June site update

[albummaster]

This is a longer than usual update, for which I apologise. First, I've just released another small round of changes (which follows another unannounced update last week) to improve performance across the site, support data moderation and refresh certain areas.

Second, and the main reason for writing, is really to communicate that after almost 20 years, BEA is in danger of closing. The combined effect of decreased ad revenue & increased costs are really impacting on BEA's ability to exist. In the background, I've been doing what I can to reduce server costs by decreasing the footprint of the site, which is quite large due to the amount of historical data BEA uses and the processing requirements for calculating aggregates etc. But continual firefighting feels like a losing battle. The BEA database is growing all the time, with every new album, chart, rating etc, and obviously while I'm spending a LOT of time JUST on keeping the site alive and optimising the back-end to reduce costs, the less time there is left over to spend on functional improvements to the site, which then affects how busy the site is because certain features are 'missing', or not as slick as they could be. There are hundreds of feature requests outstanding (both small and large) in the backlog, harvested over many years from the forums, PMs, emails etc, but these cannot be implemented because time is spent elsewhere (and the site can't afford extra resource at this stage to perform the work).

Controlling costs is one thing, but the site really needs to be able to generate a small amount of extra income to allow it to keep going as there is only so much headroom available. Premium membership continues to be the most viable idea for accomplishing this, for those that want extra features (probably via a very low-cost subscription). This has been mooted for several years now and has already been partly implemented on the site in terms of stub text and menu options etc, but the non-urgency of implementing it in the past and the fact I don't have a massive back-end support team around me, meant I've kept this on the back burner (there was also not as much financial pressure in the past to get this done as there is today - hosting costs have increased exponentially compared to ad revenue and it's a real struggle right now). Premium membership (and the site more generally) should not be seen as containing a static set of features and the site would be able to evolve more quickly if it was viable to work on it for longer periods and/or recruit additional resource and some of the great ideas in the product backlog could then be implemented.

Alongside Premium Membership, the ability to purchase points on a one-off basis may also be added. This would be an option for those people who don't want to be tied to a subscription, to give people access to Level 7 features, without going through the effort of earning points (extra points won't get somebody premium membership features, but they would allow somebody to jump the membership ladder if they wanted a quick fix to create year/decade/custom charts, without having to go through the grind of earning points).

A BEA shop has also been mentioned in the past which could sell some tiny amounts of merchandise, but given the site is so small, and my graphic design skills so poor, this is less likely to happen than some of the other options, unless there's a graphic designer lurking here that would like to get involved.

Lastly, just to be clear, there's absolutely no obligation for anybody to ever put their hands in their pockets to use BEA, and existing members would carry on as normal with no impact to their life. The site will continue to be free (ad blockers & all, so free in the absolute sense of the word if you choose to do that), but it might give the site a fighting chance of survival if there were one or two revenue streams operating alongside to help the site meet its expenses and help it become more viable longer term.

Thank you for reading (if you got this far) and look forward to hearing your views, if you have any.

AM