Ozzu Premium Membership Idea

Maybe OZZU should just have a premium membership addition and offer this (Google Earth Ozzu) as one of the perks there.

I think thats a great idea. But what other perks would a premium membership include?

I hope I'm correct in assuming that's sarcasm..

<blonde comment> It was? </blonde comment>

I know its been discussed before about a premium membership?

Premium members get an autographed photo of Bigwebmaster.

I just fell off my chair laughing. Thanks Joe! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Actually its something I am considering. For instance, image attachments has been one thing I have purposely avoided with ozzu because of the increase in bandwidth/costs -- but I think this would be something that would be great to offer premium members. Do you think that is a bad idea? Nothing would be taken away from ozzu, just new perks for those who want them.

So I am going to assume the premium account would come at a monetary cost to us? I'm not a big fan of it but I am sure others would be.

Yes most likely that is how it would work.

I guess it depends on how much it would cost, but I don't mind paying for extra features as I realise these extra features take time to implement.

Why not base premium accounts on post count? I dont think many people will pay for it.

Webmaster World (webmasterworld.com) has a premium membership option and from what I hear is very successful. Again if I were to implement something like that on ozzu it would only be for extra features which could cover the costs for image attachments, removing all ads, amongst other things. So the purpose would be to offset server costs, bandwidth costs, domain costs - and to provide another level of benefits to ozzu members who wish to have them.

Basing premium accounts on post counts is an idea, however, that really does not offset any of the increased costs -- plus I can already see members abusing that by making many short pointless posts to get their post counts up for the additional benefits.

For current members everything would be the same, having the premium account option does not change anything. For the members who are interested in additional features and helping to support ozzu, even if that number is small, it would help offset the costs to keep ozzu online and updated.

Well you could set a Limit to a certain amount of characters in each post, But I guess that would take to long.

Also as for helping with funds, Ozzu has a donate button, I would Donate to ozzu when I get my paypal set back up again.

I am neither for or against the idea, But it seems like a lot of trouble for only a few extra features.

What if there were more than a "few extra features"?

Say for example, OZZU put up a tutorials section. Some tutorials could be included for free for all members, but what if a Premium membership would give access to the entire tutorial library, and perhaps video tutorials? I mean I could see the value of a premium membership for that. Many sites do exactly that. I've often thought of doing video tutorials for OZZU, but it's time consuming and like Bigweb said consumes extra bandwidth - time and money.

The revenue from premium memberships could help OZZU have added features that people have asked for and seem to want like that, but are not very profitable to implement.

I am hoping to add more than a few extra features. These are ideas I have so far, I welcome criticism and other ideas that could be included:

• Customize your profile title (2500 post requirement waived)
• Access to premium membership forum (more relaxed atmosphere, tighter community)
• Access to buy/sell/trade forum
• Can post job opportunities (100 post requirement waived -- if post count restriction goes in effect)
• Completely Ad free (all of ozzu ads removed) -- if you want them off
• 20% off of all templates sold at ozzu.com/webtemplates
• 5 months free hosting at unflux.net with 1 year contract paid upfront (pay for 1 year and get 5 months free) -- same deal every year if you renew ozzu membership
• Free guestbook script from (guestbook.bigwebmaster.com) - registered version with no ads
• Username title on threads will be a special color (like gold) to indicate you are a supporting premium ozzu member (optional)
• Larger private message storage (2000 messages vs 1000)
• Larger avatar disk size (15KB vs 7KB)
• A link to your profile on this page: http://www.ozzu.com/ozzu_supporters.html
• Articles/tutorials written by the owner of ozzu on a variety of topics (possible, depending on support)
• 10 MB of space on ozzu for html, pictures, and text files.
• Ability to attach files to posts
• User Instant Messenger (with other ozzu members online)
• Print topics
• Friends/Foe List
• Address Book
• Additional PM Folders
• Disable word censoring
• Can use [FLASH] BBCode
• Ability to bump topics without posting
• Save Post Drafts
• Google Earth Ozzu

Remember these are all just ideas, nothing is concrete. Some of these options may just go for all the users too depending on what I figure out.