Investors Hub Chat (iChat)

[Mattu]

Bob:

Toss the 15 minutes of chat time out the window per public post. That's way too complex. Keep it simple.

The live chat was never suppost to be a feature we "made money" directly off of. It's a component of the site to complement the other features. An incentive to sign up.

At the max, it should be available to premium members. I'd like to see the data mining on it, to see if Excel is right in the regard that it is slowly leaning towards more posting on the boards.

One perspective to have on it, is exactly what Bird pointed out -- is that it keeps the useless chatty-type discussions off the message boards, but the fundamental discussions of the investment (DD, views, news, etc) on the board, which is of more interest to me, if I am reading a message board.

I want to realize some profit off of the DigiChat, but I don't want to make it too complicated. There are several ways to look at the program. It is similar in regards to private messages. We don't realize profit off of those (only 2 people see them), but they are an incentive to join the site.

I'd be interested in the data mining results before I comment on it further. But I don't want to see it go away, because it is something that makes IH different from the other sites.

MB

[Bernard Ng]

Some suggestions... if you can make "iChat for public" become very annoying like PalTalk's free version with all the pop-up banners, people will pay $20US for it a year.

I think the free trial idea is better than the 15 min chat per post idea. The "flow" is the issue, you want to keep talking and talking to understand the advantage of chatting in realtime.

If you can make it easy for people to start a chatroom, and be a chatmaster... then consider the price of getting the chatroom running from Digichat, maybe iHub can resell the each chatroom at a very cheap price per month. It just cost too much to start one with Digichat.

The individual stock chatroom should be free, much like the free IH message boards for stocks.

or... look into PalTalk and see if there is a business version of PalTalk to integrate the voice and text chat in IH.

JMHO

signed,
Bernard

[excel]

Bob. I read ahead and kind of like Birds proposal of charging new people.

The reason for no archive is because in chat things are said that shouldn't be on a public message board.

It gives us a place to rant when needed and talk about things that sometimes are leaks.

We have a rule in our chat room. We catch you leaking anything discussed in chat you are gone.

So privacy is a huge issue for us.

Excel
Check this out! I need your opinion!
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=793

[Bird of Prey]

I have used the Chat feature before but not for some time now. Some folks like it, some don't. It is great for fast moving topics. To answer your questions though...

1. Cannibalizing public posts.

Probably not as much as you might think. The kind of commentary in a chat room is more fluid than a message board. More oneliners and because it's not "permanent" some people are a little "looser" tongued than they would be on a message board.

2. It's available to free members, so iHub may never see a dime from its presence here.

Easy fix. Make Live Chat free for 30 days only, then they must upgrade to premium membership to continue. Incentive!

3. I understand it's a bit unreliable.

That's one of the things I don't like about it. Go for the five star restaurant and get it inhouse, just be ready to upgrade the horsepower.

That said...
You should be able to toss a banner into the page displaying the Chat, everyone else seems to be able to. Refreshing the banner every 60 seconds or so doesn't seem to interfere too much on other chat sites. Some get a little nutziod with the banners IMO. Offer Live chat the same way you offer IH. Free with ads and premium removes ads and adds extra features (smilies, etc). Include it as part of the IH premuium package. adds value.

That would cover all the bases, those that want Chat for free, those that are willing to pay for just chat and those that want it all. And IH can mint some coin from each group. even if it is just a few pennies from the banners.

BTW, is IH still doing text ads at the end of messages on the Free side of things? Might be some room to add those in Chat as well. Also if they were bringing in capital and were dropped because of the complaints you should consider adding them back to the free section somehow. After all you do have to pay for the bandwidth they are using.

The Bird of Prey

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Okay, so lemme throw this idea out that just popped into my head:

Grandfathered and Premium Members get unlimited access to it.

Free Members get limited access to it based on the number of public posts they make. Say, 15 minutes for each public post.

The mechanics of it likely wouldn't be too much of an issue, and really that'd be my problem anyway.

How would you feel about that kind of limitation.

iChat is pure cost, no revenue as it stands. It arguably gives other revenue streams (ads and subscriptions) a little more "Ooomph", but I'd like to enhance that affect either by making it available only to subscribers, make it a separate subscribable feature, or make it contribute to other revenue streams via posts (which non-subscribers will read, along with the ads).

I'd like to see iHub bring it in-house so we have more control over it and can provide as much power as it needs. I was also wanting to make archives publicly available and am a bit surprised it's that unpopular an idea. I can understand, although the stronger argument for me is that chat has no permanence to it, and permanence is one of the things I find attractive about message boards.

As you can tell, I haven't made up my mind yet about *any* aspect of iChat, and plan to spend quite a bit of time getting feedback on it before doing anything.

The only thing I'm really leaning strongly toward at this point is making it a Premium feature so that only Subscribers and Grandfathered folks can use it. And I'm nowhere near 100% convinced on that one yet.

[excel]

Hi Bob. NVEI investors use chat the most of any stock board or anyone else. They came over from the Raging Cess Pool.

I have watched people who never use to post on ihub now start to post here. I've noticed the slow but steady progression to the message board site. So IMO it has been a benefit to Ihub!

1. Any guesses how many iChat users are non-subscribers?

No idea.

2. Is it a valuable enough feature that if it were moved in-house, people would pay a small amount to have access only to it? I'm thinking an amount smaller than the cost of a lifetime subscription here. And either including it as a Premium Feature of the site, or charging a tiny amount monthly for access to it.

I think people may do that. But I also think it's important to keep the grandfather clause in for those already using chat.
Keep the momentum you have now.

3. Would it be helpful to archive daily conversations and make them available on the site?

No. We discussed that possibility and even took a vote on it. The vote was in favor of no archive by a huge amount. One of the reasons given is they felt it would lose the private asset that it has become when having group discussions with certain people.

4. How's the speed and reliability overall? iHub is running on some serious horsepower so if speed and reliability are issues, moving it inhouse should quickly solve any such problems.

It sucks a lot of recources. But overall compared to any other chat site I love it. Good features like private chat.

5. Basically, is it worth paying for? The inhouse version is far from a cheap date.

I think over all it is fine where it is. It attracted new users to Ihub message boards which in turn has attracted new paying members from the friends of the grand fathered in users

6. How many people are here only because we have that feature? If we didn't have it, would we lose a lot of our "invisible" population?

That is a very tough question to answer without polling each user. I know for NVEI shareholders we would find another chat place. How many of them would continue to use the message boards I don't know.

7. Any idea that'd make it more valuable to everyone who uses it.

Have digichat change how much recources it takes up. That is the number one complaint as we get booted. Hopefully others have some ideas. For me it does great with the features it has.

8. Any ideas how iHub can "get paid" due to its presence here?

They already are. New members have come here due to chat and have progressed over to message boards. I think it takes time. Old habits are hard to break for some people using other message boards. Watch what happens as the market eventually turns around. You will increase numbers here. And chat will be a valuable reason why you do. I think chat should always be a premium feature

Excel
Check this out! I need your opinion!
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=793

[greg s]

Bob, I don't use chat at all, but I'm not the typical iHubber (being a large/mid cap investor). Also, I tned to hold my positions for a long time. People who are very active traders could probably use chat more than me.

greg

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

As outlined in the iBox, I have the following concerns about the Live Chat feature:

1. Cannibalizing public posts. I suspect a lot of activity is happening in iChat that would be public posts if iChat weren't there. iHub makes (very little) money from public posts because of the ads non-subscribers see when they read them.

2. It's available to free members, so iHub may never see a dime from its presence here.

3. I understand it's a bit unreliable.

So, let me put the following ideas and questions out there for some feedback:

1. Any guesses how many iChat users are non-subscribers?

2. Is it a valuable enough feature that if it were moved in-house, people would pay a small amount to have access only to it? I'm thinking an amount smaller than the cost of a lifetime subscription here. And either including it as a Premium Feature of the site, or charging a tiny amount monthly for access to it.

3. Would it be helpful to archive daily conversations and make them available on the site?

4. How's the speed and reliability overall? iHub is running on some serious horsepower so if speed and reliability are issues, moving it inhouse should quickly solve any such problems.

5. Basically, is it worth paying for? The inhouse version is far from a cheap date.

6. How many people are here only because we have that feature? If we didn't have it, would we lose a lot of our "invisible" population?

7. Any idea that'd make it more valuable to everyone who uses it.

8. Any ideas how iHub can "get paid" due to its presence here?

I'm open to any and all comments.

Bob Z.