[Taiki]

I completely agree with your entire post Poggio but I'm gonna quote a few things that I want to talk about from it.

Originally Posted by Poggio

I know never to go into business with my friends, unless I know they are all good with money and ideas with an excellent work ethic. They are not.

This is the main reason that group of people keep failing I feel like. From the trail of information that I've read about them in the past year, Syndrone has already changed ownership and it's been open for like half a year. Yet THIS IS SO IMPORTANT. I have friends that I would never hire if I owned a business. Just because someone is your friend does not mean they will make a good business partner.

Originally Posted by Poggio

Two marketing. I think where tris went wrong was not having something identifiable other then the layering system and pg 17 content allowance... It doesn't help that the site changes staffers frequently. The new ones have to be caught up to date quickly on the complex story line. But from a business aspect that limits the icons that trisphee can make marketable. I mean I can't cosplay as Zypher at a con and have people immediately identify me.

As a webcomic creator, I know how important this is. There is no one way to market yourself. Every comic is different and different methods of marketing will work for different people. The same goes for avatar sites. Knowing your strengths is hard to gauge but can be rewarding. Having popular characters that you really push creates brand loyalty. Like on Gaia, my favorite NPC was Moira. When they had town events, whatever team she was on, I'd be there! No matter what. And when Gaia had their merchandise store... I bought Moira things! A keychain, stickers, even a Durem shirt. Trisphee needs to tone it down and really focus on bringing a small group of NPCs into the limelight so users can get to know them. And I'm pretty sure I've seen an admin mention that they were planning on doing this soon which is a good start.

As for staff changing a lot... sometimes I wonder if that has to do with the first thing I pointed out from your post. Do staff members get hired on constantly because they are friends? Then they're less likely to do actual work because they didn't get hired for work ethic. I'm not saying Tris does this, I'm just pointing it out. I'm pretty sure the smaller avi sites tend to do that which creates staff Cliques.

Originally Posted by Poggio

And if Kids really are the ones running the sites then I have a theory on that as well. It is my opinion kids today have no real value of money. I am not much out of the generaion gap but everything I own in life it is because I had to work for it. I couldn't just start a project and abandon it with out consequences and loosing the money I invested into it.
How can I expect some one that easily thinks money can from their parents to want to make money by making my site work?

This! I think that after the initial rush to be a part of the opening of the site wears off and there is less activity, maybe they panic and jump ship on the site. Though, if I spent thousands of dollars of hard earned money on making a site, I would try to fix what was wrong with it before running off to start a new one.