34 replies to this topic

[PEW]

I tried to post this under the subscription thread but was barred. Okay- Atlas did spring this on us but we warned some time ago that this was a survival route that Atlas had to consider. I admit to signing up after a consideration period of 30 secs. Why? As someone who has been converted from an interested follower to a devoted fan by the Internet, I cannot deny Atlas's role in this conversion. I remember the early days of Pacman and Don Capps when he was Henry Manney III (?). The ready access to info and gossip was a relevation. This relatively insider information feeds the attention to minutiae which surely is the hallmark of an F1 addict.

Times are changing, in my professional life I have seen many sites and even servers collapse. For me - ATLAS must not die- and it is a small price to pay for the best F1 site on the Internet.

[TheDestroyer]

PEW, I second that. I've been reading AtlasF1 for years now.

I find it to be the best source (magazine, show, etc.) of F1 news - bar none!

I subscribed as well because I don't want to see this vanish.

[tonicco]

I admit to signing up after a consideration period of 30 secs

That much?

I must say that I read & reread all the available information, but definitively Bira convinced me...

And for $36 a YEAR? That's a bargain...;)

[Sid]

I guess I am also a part of the Happy Subscibers Club

;)

[Peterson]

I too was a bit pissed of at first when i saw the new look and thought they could have warned us.

But when you see it in a business perspective you cannot reveal things like this beforehand.
They are not the only F1 website on earth you know...

I actually had to think about it for 10 minutes.
But its the quality aspect that made Atlas the only website for me.
And thats why i am too now a happy subscriber.

Fredrik

[mel]

I am delighted to see a 'happy subscriber' thread. Please don't turn this thread into a parallell to the 'Questions and reactions' thread though, or I'll be forced to merge it.;)

[Draco]

Originally posted by Sid
I guess I am also a part of the Happy Subscibers Club

;)

Ditto.

[gekoo]

There is a french version of f1-live, and i'm french. The choice would seem obvious, but as a f1 fan for ten years, i have never found any source of information as goos as atlasf1.

I didn't hesitate a second and paid immediatly.

And two or three weeks ago, the team of atlasf1 informed everyone they might have to change their business model. they didn't betrayed their readers.

One more thing, this site has a lot of ad for unesco and this kind of stuff, and this political ethics seems quite rare nowdays.

Bonne route à AtlasF1
:yawn:

[mel]

I've split this thread. The complainers have been sent into the other thread.

[Groom]

Better say I am a hapy subscriber before I get kicked to the other thread.

The bad thing was that I woke up Wednesday morning made a cup of coffee and sut down to read the race review when I found out. It didn't take me long to pull out my credit card and subsribe.

The decision was easy you pay you get a better service. If you are a free rider you get a best effort service. Just like the Internet.;)

[RV_Canada]

RV_Canada And more JV content please!!??!! (Now I'm a paying customer, let my voice be heard!

(How do you get those cool pictures under your names??)

[Pit Babe]

Hello

1. Mitch is on the road - look for his column to return next week most likely.
2. Cool pictures under names:
http://www.atlasf1.c...tion=faq#avatar
-Click on "Profile" on this or most other BB pages
-Click on "Edit Options"
-Click on "Change Avatar"
Voílà. Hope this helps.
Cheers!

[Slick]

Another Happy Subscriber



1. Thanks Mel it's nice to have a totally happy thread
2. Hello Pitbabe ;)

[ikryan]

I have already responded elsewhere expressing my support for this move, but seeing that someone had started a whole thread dedicated to 'happy subscribers', I am adding my support again.
Ian

[Schumi Fan]

It took me about a week, but I became a subscriber too. This site is awesome...

[jma57944]

I enjoyed Atlas F1 when it was free, will continue to do so as a paying costumer. Thanks Bira for your help. To all that moan and groan because of the price: there are a number of free sites ou there, I visit them and so can anyone else and we are all free to spend our money how we see fit, however a free lunch can't last forever.

[ARing]

I am most definitely a happy subscriber. I have been reading Atlas since early 97 and paying my due now, is the least I can do.

I hope this business model succeeds.

ARing

[crouchyaj]

Well when I first saw the new pay-or-go policy I was miffed.

$36 US is like $75 Australian. I thought gee thats ridiculous:mad:

But Last night I went out to dinner with this girl. The dinner cost $72 the taxi back to her place $13 and then home to mine at 2am was another $17. All told the night cost $102 (and we skipped the movie ) and I didn't think twice about it.

Today I came online and thought $75 for a years subscription to my favourite site, not to bad at all.

Would have preferred to keep it free but you can't have everything.

[Hooster]

Originally posted by crouchyaj
Well when I first saw the new pay-or-go policy I was miffed.

$36 US is like $75 Australian. I thought gee thats ridiculous:mad:

But Last night I went out to dinner with this girl. The dinner cost $72 the taxi back to her place $13 and then home to mine at 2am was another $17. All told the night cost $102 (and we skipped the movie ) and I didn't think twice about it.

Today I came online and thought $75 for a years subscription to my favourite site, not to bad at all.

Would have preferred to keep it free but you can't have everything.

Sorry, I just can`t resist this . "All told the night cost $102 ". Ah, 102$ sounds mighty cheap mate ;). I just hope you don`t end up like DC paying millions to his X.

Remember the 102$ will soon escalate to X amount for more courting + engagment and later marriage. Then honeymoon, new home, furniture and perhaps finish it off with alimony. Compared to all this 75$ is less than nothing. Stick with it...

[KinetiK]

i just don't like manufactured news. Atlas is guilty of this today with the news article about JV's back.

Q: How bad is his back? Is that affecting him?
CP: I don't think the back is an issue. I think Jacques has had an injury from his youth that has been there for years and years and it was maybe aggravated during the Australian incident but I don't think that it is actually affecting him during the race.

This is also in the Wednesday Interview news article. I've paid my subscription so I get to mouth off, correct???????????????? Atlas, please don't stoop to the depths of itv-f1.com or formula1.com, please?

[bira]

Well, I guess I might as well post my answer to this here too, KinetiK ;)

Please differentiate between the news reports -- which our own reporters send in -- and the transcript of the official FIA press conference, which the FIA itself offers. It's like seeing a raw transmission of the President of the USA giving a speech, as opposed to watching the evening news later, where some parts of that speech are put into context and are made into news items with their own headlines.

I believe we would not be doing our job if we did not actually report, and separately, those issues which are deemed as news.

With rumours about Jacques Villeneuve's injury spreading around, having his team manager and friend shed some light on it is most certainly news-worthy. But then, so as to not receive angry e-mails such as yours, we would need to either post ONLY the FIA's press conference transcript, hoping everyone will actually read through the entire piece and will have not missed out on those parts which are news-worthy; or alternatively NOT publish the FIA's transcript at all, and settle only for the news reports on those points that we have found to be news-worthy.


I would also like to think that the FIA press conference transcripts, along with the daily quotes round-up, are better viewed as "reference material". Call me old-fashioned, but I like knowing that when needed, I can always pull these from the archive. It's different than news. A news report needs to be concise, about one subject matter only. It should have a clear 'headline'. That could never be true for the press conferences, where several "headlines" are covered at once, and without being put in context.

Perhaps we simply need to remove the press conference from the list of news reports/headlines, and only place a link to them from the right-hand-side box of links per every race. That is a thought we have had for some time now. But either way, I would like you to give your e-mail a second thought: I do believe that, looking at it professionally, you will perhaps understand the decisions we make in that respect, and they are far far from having anything to do with "fabricating news".

Best regards,

Biranit Goren
Atlas F1

[baddog]

In the specific case of the press conferences etc I see your point bira.

on a more general note one of the things i have liked about Atlas news up to now is that you dont often take a Reuters new feed article and drip feed it out as about a dozen seperate 'fluffed out' articles, which is the whole basis of certain other news sites (who shall remain nameless) huge volume of 'news items'... so a simple two paragraph quote becomes 6 different news items, each predicated on one sentence ignoring its context.

I hope you continue to guard against any trend towards this.

Shaun

[bira]

We never do that.

Actually, the only times where repetition can - and will - occur is in the following cases:

1) A story that is developing by the hour.
Go to the archives and look at our coverage the day Michael Schumacher broke his leg, or in Malaysia 1999 when Ferrari were disqualified. Looking at it now, you will find repetitions aplenty, but the nature of these two events were that they unravelled by the hour, if not by the minute. Taking that into account, and the fact that the Internet does allow you to constantly post updates, repetitions were unavoidable. If you were following these events up closely, it wouldn't have mattered much. If you came in a day after, it would probably have been annoying.

For those kind of cases, even the mild ones (eg Montoya/Schumacher's "exchange of words" after Austria or Barrichello's team orders there), the VIEW IN THREADS is a terrific solution that allows both the frequent and the infrequent visitor to be "spared" of repetitions, but at the same time get the full "picture".


2) "Raw" vs "Reports".
I refer, of course, to situations such as various news reports on different subjects that all stem from the press conference of that day. I've explained that extensively above so I won't repeat (;)) myself again.

Anyway, I'd like to urge anyone and everyone who gets upset at something he/she sees in the news to remember one thing first:

The news at Atlas F1 are run and maintained by really good journalists who are also really affectionate F1 fans. They know what news is, and they know what news is not. We smirk off just like you when we see some sites take a two paragraph story and break it into 10. We do our best to not do that, not because we're bleeding hearts, but because we know how annoying and stupid it is from a reader's perspective.

So please, whatever criticism you have we welcome it. But be constructive and remember that we are not the enemy -- we are on the very same side as you: on the F1 fans' side.

Cheers,

Bira

[ffiloseta]

I was expecting this move, a move that I expect to see taken by many other web sites. This guarantees the availability of the information I really need and faster access to boot.

[CDNgrl]

Happy Subscriber

i initially resisted, not because I didn't think it wasn't worth it (because I've always said this is a great site) but because I'm going on maternity leave soon, and knew that I would suddenly lose that precious commodity -- free time. Bira reasurred me that I could put my subscription on hold for however long I need. You know -- I also felt guilty accessing the BBs without having a subscription as well, it just didn't feel right!

So I happily subscribed. After 10 days of not being able to view the site --- I'm eating it all in.

The admins have lots to be proud of. I hope it continues to be successful.

[Ghostrider]

The time saving aspects of only having to go to one site for all the info about F1 + the great articles are more than enough to convince me.

[mikedeering]

I am a very happy subscriber - it's worth $36 a year just for the palm os version - now you don't just get news, but grapevine and the weekly magazine articles all on a PDA. Now I can go everywhere with AtlasF1 in my pocket!

[A3]

Found a credit card ;) and now I joined the club too. I'll be honest, I thought I didn't need Atlas for it's news and stories, but I was wrong. After almost 2 weeks of trying to find another F1 site that suited me, I decided to subscribe because Atlas just is the best.

But I still think it's too expensive, but that's probably because of the expensive dollar.

[Skouse]

I've never made any transaction over the internet before, but when I couldn't access Atlas F1 one morning that changed quickly. I have to say I'm glad I subsribed also. I can't be happy without my F1 news. Cheers.

[desmo]

Just a note to say that the current edition of Atlas F1 is the best ever. Really enjoyed it, I'm glad to see Atlas taking what was already the best F1 site on the web and raising their game yet further. As Bira can well attest, I pull no punches when it comes to honest criticism and indeed I see room for improvement in places still, but overall well done!

[Paul]

I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of you who have voiced your support. We cherish and are grateful for every subscription. Everyone who has climbed aboard means a great deal to us.

For some, this situation is difficult, as suddenly paying for something, which was free, does not make sense from their concept and experience with the Internet. However, times are changing. The financial squeeze is on. Many of the sites you visit may not be around for long unless they can bring in alternative means of funding (as opposed to advertising). Or, they will need to bring their budgets way, way down (if they are not there already).

Atlas F1 made the switch. For us, it is probably easier to do than other related sites, as our content is not solely news. That combined with an excellent staff and great readers is probably why we are the first. Other Webmasters are watching us. They have written in, immensely curious how things are going. Moreover, the curiosity is not only from F1 sites. We seem to be drawing attention from all over as times are tough and solutions need discovery.

I hate to say "never." However, it is safe to say that I will not be involved with another "free" site again. Although the popularity thing might be important for some as far as a particular business model or ego is concerned, I am finding the subscription model to be much more rewarding. We now have a small group of people who we can personally attend to... and whom truly appreciate what we do. The recipe is very rewarding and I sincerely think this will show in the look and feel of Atlas F1 as we march forward.

Therefore, again, to all those who have subscribed, thank you for joining us. Your support is truly valued.

Warmest regards,

Paul

[GSXRTURBO1]

And yet another happy subscriber

[Nomad]

Should've written this a while back...

Bira, Paul and all the magazine writers

I am now one happy subscriber
Over the intial shock and yet to receive my credit card bill...

In fact the subscription has revived my reading of the articles. I am no longer reading just the news but once again digesting every snippet of information on the site that I can my hands on.

Hoping there are enough of us happy subscribers to keep Atlas firmly in the black.

Yours, saving for a Tshirt

Nomad

[Don Capps]

We really need to consider discounts for comments like these:

I remember the early days of Pacman and Don Capps when he was Henry Manney III (?).

[Triton]

Count me in as another satisfied customer.
I signed up becos i do not wish to see such a fine website go under. Deciding whether to plonk US$36 is made easy by the excellent articles and wealth of information available to members.