Fostoria cam.

[SHMILLER]

I remember when that was going on.. A buddy of mine turned it on to it. What a joke. Some people really are too idiotic for this world.

[Brakie]

I remember when that was going on.. A buddy of mine turned it on to it. What a joke. Some people really are too idiotic for this world.

Being a moderator on three model railroad forums you have to clamp down on the miscreants in order to protect the forum and the solid members.

Nothing will ruin a forum faster then letting the bad apples run wild.

I have voted several time to kick a malcontent off of the forums and have no regrets and won't hesitate to do it again should the need arise.

[tsinoms]

I remember the times watching people getting kicked for stupid stuff on there. Some deserved it but I remember there was one mod in particular EVERYONE hated. Sadly I can't think of his name. Also how in the world could someone say zack is a bad admin? Have they not seem where this site has gotten? Hands down one of the best forums I've ever seen. Why? Because we have learned how to conduct ourselves and if something truly goes wrong,then (usually) the banhammer comes out to play. I enjoyed the chat and the knowledge that was shared but the admins need to learn how to properly do it.

On the money side of things, Mike always reminded us how much money it takes to run a website and a good camera. Even Z can tell you it ain't cheap. (Btw totally donate. It's worth it.) I personally won't pony up the $10 to see the cam but oh well. It was awesome while it was free but all good things must come to an end. I wish Mike all the best with the site and maybe one day when I have money to throw around I'll pay.

Just my two cents.

[cbehr91]

but I remember there was one mod in particular EVERYONE hated. Sadly I can't think of his name.

Probably Virgil a.k.a. csxt163.

[tsinoms]

but I remember there was one mod in particular EVERYONE hated. Sadly I can't think of his name.

Probably Virgil a.k.a csxt163.

Sounds familar thanks!

[strugglin]

I can understand the need to charge for the webcams, but I will admit, I was pissed when I logged on to find Fostoria was pay only, glad I got to see it for about 12 hours before they changed it. I'm not going to pay to watch Fostoria when Cresson, Roanoke, Salt Lake City, and other cams are free.

[h710railfan]

Who in the hell would pay to watch a cam feed of fostoria or any train location for that fact seriously

Alot of people i guess because when i get on there thhere is at least 20 people watching the 2 cams for FTown.

[PAT.C]

Big Frank wrote:Who in the hell would pay to watch a cam feed of fostoria or any train location for that fact seriously

I AGREE WITH BIG FRANK. I WOULDN'T WASTE MY MONEY ON A STUPID RAILCAM SITE.

A GOOD PORN SITE IS ANOTHER STORY THOUGH.

[CSX Q109]

my personal opinion is that I think they should have a day or 2 for free to let new comers check it out and see if they like it before makeing a member ship commitment that way you seeing what your getting and paying for that way you can decide if its for you or not. Not many pepole got to view it for the 12 hours of what ever it was before it was a payware deal that did not know about it.

[Mike]

I will start by saying a lot has changed most or our mods are new the issue ones are gone. I will say Streaming Video and hardware is very costly and countless trips to site for outage and fixes were getting very costly and streaming it was not cheap either to Bring it back I had to BUY a cable internet connection at 200 a month and over 6 trips down for meetings and countless nights working on hardware.

There are other cams out there that are in the same boat donations just was not covering costs and some are gone or going to be soon. And going after the same supporters every so many months is not the solution to keep this going.


The Chat room has been much better the past 3 months we have lots of young members and as long as its G rated its ok in the chat room.

I know I am not going to make everyone happy but membership was the only way to Bring Fostoria Back.

[PAT.C]

ON A SERIOUS NOTE - MAINTAINING A WEB SITE IS AN EXPENSE [$$$] AND HAS TO BE PAID BY SOMEONE.
THE WEB CAM COSTS MONEY AND TIME AS DOES THIS SITE.

FOR RRFAN, ZACK PAYS A MONTHLY FEE OUT OF HIS INCOME AND OFFERS THIS SITE TO ALL OF US FOR FREE.

THERE IS A -DONATE- FEATURE ON EACH PAGE. PLEASE USE IT.

AS FOR THE WEB CAM, PAY TO PLAY. IT IS LIKE A TOLL ROAD, THOSE THAT USE IT PAY FOR IT.

THERE IS A COST TO EVERYTHING AND SOMEONE PAYS. BE A GOOD RAILFAN AND PAY YOUR FAIR SHARE.

[AC60CW]

Mike, as many have stated it isn't having to pay. I myself would pay, but $10 a month to me is too steep. Most do understand that the cost of running an operation like this is high, and shouldn't be carried by one person alone. You are trying to recoup your money too fast, or make end meet. Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, I myself would rather have a lower fee that gets me many more subscribers. $10 a month is still too much for what truly is offered, sure it's really nice streaming video with audio. But, it still is basically just a webcam to watch trains pass by, with a chat room. You may also look to offer a 14 day trial or something, to let those of us that were soured by the events previously. This also would let people that haven't seen the wonderful video quality see it first hand. Look at it this way, if I am looking through possible sites to watch live video of trains, and there are a number listed as free and one listed at $10/month. The "average" person would think "why would I pay for something there, when I can get the 'same' thing free over there". Granted, your video stream is probably the best quality I have seen. But, you aren't going to capture people fast if they don't know there truly IS a huge difference in your stream compared to "X webcam" with a 5 second image refresh rate.

Just some things to think about.

[Mike]

I would love to have a low monthly cost but at 10 a person we are just barly breaking even each month.

If you would like to check things out and are sore about the past please contact me off list and I would be glad to work with people on a case by case bases.

Sorry I did not explain that well enough.

Mike

[AARR]

IMHO there is nothing wrong if Mike makes a profit . The time he spends behind the scenes has some value to it i would think.

[AC60CW]

IMHO there is nothing wrong if Mike makes a profit . The time he spends behind the scenes has some value to it i would think.

I completely concur, I don't see anything wrong with it either. Just that it needs to be approached in a business point of view. One of the basic rules is that you will not make a profit in the first year of business, instead, you barely get by making ends meet and sometime not at all. You need to move product though, so you need to come up with ways to promote the sales. Relying on word of mouth and haphazard customers will not get by. In the grocery business, we used "hook" items. The front page sale item that we lost money selling, but got the customer to come in anyways (most often it was my meat department selling ground beef ).

[AARR]

IMHO there is nothing wrong if Mike makes a profit . The time he spends behind the scenes has some value to it i would think.

I completely concur, I don't see anything wrong with it either. Just that it needs to be approached in a business point of view. One of the basic rules is that you will not make a profit in the first year of business, instead, you barely get by making ends meet and sometime not at all. You need to move product though, so you need to come up with ways to promote the sales. Relying on word of mouth and haphazard customers will not get by. In the grocery business, we used "hook" items. The front page sale item that we lost money selling, but got the customer to come in anyways (most often it was my meat department selling ground beef ).

IMHO Mike can tell if he is charging enough for his service based on response. He said he is barely covering the $200. Perhaps he may need to lower the cost to attract more cusotmers.

[Mike]

There are alot more cost then the 200 a month for the Fostoria Internet connection its just one of the many costs.

I.E. Streaming Server software the Server at the internet colo location and TB usage per month. Right now we use about .5 TB a day or 15TB a month!

Each Cam is running at 500Kbps Video and 96Kbps Audio so it goes fast! There are two cams in Fostoria and one is a 1080i camera feed. It now takes two cams to see everyrthing in fostoria. There is not much you do not see between the two cams.

There is lots of costs to Stream Video and were a 24x7 operation so there are network montering tools inplace to monitor each device and we get alerts when things start to go sour.

Netflix started out there live streaming with limited hours and it cost a fair amount now there unlimited and some of there content is HD they have grown over the past few years we are just getting started and using some of the same logic.

[AC60CW]

Sorry for some of my lengthy posts today. I am in the writing mode right now. Finishing up a history paper while I am posting tends to make for "fluff" filled writing, not to mention it doesn't help when my paper is railroad based too...lol

[AC60CW]

Perhaps he may need to lower the cost to attract more cusotmers.

Maybe even just an introductory special perhaps. Say, pay for 6 months get a year...or something along that line. Maybe even just get second month free if you pay for the first. Something to "hook" people into at least trying it.

[~Z~]

If I may add to the input - stream the feeds to ustream, deal with the ads from there, and then you don't have to pay your server hosting fees, only having to pay for DSL at Fostoria+hardware on site. Gotta think with the ads you can show on your website($200+ for google ads per month is impressive) could easily pay for the DSL and will slowly pay off the hardware fees. Add in donations and it'd be easy to get another cam up shortly after.

Just gotta think you won't serve up anywhere as many ads with lower viewership, thus less ad money coming in. I know you want to control all the ads, but the bandwidth costs for running the streaming video server has got to be insane. Anyway, hope whichever route you pick will be successful.