jfulcer
DIS Old Timer
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2000
Hey Dan
This thread, quoted by you, was an announcement by Alexa about BoardTracker Version ONE. Not the new version. 13 months ago DisBoards started Beta testing the FIRST version of BoardTracker. Not the new one. The new one is in beta for less than 2 months AND DisBoards is the FIRST (and atm the only) board beta-testing the new version. We are working on Version 2 for about 7 months (we actually always working on new things, but defining a new version was 7-8 months ago). And actually, even 13 months working on a new version is really a very short time, considering the scale and complexity of creating a search engine.
As the new version requires dealing with about x20 more data and much heavier infrastructure and resources requirements, this is a very delicate issue. Doing it for free (certainly the case thus far), lacking the budget of Google it may also explain why we can't get 50 people working on it and finishing it all in a month
Anyway, we are working on it (aside from the times we are posting here ) and we are happy to keep you updated.
Best regards,
BoardTracker.com
So everything has always been in Beta? When do we get a non-beta version? When do we get one that the whole site can use?
Here's a thought. You are providing a service. For Free (right?). The only visibility that you have currently is a little doggy that fills up, goes to the bathroom, fills up, goes to the bathroom, over and over. Sometimes he finds results, sometimes he doesn't.
You need to make money so you can hire more (better?) Koalas. You need to serve Google type ads. Provide this search service for free. But in the search results you are allowed a line or two (or one or two graphical) ads. You can organize your ads by category so that your search doesn't serve up ads that would conflict with any board sponsors. Just from the DISboards alone, you could get thousands of ad impressions a day. Heck Tens of thousands. Just imagine the clickthrough rate if they are vacation directed links being shown to people that like to vacation and spend a lot of money.
We built a search engine for my company's site. It took ONE programmer about a month of dedicated time. Since he wasn't our best programmer, it took him another 1/2 month to fix the bugs. I suppose maybe that's why I don't understand the delays. I understand scaling issues. Really I do. But you need a useful product in order to even scale it...