Today we hit 12,000 members, and growth continues to accelerate. Despite a pretty rigorous admissions process (applicants need to answer questions about themselves, do a quick quiz to prove that they're human, and then they need to be approved by a moderator), we're now adding 1,000 members every seven weeks (a month ago that was every eight weeks).
As you can see from the traffic stats above (click for a larger picture), we're doing nearly 30,000 page views every day. Over the past year, we got 2.5 million visits and 8 million page views and more than doubled our traffic.
At this point we may be the largest robotics community in the world. The other community that is normally described (well, describes itself) as the World's Largest Community of Robot Builders is Let's Make Robots, and it looks like we're now bigger than them:
Comments
And once again SOR is the biggest (almost twice LMR), DIY second with LMR last.
Obviously the crown of 'biggest' is hard kept between the three, so it's only safe to say all three are large robotic sites.
(And topping SOR - all of you :D)
(today, when writing this, that is ;)
Chris A, perhaps it was a bit silly starting a mines bigger than yours war.
Still with the number of competition rounds and the number of entrants we have had from around the world at least for aerial robotic competitions we might have run more than anyone else. Whoops I did it again.
Frits, don't have a fit. You need to spend some time around here to really see it, but the store is a bonus to this community. We get great service at reasonable prices from it. What more can you ask for. And yes this is a community, not a buisness. We grow from one anothers expierence.
Congratz to the whole community for becoming one of the most active and mature robotics communities on the web. And I can truly say that after being a part of MANY robotics communities that this is often the most mature community I have found. I am just glad to finally have a found a place to help me get me ideas in the air!
Congrats, well done. Personally I see this forum as a replacement for rcgroups unmanned section, where the community failed to support themselves with start-up hardware.
If there is a shop - that's better, you dont have to put boeing adverts all around.
I only regret the the line of marketing saying 'you can make a complex object for xxUSD'. This is like claiming as the price of the solution is a sum of prices of the components plus some fixed margin.
It is completely agains the spirit of Hi-Tech where you produce unique solutions for urgent needs and you get paid for it, while the complexity, number of interactions, effort and price grows exponentially with the number of components. This line of marketing destroys already eroded engineer's position, when the product is where they are: for a 100s USD you still only get components, be it software, ideas, guidelines, whatever. It is fantastic that you can start your journey easily.
I am surprised this forum was not created by a proficient professor of avionics somewehre in the US, this should have been a major step in improving tech level in your country. Compare for example the project to paparazzi.
The same can be said about SoR. First came the community, then the Axon product out of a need of the community.
OK, back to the light-hearted flame throwing! :)
First, I'd like to say DIY Drones continually gets good reviews from members on my forum, so keep up the good work. We are all on the same team and should be working together =)
Comparing your siteanalytics stats to my actual site data, 'mine is bigger than yours' by a factor of 5x:
http://statcounter.com/project/standard/stats.php?granularity=month...
sorry, couldn't resist the fun! =)
This site wrote about us, I answer, it is fun, comon! Oh - you quoted me from LMR! Can you say "Fuck" in here as well?
Anyway, the money that is made on selling the Start here-kits is very transparent: When you buy one, it has a number on it. That number is the same as amount sold in total. So, you can see what we have made!
And we get 10% of retail price, as is written. This goes to cover hosting. We had to do something, after we reached 14.000 members (:D)
When you become a member, you can join the "backstage" mailing list that has a saying on what any possible profit should go to.
So no, we are not a business. But that being said, there is nothing wrong with businesses, who knows, we might turn into one. For sure, I personally like businesses, money makes the world go round and all.
My point was, that you can have different motivations for having many members and visitors. And if you want to say that "you are bigger than us", you should compare yourselves with other businesses, not with other communities.
When you have a shop, and people have to become members to get support for what you sell, then I do not think it is really the kind of community that you should compare to letsmakerobots.com - the biggest robot building community in the world (perhaps beaten by SoR, though ;)
Compare yourselves with other shops, that is all I am saying. or do not compare, you started the darn thing :D
PEACE, love and all. hey, let's grow together. Your UAV-shop can make ads for free on LMR:
http://letsmakerobots.com/advertising
What can you offer us? the more people getting into making robots (flying or not) the better for all of us, and for any business!
And thanks for the "wake up call", it is fun, I have initiated a campaign to motivate the very talented people of LMR to invite friends and start linking to letsmakerobots.com (oops), I take the challenge.. as serious as I take the rest of this; It's just fun, let's have a race :D
OK? Friends, no flamin! Fun!
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