[stevemon]

One of the questions I was asked by a prospective customer recently was "Are you a supporter of www.anycarmake.com forum by paying for an advertising banner on their site?"

I think; What the heck?? Does this person only want to do business with someone who gives money to his favorite car forum?

My answer was No. I don’t advertise on any car forum although I donate to a local one and to www.turbobuicks.com

I machine throttle bodys for many makes of cars and to buy ads on the popular forums for each flavor of car would require a major increase in prices. Also having worked in businesses over the years I’ve found that if you do your job right, the customers will come to you, ad or no ad.

Besides those reasons, I’m not a fan of the way a number of these forums are being operated nowadays. Here's an example:

One of my customers posted a review of my service along with a link to my website on a car forum. That same day, the owner / admin of the forum deleted the post. He then PM’ed my customer and said that since I was not a paying advertiser (his site had no other throttle body vendors on it) he couldn’t post a link to my website. The forum owner then suggested that the person contact me and have me email the admin about buying a banner there.

I’m not going to get on a soapbox about this kind of practice but I believe it needs to have a light shined on it in order to preserve what our car community is all about. We go to these sites to exchange information primarily, and to encounter this sort of commercial mentality that’s put ahead of the purpose of our being there is beyond the scope of sensibility IMO.

So, if you also feel the same way I do about "commercialization over content" with these forums, please speak out against this practice and I suggest a boycott of any site that follows similar practices.

Thanks
Steve