> The demise of Galacticomm is an interesting story.  AOL is what essentially
> killed theBBS.  More specifically, when AOL went from pay-perphour to
> unlimited, the masses were introduced to "the internet" as AOL offe
> For many years and still today people refer to AOL as "the internet"
> course we all know that ARPA net and the Internet existed 30 years before
> AOL, however with the masses comes money.  Now WorldGroup was in direct
> competition with AOL, as were a few other BBS systems (Excaliber, PowerBBS).
> The main flaw with BBS systems is the localized style that it offers.  I know
> we all prefer this, but to the average user ( where the $ is) do not prefer a
> system with no people.  The offering of a Central Hub in which all users
> connect and can Chat is why (i think) that AOL dominated.  The chat system
> offered people the reality of chatting directly to their friends, or othe
> rpeople.  Tim Stryker (MBBS creator and leader of Galacticomm) saw this too
> late I think and simply lacked the capital to market his products againt
> america online, who obviously sent millions and millions of CDs to people for
> years.  So, its not that nobody has or had your idea, its just the idea was
> shot down by a central style model and also by a huge corporation's
> marketing.  Ultimatly Tim Stryker commited suicide and since then all of
> GComm's products are in a  whirlwind.  Two companies claim the rights to
> WorldGRroup.  NetVillage and World Group Wre.  One claims to have purchsaed
> it from the bank which Gcomm owed tons of money to, tthe others claim some
> other means.  But the ideas you guys are throwing out are great in theory,
> but that model is in place now in the BBS community.  Each "Village/BBS&
> frequented by only a handfull of people and generates external competition,
> which eventually causes people to get frustrated because nobody wants to play
> a game with only 3 people.  Just like AOL wouldnt have been as sucessful if
> only 3 people had been on to chat with.

I agree that this has been tried and seems the theory may not work but there is
one "item" which is missing to make the whole thing work.  Think on this,
everyone running CMS (Content Management System) like e107, Joomla, and
Mamabo.. etc suffer from the same problem that BBS's suffer from.  They only
get a few visitors showing up just like BBS's  So we must answer the question
below.

How do we increase visitors to the BBS community?

This is an easy one.  But for this to work you have to make a type of BBS
standards committee like ANSI standards, ISO standards and WEB standards and
have most of the major BBS developers agree to some fundamental networking
principles.  Why do BBS's need this and how do we increase visitors?

1. Set standards so that BBS's of any make can share information.  For
Instance, Virtual advanced BBS's should show up on Synchronet's real-time BBS
list and vice versa. This can be done by adding an "overhead channel" to a BBS
and using a net to transfer the info.  An overhead channel is like the Post-it
Network is currently set up.  But instead of using a message base to transfer
the info, you have another section set aside for overhead broadcasts that are
specificly for BBS to BBS communications.



2.  Set standards for BBS modernization.  Most BBS systems in the past that
failed tried to emulate big systems like AOL.  I think this is the wrong
direction.  Instead, a BBS should be designed like a current CMS like E107 and
simply empower an individual's right to expression and be able to connect them
to like minds.  On the same token, I'm not saying a BBS should copy everything
from a CMS because a CMS's are for Content Management whereas a BBS is for
Networking.  But a BBS should blend the best of both worlds.  Why a CMS you
ask?

History:

Almost all people running VA, including myself, ran them during the dialup
days. So everyone is psychologically used to using a terminal session whereas
the new generation, 18-24 year olds, do not remember this.  The new generation
which spurs technological growth and development are used to WEB/HTML.  So
you're never going to convert young people in mass to use a terminal session
over an HTML session.  It's just not going to happen.  Plus, I think a BBS
should use new technology as well as older technology.  I would compare a
terminal session on a BBS to DOS in windows and the WEB section to WINDOWS with
a BBS being an actual operation system rather than just a program.

------How VA and VA-PHP can take off like a rocket.-----

For VA/PHP to take off is really simple but, of course, the programming is time
consuming.

1. First, you want to convert new people to Virtual Advanced and VA-PHP.  So
how can we get a bunch of people fast.  Who is the target audience/group?

2.  What you do is you make a competitive alternative to a Content Management
system. Here are some question/answers for the conversion:

So your running a CMS on the WEB, but can your CMS network with other systems?

Are you running your CMS off your own comptuer hardware?

Do you have network games?

Do you have a BBS list for other people to connect to your system without
google?

Do you have internet e-mail?

Do you have complete control over how your system looks/feels?

Can you join world wide networks like FidoNet?

And, of course the answer is No to all/most of these if your running a CMS.

3.  Once you have the product, you start converting young people running CMS
packages that are running world of warcraft sites, everquest sites, music
sites, personal sites and provide a better alternative for them which is found
in a WEB enabled BBS.  Once this is done and the word gets out.   VA will take
off so fast nobody will know what happened.  But you have to have the right
product in the right market for the right people.

"You must focus on the young 18-24 year old CMS community if you want the BBS
community to grow by any significant amount."  Galaxyman :-)

This basicly means a blog, active content, file downloads, networking.  A BBS
must some how have a blog.  There's is just no way around it.  How to do it and
what standards I dont know.  This takes and old fashioned bean bag discussion
group.

--Aspect Technologies should not make the same mistake that Synchronet did and
make a WEB side for a telnet BBS. This will not generate new customers-- Aspect
Technologies must make the WEB side for WEB/CMS users to use, like me :-b, and
make them happy.  This includes future support for templates and maybe later
plugin support.   While at the same time, Aspect must keep the users of the
telnet side happy.  This is done by not getting rid of old technologies like
being able to use dialup.  Another mistake by synchro.

This is just my opinion on the subject and I'm not sayig this is set in stone.
But this is the general direction things need to take if BBS's are to be
Competitive.  There is a HUGE market for such a product, again, if the
"direction" and "philosopy" are right from the start.

So you have a:

1. A philosophy
2. A product
3. and Target Group(s) CMS and original telnet community
4. then 1,2,3 takeoff.  You then may wish for the good ole days of only 20 or
so VA systems:-b

	             	    GalaxyNET Information Portal (A WEB BBS)
	             	   Community - Creativity - Self Sufficiency
	                       http://www.galaxynet.servebbs.com