Starting the countdown....

[Cuda Cody]

It's been nearly six months of hard work and we're still on track for our January 24th Launch.  Here's the list of things left that need to be finished:

- Finish programming and testing the user Credit Shop program
- Find about 6 to 8 items to put in the Shop before launching forum (working with David on this one)
- Film short Welcome video for new members
- Finish editing "How To" video on Steering Columns (about 75% done)
- Make "How To" video on what to look for when purchasing an E-Body
- Finish editing "Purchasing you First E-Body" article.
- Finish Programming Build Sheet decoder (ONLY about 15% done - This one is the hardest of them all)
- Finish Fender Tag Decoder

Super excited to take the cover off this site and share our passion with other E-Body and Mopar enthusiast.  Right now we have 5.5 weeks to go! 

[303 Mopar]

Amazing work Cody!  This is going to be a great site!!  So looking forward to it!!   

[MoparDave]

If you do the card transactions manually, you can get around the third party/secure SSL issue and fees associated with that unless your provider gets you a really good rate. It all costs and it all ads up, or do paypal only. minimizing the risk of charge backs and issues.

[Cuda Cody]

So the "Shop" (or "store" as you'll see in the link in the tab above) that I have in mind is not one where people can use real money.  My thought is to have a prize system in place so the members get rewarded for their activity.   The goal for members would be to earn credit (tokens / or whatever we end up calling it) that they can exchange for prizes in the E-Bodies.org Shop (the shop would not take anything other then forum earned credit).  And all members have to do to earn credit is... make posts or replies.  It's that easy.  For example, each member will get a credit (lets say 2 credits) for each post or reply they make (just grabbing numbers for the example).  And they can earn up to a set maximum credits each day.  For example we might set the maximum at 20 credits per day.  Over time, the users that visit E-Bodies.org more often and make more posts will earn more credit to spend on free swag in the E-Bodies.org Shop.  I also have a setting built in to the program so that if members just post a smiley or two they don't earn credit.  The goal is to reward those valuable members that visit each day and help others out. 

The more activity the website and forum get the more site sponsors will want to advertise on here.  More members that use our site sponsors the more they will pay to be on the site.  Eventually the Shop will be stocked with items that are purchased with site sponsors funds.  Yes, at the start the cost of the items will come out of my own pocket.  But I'm willing to bet on this site growing and hopefully one day having enough site sponsorship to cover all the prizes and cost of hosting this forum.  So in theory the bigger the site gets, the better the prizes and rewards for active members gets.  I have all kinds of ideas for prizes.  We might do some custom stuff like Yearly Member Calendars or do a yearly Custom E-Bodies.org Tee-Shirts that you can only get during a short period.  So members will want to save credits for those cool items.  Plus we'll have some other neat Mopar stuff (I hope to buy some from you David). 

My goal with this site is to share as much information as possible and give back to the active members.  I've seen so many daily users on forums give a ton of their time and they do it all for free.  Now we will have a small way to thank them with the E-Body Bucks and Shop.

As you can tell this idea is not 100% figured out.  I'm not aware and any other forum that has done this yet and I was not able to find any software that could work inside the forum the way I need it to.  So I found a programmer that was willing to help me program the software.  That's what we are working on right now.  There's still some bugs in it, but in the end I hope it works as I have planned.

Does that make sense?  Any thing you can think of that might make it better?

If you do the card transactions manually, you can get around the third party/secure SSL issue and fees associated with that unless your provider gets you a really good rate. It all costs and it all ads up, or do paypal only. minimizing the risk of charge backs and issues.

[Chryco Psycho]

No harm in allowing people to pay for stuff too but everyone likes free !!

[Chryco Psycho]

Looking forward to the launch , this will be awesome !! 
Thanks for all the hard work .... you energy is endless kinda like a few other people !
Once you get started yu are relentless !!

[Cuda Cody]

Thank you for the kind words guys.   

The guy writing the Shop program is almost done and we'll be ready to test shortly.  I will need a couple people to place test orders and help run test it.   Stand by....   

[303 Mopar]

I need more credits for the key chain

[Chryco Psycho]

maybe another car with keys for the key chain too LOL

[Cuda Cody]

What's your guys thoughts on opening the site up sooner?  Here's where I'm at now:

- Finish programming and testing the user Credit Shop program (Done)
- Find about 6 to 8 items to put in the Shop before launching forum (working with David on this one) (could be done in about 2 hours)
- Film short Welcome video for new members (need a day or two)
- Finish editing "How To" video on Steering Columns (about 75% done) (Should be done in about 1 week)
- Make "How To" video on what to look for when purchasing an E-Body (Want to get this started, but might need about 10 days to fit it in)
- Finish editing "Purchasing you First E-Body" article. (I think this is a great thing to have.  I can finish it in about a week)
- Finish Programming Build Sheet decoder (about 25% done, this might be something that we add after the site is open to the public)
- Finish Fender Tag Decoder (No hurry as there are several other fender tag decoders)

I have to get the auto backup program worked out.  Right now it's making 4 backups of the site daily and eating up disc space, but besides the list and a few small things we are really close.

[303 Mopar]

Have we moved to the new server?  I would suggest running some tests after the move.  We can also start making more posts on different topics to "fill some things in" once we move to the new servers.

It sounds like you have 3-4 weeks of work left which puts us mid-January, and thats if there are no hiccups.  So this isn't too far off your Jan 24 date anyway.

One last thing, you only have one chance to make a first impression so lets make it the best we can rather than rush just to get this live.

[Cuda Cody]

Good points.  We need to be ready to make our best impression when we do this.

We are on the new server now and everything is working good.  I'm going to keep working on as much as I can and I'll update the list in a few weeks.   

Have we moved to the new server?  I would suggest running some tests after the move.  We can also start making more posts on different topics to "fill some things in" once we move to the new servers.

It sounds like you have 3-4 weeks of work left which puts us mid-January, and thats if there are no hiccups.  So this isn't too far off your Jan 24 date anyway.

One last thing, you only have one chance to make a first impression so lets make it the best we can rather than rush just to get this live.

[303 Mopar]

Please let me know how I can help too.  Its snowing and 10 degrees so I have time on my hands over the next couple of weeks.

[Chryco Psycho]

The only person putting pressure on you is you .
When it is ready we go , no sooner  as above the first impression can only be done once  I am willing to help but no one taught me computers so it is a long learning curve for me !
we could soft open it to a few more trusted members though  .

[Cuda Cody]

Lets explore that idea.  Did you have anyone in mind that you feel you can trust?

...we could soft open it to a few more trusted members though  .