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January 14, 2009

Two weeks remain on Discount Membership offer

In an unprecedented bold move, Nikonians announced on Monday a shift in membership services and benefits designed to help maintain the community as a totally self-supporting organization. The shift includes changes to Basic level membership options and increases in services and benefits to our supporting Silver, Gold and Platinum (SGP) members.

When Nikonians.org began operations eight and a half years ago it was relatively easy for a short time to continue accepting members and host discussions on a broad range of Nikon-related topics complete with posted images for review and discussion.

Soon, the overwhelming success and growth of the community developed the need for professional managerial services, more and better servers and additional bandwidth. In 2004 and 2005, a series of commercial ventures were started, such as paid sponsor advertising and the establishment of the Nikonians Photo Pro Shops and Nikonians Academy to help in defraying those growing costs while remaining competitive and a suitable service to members. All revenues have been reinvested to sustain the growth of the community which was designed and is operated as a not-for-profit community.

Recently, with the global economic decline and rising costs of IT operations, Nikonians co-founders J. Ramón Palacios and Bo Stahlbrandt made the decision to keep the site open to current Basic non-paying members and visitors, with a change in available benefits. Visitors are always welcomed and will be asked to register and become Basic members for free, to be able to read and post at our forums and will have a 25 days period to decide if they want to join as a paying member.

Basic members will always have the ability to view all Nikonians forums overviews and the full discussions at some selected forums, read our Resources articles, listen to podcasts, read the blog news, read the eZine; but current Basic members (as of January 12th) will not have the ability to post messages and participate in the discussion threads after midnight January 25, 2009 GMT should they decide not to upgrade at least at Silver level.
The recently announced shift in membership level services and benefits for existing Basic members includes the offer of a Silver Membership at a 20% discount ($20 instead of $25 USD). This offer will be expiring on January 25 at midnight GMT should they decide to upgrade at a later time.

In summary, the Basic membership remains in place but its term is shortened to 25 days and previous Basic members have been offered a discount to join as SIlver members.

Silver, Gold and Platinum level paying members will see significant increases in their available Gallery spaces and the ability to upgrade for one year with a free month added. This "13-month" year upgrade has proven to be an enticing offer with many members already signing up for their upgrades.

Effective immediately, Silver members now have a 300 MB Gallery space; Gold members are up to 1GB and Platinum members have 3GB available for their use. The list of benefits and services upgrades grows steadily at each higher level and more will be announced soon.

To upgrade your membership level, click on your "My User Menu" link in the top right hand corner of any forums page.
By using the voucher code SjB-20091u in the upgrade process Basic members will receive a 20% discount on a Silver membership ($20 instead of $25 USD). The voucher is valid until January 26th, 2009 at 00:00 GMT (January 25th, 2009 at midnight GMT)
Background information on the budgeting key indicators behind this change in membership levels can be found here.

Posted by flashdeadline at January 14, 2009 2:20 AM