Tapatalk

[ACE01]

Wasn't sure on the best place to post this, so thought I'd start here.

Is there anyone (other than me, ofc!) who'd be interested in having BOLS Tapatalk activated? For those that don't know, it's a native mobile experience for forums - more here: [url]http://tapatalk.com[/url]

The current mobile forum skin is ok and all, but it doesn't come close to the ease and power of tapatalk.

As it's free for the forum, I wondered if there was any reason we didn't have it here?

[ElectricPaladin]

I've brought this up before. BigRed never commented on the issue - it was odd. It's his prerogative, I suppose, but I agree that Tapatalk would be a great tool for this board.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, I've been mainly posting from my phone, and it's a pain to do anything more than a few sentances.

[Bigred]

Alright, let me finally weigh in on this.

This is going to be more of a "behind the scenes business model" type of thing, but here goes.

Out on the internet you have mainly 2 categories of websites, merchants and informational. Merchant sites (Dell, Amazon, eBay, etc...) sell things. They make their revenue by selling customers items that they either make themselves, or serve as a facilitator and charge a fee. Informational sites offer non physical goods that you do not pay for, mainly news and entertainment. Sites like these (CNN, Huffington Post, Facebook, etc...) make their revenues by selling advertising. Yes, you can buy a CNN t-shirt at their website, but that isn't what keeps the lights on - its the ads.

So merchant based sites primary goal is to get as many people to their website, and once there, buy stuff, then leave. Informational sites need to get larger numbers of people to USE their websites as often and regularly as possible, to generate advertising revenue.

There are many types of great tools out there that anyone who runs an news/community based website can access. For a forum, you could buy gallery software (like we have) for example, which directly integrates into the website and gives users a deeper experience and things to do. Note that such an item is great for an informational site as it makes your community richer and more full featured, but could be detrimental to a merchant site as it keeps people lingering around your website not-buying things (and increasing your infrastructure costs).

Now there are "accessability and reach" tools out there as well, such as Tapatalk, Flipbook, etc. These function as content aggregators and are mostly untested small businesses. They vary, but in general most work along these lines. You give them your website's content, they serve it on their own proprietary platform (the tapatalk, flipbook app), and the salesman says you expose your brand to a whole new audience that is new and bring in new customers.

But at some point, these new customers have to actually make it back to the informational website for it to make it any revenue off of these 3rd party platforms. At some point there needs to be a way to bring these folks back "into the fold". As long as they are happy reading your content on the app, they are invisible to you, you have no idea who they are, how often they read your content, and you make zero revenue from them. Unfortunately for informational websites, in the real world of businesses who aren't backed by millions of speculative venture-capital dollars, you have to pay your bills and keep the lights on.

In an inverse model of the above example, these reach-increasing tools are fantastic for merchant websites, as these platforms expose their goods to new potential customers and if even only 1 comes over to the website and buys something, you have expanded your customerbase and revenue. Customers who simply read their merchant sites but never visit to buy actually decrease their operating costs and let them run a leaner more efficient website.

For informational websites, these publishing platforms are dangerous. Look at this example:

website has 100 readers
3rd party platform installed
website has 150 readers

Now that seems great! You gained 50 extra readers!

But lets take a look at those 150 readers in detail and see what might be happening:

Example A
150 total readers:
105 website readers
45 publishing platform readers
WHEW - you gained a handful of new readers to the website (5) and have the majority of the new readers (45) reading your content on the 3rd party platform (the vast majority of people who discover a new website via these platforms don't move over to the website itself)

Example B
150 total readers
50 website readers
100 publishing platform readers

DOH! 50 of your existing readers moved from the website over to the 3rd party platform, and all of the new readers stayed over there. You just shut your own website down...

In general, these types of things are useful for very small outfits just getting started, who see them as platforms to get free advertising and build brand awareness. But as you grow, they become dangerous as they siphon off revenue giving informational sites nothing in return. More and more established websites have been moving away from these platforms of late, and many technology watchers are beginning to think that these folks (Tapatalk, Flipbook, etc) need to find a way to fix their business models to entice informational websites to use them without slitting their own throats.

-Larry

[ElectricPaladin]

Alright, let me finally weigh in on this...

Thanks for letting us know about your processes on this! I fully support that this is your website and your source of income. However convenient Tapatalk would be for me, you've got to manage your own bottom line. It's true that most of the forums I am on that use Tapatalk have some other source of income, like a podcast that uses the forums to enhance its listeners' experience and attracts podcast sponsors.

Again, thanks for weighing in. It's good to know that our voices are heard, even if we don't get what we ask for.

[Bigred]

Believe me - a BoLS app/mobile site is "on the list"

But it will certainly be designed to:
- give phone users a better experience
- not change the non-mobile users experience
- not endanger our community.

[ElectricPaladin]

Believe me - a BoLS app/mobile site is "on the list"...

BoLS app...

BoLS app...

BoLS app...

BoLS app...

[ACE01]

Alright, let me finally weigh in on this..

Thanks for the explanation Larry, appreciate the time taken.

Whilst there are certainly revenue opportunities from tapatalk and similar, if this is not part of the business model then I for one appreciate you letting us know.

Mobile website would certainly give you more control, and make a lot of peoples everyday gaming fix easier!

The only irony in my case, is that I came across BoLS in the first place via my RSS reader/news aggregator, Pulse.me on my mobile, and still continue to read the front page like that every day!

Again, thanks for posting and I look forward to BoLS mobile!

[Bigred]

Thanks ACE, and I want everyone to know I do take the mobile users seriously and know that the mobile-experience needs work.

It's on the list and we will get to it based on priorities.

We have been heads down for months building a big new addition to the site that is something very, very cool and new to our wargaming niche. We will be rolling it out very soon and once we have that product launched, then it opens us up to tackle other pending issues.

Keep your ears to the ground - an announcement is coming sooner than later...

[ACE01]

That's fodder for a rumour thread!

Hopefully it'll be sorted by the next GW event I visit, so I can post stuff from my mobile rather than having to take the laptop with me!

Rick