! XD


So... back to my topic. Let's talk about Menewsha, mid-2010. Crazy things are happening! New features released left and right! A dream avatar creator is in beta! XD

Yet, with all these wonderful additions, our community is in peril. :( This makes me terribly sad, and I know I would be quite upset if we had to close the site. This community has become quite a large part of my life in the past few years, and it's like home to me... *sniff*

So, I have some questions for you all:

• How did Inso's announcement about the state of the avatar industry affect you?
• What do you think about all of the changes that have been happening around the site in the past couple of weeks? Do you have a favorite? XP
• How do you think these changes will evolve our site and affect the future of the community?
• Where would you like to see Mene a year from now? How about in five years?
• To make Mene appeal to a more diverse group of people, what kinds of things do you think we should focus on? This is a bit of a market research-type question, but I want to know what other types of sites are popular with people who frequent Mene.

I have nothing good to say because I'm so tired. I just, for once in my life, wanted to be 1st post D:

I will edit this with my thought's after I get some sleep.
But quickly, I wish I could help Iso so much, and I respect and thank him for keeping this up even though he's out of pocket so much <3

* How did Inso's announcement about the state of the avatar industry affect you?

Gotta say I was brainstorming like hell :lol:

* What do you think about all of the changes that have been happening around the site in the past couple of weeks? Do you have a favorite? XP

Honestly not yet... though I love the hair thing and the DAC (can't choose between them)

* How do you think these changes will evolve our site and affect the future of the community?

I think it will cause users to put more effort into using the site (like learning the hair thing) but all in all will make the site better in the long run

* Where would you like to see Mene a year from now? How about in five years?

Inso! I want a 3D city block sized menewsha in my state by 2020 D:<

* To make Mene appeal to a more diverse group of people, what kinds of things do you think we should focus on? This is a bit of a market research-type question, but I want to know what other types of sites are popular with people who frequent Mene.

I personally would like to see users creating SOME of the ads, or at least being able to help staff to create the ads so that as we were attracted to mene, and the staff work here, we may have an appeal to the site that the staff doesn't have as much of. Like community yes we all love it... but certain details may go unnoticed.

>.>" All in all I still want a 3D virtual menewsha I can walk around in by 2020... get that and we're good...

I think that in attracting more users, adverts should place emphasis on the avatars.

There are thousands of items, (I think), an up-and-coming dream avatar creator, and hair can be any colour under the sun.

There are also budding artists, busy forums, etc etc.

How Inso's announcement of the site's financial status affected me:

Talked to Hina, and we thought of this: http://www.menewsha.com/forum/commun...rs-donate.html

As far as all of the changes--I think that they're great. <3 I don't really care about the dice one (but some people do), but I'm very excited about the prospect of real life Menewsha stuff, and I really enjoy the Sardine Smash game. (I got very excited about the game-gold ratio change, then again about the Dream Avatar Beta, then AGAIN about the hair. Really, this has been an enjoyable month.) I think that these changes will only make people happier--Mene Merchandise; you don't like it, don't buy it. Sardine Smash--don't play it if you don't enjoy it. Who doesn't like to get a little more gold when they play games? The prospect of an on-site dream avatar creator is pretty awesome even for those who can't play with it yet, and the hair thing is just AMAZING. I don't know about new customers, but I think that it can only help having more games and the additional hair options.

A year from now, or even five years--I don't know. I'd still like to see a focus on avatars (because I'll be honest; that's a big part of the draw for me), and I'd still like the staff to be able to post in the forums as they do now. It's been mentioned that on (that other large avatar site) mods are rarely seen--admin even less so. Here, there's a decent chance that you've talked to a mod, or an admin, or even an NPC. I like that about Menewsha, a lot of other people have also mentioned liking it, and it would suck if that went away. I realize that's not very definitive, and it's more what I don't want to see gone than what I want to see.

What kinds of things I think might draw more attention?--webcomic updating, maybe... Possibly a larger presence at anime conventions when possible (which still caters to the anime crowd, but it can't hurt to keep getting the word out)... More of an emphasis on the avatars and a storyline couldn't hurt.

Originally Posted by Sizzla

• How did Inso's announcement about the state of the avatar industry affect you?
• What do you think about all of the changes that have been happening around the site in the past couple of weeks? Do you have a favorite? XP
• How do you think these changes will evolve our site and affect the future of the community?
• Where would you like to see Mene a year from now? How about in five years?
• To make Mene appeal to a more diverse group of people, what kinds of things do you think we should focus on? This is a bit of a market research-type question, but I want to know what other types of sites are popular with people who frequent Mene.

*I was just like "What?!" I mean, I knew this site isn't as popular as some, but losing a typical years salary running it...that's a pretty big sacrafice. If I had money, I'd probably buy some of those yummy CIs. :drool:
*I love them. Especially because for the hair I know how to make gold tones. :D
I like the hair and the previews the best.
*I think they will keep users on longer, as there is less to complain about, and maybe attract more. I don't know of another website where you can create any color hair.
*I would like to see Mene more popular, so Insomaniac doesn't loose as much money. Maybe we'll even have better changes.
*I don't really know. Maybe some games that go or a while, like petville and farmville. I mainly only go on Facebook, Menewsha and Newgrounds when I go on the Internets.

I'd personally like to see Menewsha in a fairly similar place a year, two years, five years from now. It's a forum website with only frills that are appropriate. I don't like when things get really commercial, I don't like when a bunch of unnecessary features are created (ala Gaia).
Unfortunately, the site won't survive like that. I think commercialism might be a logical route sites like this will follow to not go to hell.
I have a nagging feeling Menewsha will not last 5 years.

I think radical changes need to be made to the industry. To appeal to more people, the focus needs to be taken off the forums. They're great - but you notice people start to get bored of chatting.

I don't have the answers, but i think more rpg-style features would take this site in the right direction.

We do? o.o I don't... I just get bored during slow times :lol:

Rpg? o.o hmm... care to elaborate on that? how would an avatar site become an rpg site?

Some of the changes are great, but it's not gotten me any more active as of yet.. Chatting is great and I used to love it here, but it still seems the same old thing and has gotten boring. I'm not certain where I see it in the future.. I don't want it to close.. but at the same time it wouldn't really affect me too much if it had.. other than the losing contact with friends I've made here.

Interesting that Josh thinks RPG stuff would be the way to go, wouldn't that just narrow the appeal further? We need to broaden our appeal to continue to grow.

It would most likely keep some from leaving however if there's more than just the board to post to and the arcade games that we have. It's not the solution to get more per se, but it may be some of the solution to keep people interested. Yet then there'd also be the people saying Mene is implementing an RPG game thing to combat zomg on Gaia.

How to broaden the community though would have to continue passed that, and get passed the stereotype that avatar based forums ARE roleplay type forums. To broaden it .. I would suppose you'd have to draw more focus on the arts perhaps, music, literature etc more year round than just during events. Events you truly see the community, and then it dies when it's over.. and people only pay attention to a few things between them. Keep the appeal for people to stay rather than lurk and maybe more would stay and enjoy the site much more between the events.

My $0.02 anyhow.. not sure how it'd properly be implemented without taking all of the staff's time to host contests/etc to grow that side of the site more.. but who knows.

# How did Inso's announcement about the state of the avatar industry affect you?

I personally was devistated by the thought that we could lose mene. Ever since I found it I have had very little to complain about, the users are great, the staff is great, and yet as much of a community as we are we are failing....and this brings me much saddness. Menewsha is my home, away from my real home, menewsha is my second family.....to lose it would be to throw me back into the world I hardly survived in....As much as I have seen the warning signs I didn't want to see them. I donate regularly but as much as I want to I can't make up for all that mene is lacking. I think that the new changes will help, I can only hope that they will be enough.

# What do you think about all of the changes that have been happening around the site in the past couple of weeks? Do you have a favorite? XP

I love them, the staff it appears has been working in overtime lately, thanks guys. My favorites are definately the DAC and the hairs, I LOVE them ^.^

# How do you think these changes will evolve our site and affect the future of the community?

It is my hope, as well as the staff I am sure, that these changes, will bring us a new wave of fresh faces, and with them hopefully more income. I am sure Inso doesn't want to have to put so much money into the site forever. But I thank him for doing so this far. As stated previously, menewsha saved my life.

# Where would you like to see Mene a year from now? How about in five years?

1 year- new faces coming in and more income to the site, perhaps the DAC being in full use, not just beta (maybe maybe not)
5 year- menewsha still surviveing and surviveing strong. Able to support itself, or at least very close to this point.

# To make Mene appeal to a more diverse group of people, what kinds of things do you think we should focus on? This is a bit of a market research-type question, but I want to know what other types of sites are popular with people who frequent Mene

Its been mentioned in the thread pertaining to finances but I think a mene comic might draw in the people who like web comics, I know there is alot of them out there. I do think the addition of the dice might also draw in more people who like role playing in a D&D type style.

Inso's announcement was rather depressing. I saw this bleak future stretch out before us. I've been poking at other avatar sites lately, just looking around really and I've noticed that a lot of them are pretty dead but for a small core group, so that didn't help the bleakness of the announcement!

The changes that we've had are very exciting! I can tell that everyone's working hard behind the scenes to make Menewsha better. The hair color change is my favorite :heart:

Hopefully, our awesome features will lure in more users. I know that our easily changed skins and genders wow a lot of Gaians. By having so many free options, as opposed to stuff you need to pay for, I'd hope that we'd get more people signing up and telling their friends and then donating when they find out how awesome we are instead of having their arms twisted to get the latest junk on offer.

Personally, I think it would be awesome if Mene grew up to stand on it's own without Inso having to personally fund it. In five years, it'd better still be here!

I would like to see more plot/npc work. I can say that I really enjoy the plot of Gaia, when they bother to put any out. And their characters have really developed a following. Menewsha's NPCs have their fans, sure, but I'd like to know more. I've noticed as far as fans/fandom, web comics seems to be coming into its own lately and generating a lot of buzz. I think a regular comic feature would be amazing, but I understand that working on comics is easier said than done. If the comic could generate fans, they have a ready made forum right here to chat about the comic.

Not really feeling an RPG. I'm not really looking for another place to play games. I hardly play the games we have.

I wish I had some more useful suggestions. I guess I'll just have to pimp Menewsha far and wide to drum up interest.

* How did Inso's announcement about the state of the avatar industry affect you?

Well, I donated to the site two more times than I would have normally done. Though in all seriousness that was a very sad announcement because Mene is my home when I'm online. I know I haven't been here as long as a lot of the users here. But I love it, so to hear how badly things were going, not just here but every avatar site, was a very sad thing :(

* What do you think about all of the changes that have been happening around the site in the past couple of weeks? Do you have a favorite? XP

The DAC is by far my favourite change to the site, and I am honoured to be a beta-tester for it! *makes a little badge of pride*

* How do you think these changes will evolve our site and affect the future of the community?

I think that only good can come of these changes and that the only way is up from here. Mene is allready one of the best avatar sites out there, so with Inso making it even better I should expect a whole flood of new people.

* Where would you like to see Mene a year from now? How about in five years?

I personally would like to see Mene as King of the internet (or Queen...:ninja:) and take over Gaia and all those other avatar communities. We shall be top dog eventually

* To make Mene appeal to a more diverse group of people, what kinds of things do you think we should focus on? This is a bit of a market research-type question, but I want to know what other types of sites are popular with people who frequent Mene

.

Well, to be perfectly honest, the only sites that I frequent are: Mene, Facebook & DeviantART. Mene allready is Mene (obviously) and has the social aspect of Facebook and the art aspect of DA. So I am not so sure what you should focus on. It's allready pretty awesome in my opinion :)

How did Inso's announcement about the state of the avatar industry affect you?

I felt sad and whined a bit.... And felt bad that I am saving up more for video games (I blame pokemon for all this) than donating to Mene... and it made me want to get a job....

What do you think about all of the changes that have been happening around the site in the past couple of weeks? Do you have a favorite? XP

They're cool. I honestly can't remember ALL of them. xD
The new preview is pretty damn cool and the new DAC seems awesome.

How do you think these changes will evolve our site and affect the future of the community?

Welp, kinda hoping some people will stop whining over some stuff. But it's getting more ... "modern" and ultimately attract more people to stay and, hopefully donate.
...
'Course, this is assuming people have brains, can get jobs (This one is all the economy's fault! :illgetu: )and pay bills.

Where would you like to see Mene a year from now? How about in five years?

... I hope it's still here. That's my dream.
xD
Honestly, I love mene for the people (I LUFF YOU SIZZANDSTAFFANDFRIENDS!) and for the events.

To make Mene appeal to a more diverse group of people, what kinds of things do you think we should focus on? This is a bit of a market research-type question, but I want to know what other types of sites are popular with people who frequent Mene.

... No idea. This is a forum site/ community site at heart... I honestly love it like this.

I ruminated on this a tad earlier today and two things have sort of... occurred to me.

The first thing is I noticed that an important point of Inso's announcement (to me at least) was that only a small portion of users donate money, not that we don't have enough users. I don't know how that affects things per say, but I think it's an interesting point. Like, maybe there are ways that more money could be gotten from people, or more people encouraged to spend money? I also thought about Gaia. One of the things I noticed about Gaia (long ago when I was still on) is that a lot of people who donate donate a lot. People want the items on Gaia to sell to get rich to buy the inflated items. It doesn't seem too unreasonable for me to conclude that maybe the inflation has actually helped Gaia get more money. Here the incentive to buy the monthly items is to have them but there isn't a reason to get them en masse, but on Gaia the incentive of buying the items is to sell a bunch of them to buy older items. As far as I can tell. I mean, I don't do any kind of exchanging here, so I could be totally wrong, I'm just thinking.

The other thing I was thinking on was costs. If our main problem is money, like any company we should cut costs, shouldn't we? Would there be any reasonable way to search for cheaper work? I know there are a lot of people in the world with art capabilities, could there be some way to harness any pixel artists on Mene to be used as sort of... free labour? =P That sort of idea. Again, just throwing stuff out there. I didn't really think this one through, but on the surface it seems vaguely plausible.

Originally Posted by jellysundae

Interesting that Josh thinks RPG stuff would be the way to go, wouldn't that just narrow the appeal further? We need to broaden our appeal to continue to grow.

I'm not saying I know it all, just trying to help with my view.. but you guys know this industry much more than I do.

I just feel that the reason of the decline isn't so much the industry is getting smaller. Anime is huge, and Gaia is huge. There's plenty of people to go around. But, when the forums are slow, users will get bored. Most internet social activity has moved to facebook/twitter... so I think these sites need to adapt from chat hangout places.

Moving away from the anime side of things isn't the best idea IMO, i think it should be embraced. I haven't put much thought into it, but turning the site into an actual game, rather than an "avatar chat hangout" with some minigames would be an interesting pivot.

But Hermes, we're not like "any other company". You're talking about art here, you can't outsource art the same way you can customer service and so on. Take a look around the site, look at the artwork, the pixels, the custom event layouts and the other very "Menewsha" features that make this site what it is. All these come from our creative team. From Omi, Yan and Wish. You're telling us to fire them and find someone cheaper...

Not only is that appalling treatment of the very people who have helped make this site what it is today, but in ripping out Menewsha's creative heart what would we be left with? Oh yeah, a big featureless void where there used to be people who cared about the site.

If we went this route not only would a great deal of the users leave in disgust at well-loved staff members being treated in such a way, but think on their replacements a little...they'd have to be people willing to work for very little, so probably people with "skills" that were nowhere near what would be required to maintain our high quality levels. They would have no affinity for the site what-so-ever, they'd just be interested in a pay check at the end of the week, they wouldn't care at all or have an emotional attachment the way ALL of Menewsha's paid staff have.

I feel like I'm having a go at you a bit here, that's not the case :sweat: I just want you to look deeper into what you're suggesting, and realise that doing that would probably kill the site completely rather than helping it financially. The creative staff need to have that emotional investment, they need to care about what they're doing, not just be a bunch of not very skilled people looking to make a buck.

And firing the staff because so many of the people the staff work so hard to entertain are unwilling to help the site out financially isn't really a feasible solution anyway ._. That's like a backward step? I just don't know what we can do to encourage donations from the people who just won't.
I'm not talking about those who would if they could but can't for financial and/or parental reasons. But those who could support us but just will not.

It's honestly a massive downer for us because we know that we're partly to blame for creating this attitude. We wanted so very much to never end up like Gaia with it's cash-hungry reputation, so now we have a whole lot of users who expect to get everything we ever release without having to pay for any of it, ever.
We never realised in our wildest dreams that our idealistic beliefs would result in us having a lot of users who were resentful about items that could only be gained with cash and would complain at the suggestion of them :sweat:

I also know that some people just can't get their head around paying for pixels because they're an intangible object. But, so is that movie that someone might pay to go and see, and that gives how much entertainment compared to the same money spent on pixels?
Around $10 (or a lot more in some cases) for 2 1/2 hours entertainment; not including possible parking fees, fuel used and hugely over-priced snacks... compare that to $10 spent on pixels that you can then use over and over again and gain endless pleasure from, that you can sell straight away for instant profit, or hang onto and sell later for a MUCH larger profit. Personally I see pixels as the better investment as they give a far greater return!

Anyway, I've now made this totally TL;DR and wandered off topic a little too, so I'll shut up!

Jelly, I don't think Hermes was referring to firing the staff and replacing them with cheaper ones. But, we're in a recession, and businesses are having to downsize and cut costs to survive. Rather than looking at ways to increase revenues, we should look at ways to cut costs.

When I was running Menewsha, costs were significantly lower, and I believe they can still be cut down by around $2,000 a month now. For instance, the server bill of $600 a month is very high. If the code were optimised, and you went on the cloud - or with a provider such as Linode - Xen VPS Hosting I bet a big chunk of that could be cut off.

And a full time designer? I'm not too sure of their work, but maybe they should work part time during this struggling period. The artists should stay, but if it would help the cashflow problem - maybe they should work less hours. Sure, it would definitely hurt the site. But then it would force you to think of more creative ways to attract users and revenue.

We are thinking of ways Josh, but I'm not revealing what those are in here. I'm sure if Inso could get the same kind of service that we need from a server for less then he would, the guy works in the industry after all so he knows what he's doing, setting up servers is part of what he does for a living.

That full time designer is Yan :) He does SO much that he's worth every penny that Inso pays him, he's also gaining more coding knowledge as he goes along and becoming more of an asset with each thing learned. And don't forget that Yan's in the Philippines and his wage reflects that, he's probably the best value for money staff member out there because the guy just doesn't know when to stop.

I think that Jelly's point about people wanting to get something for nothing is a very valid one. As long as it's within reason, I see no problem with cash shops and things like that that help the site stay afloat. The website is a business after all and businesses need money to survive.

I think a lot of users do not understand how much work and money running a website costs. I also feel that a lot of people do not think of it as being a business. I like Jelly's point about the movies too. I much rather spend that $10 that I would have gone to see a movie with and spend it here.

I think that is Mene shifted it's focus on things like art and writing then it would draw in a whole other crowd. That's my opinion though and I really have no research to back it up. I just hear a lot of people saying that they write whenever I go on forums or that they otherwise create art.

I would like to say.....thank you jelly. You may have been ranting a bit there but that was full of honesty and knowledge. The truth is that many of the users do NOT know what its like to be you guys, I imagine you guys are killing yourselves trying to think of ways to stay afloat and still keep people happy.

I also think that you can make money for mene, but utilizing some of the things Gaia has without the entire site becomeing about nothing but the money. You have one thing gaia does not.....a heart. The staffs complete honesty (and I have noticed this throughout all my stay on mene) with its users is something gaia never had, no not even in the beginning. We are also a community. That honesty along with things like anti-spam rules helps to create that sense of community rather then a bunch of disjointed people bumping together *shivers* We are forced to get to know one another and it made us stronger. I think that whatever you guys decide your users (yes some will be unhappy, but you can not make EVERYONE happy) will support you because of the honesty you hold with us we understand you and we stand with you.

I also love your points about the staff, I can't imagine anyone but them doing the job they do *huggles all of mene's staff*

I didn't mean to be ranty, it just kind of ended up that way >< We are all very passionate about Mene, I mean it's been a big part of my life for over 3 years now and I just can't imagine life without it, and I'd say all the longer-serving staff feel the same way.

It is tough that so many people don't realise that Mene is a business and needs financial support to be able to stay open, but hopefully our openness will help at least some to understand :)

I'm hoping that all the changes that Inso has put in place over the past week or so will have some prolonged positive impact on the community, as it's things that a lot of people have been wanting for a very long time, and will also make the site an easier and more enjoyable experience for new members.