Re: Goichberg has fears about the online membership
samsloan
magazine readership will never be popular, regardless of how much the
USCF tries to promote it.
People do not like to read lengthy things such as books and magazines
online. Every online magazine in the history of the Internet thus far
has been a failure and has eventually
closed down.
I am a successful book publisher because I publish real books made of
paper and ink, unlike Everyman Chess who primarily publishes ebooks
now.
Goichberg needs to be removed from all positions of authority in the
USCF. Every year that has had Goichberg on the board has been a year
of financial loss. Goichberg has been driving the USCF into the ground
with his stupid and ridiculous ideas.
Sam Sloan
at The Apple Computer Store,
4th and Market Streets
San Francisco CA 94115
parrt...@cs.com
Traditionally the federation as we know it mainly offfered new
members two things: ratings and Chess Life, a printed magazine.
Now what?
Forsythe wrote:
> In the past, when USCF has on occasion offered low cost memberships
> without the magazine for kids, the results have been poor- a low
> renewal rate and the total number of kids in the magazine plus non-
> magazine categories has always decreased.
>
> When USCF started to offer Participating Junior memberships for $2 in
> 1975, it was believed that the low price (Junior with magazine was $8
> then) would cause a big increase in Junior memberships. This did not
> happen, indeed what happened was exactly the opposite. In 1975 before
> the start of PJs, there were 37005 Adult members and 14837 Junior
> members, but in 1985 after 10 years of PJs, adults had increased to
> 44600 but Juniors had declined to 10361! During a period when Adult
> membership did well, Junior membership went down! And of those 10361
> Juniors, only 4279 received the magazine with 6082 without. So we had
> lost 10,558 kids receiving the magazine, our best prospects for future
> adult membership, and as compensation obtained 6082 kids who didn't
> receive it, a less promising category. What a disaster!
>
> The idea behind the current Regular memberships without magazine was
> that these would not be non-magazine memberships because the members
> would read the magazine online. However, especially for kids, I am
> concerned that many are not reading it online and some are not even
> aware that they can do this. Email reminders that the new issue is
> available, with a link to click on leading to it, should increase
> readership so that our Regular categories will be less like the failed
> categories Participating Junior and Economy Scholastic. The same idea
> is probably valid for adults as well, to a lesser extent as more
> adults are probably in the habit of reading the magazine so are doing
> so online if they switched to Regular membership.
>
> So the problem is, we want to promote online magazine readership among
> players who currently are not very interested in, or aware of, the
> ability to read the magazine online. If a member has little interest
> now or doesn't know about this possibility, he or she is not likely to
> sign up for it.
>
> I suggest the following solution. All our publicity for the Regular
> membership categories should mention that the member will receive an
> email with a link to each online magazine when it is available. Then
> we can send all the Regular members such emails unless they opt out,
> without the emails being spam. On an opt out basis rather than opt
> in, we will have many more Regular members receiving these emails.
>
> Premium members who receive the paper Chess Life would still need to
> opt in to receive such emails. However, Premium Scholastic and
> Regular Scholastic members have the ability to read not only CL4K
> online but also Chess Life, and even though many will find the latter
> too advanced, some will read it, and I believe the chances of them
> becoming eventual Adult members will increase if they do this. So our
> publicity for both types of Scholastic membership, which already often
> includes the inclusion of the online Chess Life, should provide notice
> of such emails so we can send them without them being spam. (The
> emails need not be repetitious as each one can highlight various
> features of the new magazine that they can read by clicking on the
> link, so each email will be different.)
>
> Premium Youth members, who receive Chess Life bimonthly, should
> receive an email with a link encouraging them to read the issues they
> are missing online.
>
> Bill Goichberg
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
>
> With the scholastic members that made the choice to receive the online
> membership, not all parents are willing to inform the tournament
> director at the time to register their child’s personal email if they
> have an email. Even if the email was given to the tournament director,
> the email could be a fake, the email was the parents, or, the
> tournament director could not understand the email with the child or
> parents handwriting.
>
> Second, the organizer could have just sold only online magazine to all
> the scholastic members at the time of the tournament. Informing the
> parents about registration fee and a United States Chess Federation
> membership fee will confuse some of the parents about the need to
> purchase both at the same time. Some organizers will just charge a
> single flat fee to play in the scholastic tournament. If someone
> already has a scholastic membership, the organizer could pay for
> another year or just pocket the money for the organizer. When this
> happens, organizers are not really interested in collecting emails.
>
> There are a number of reasons why the online scholastic members will
> have a low renewal rate. The parents do not have an online computer or
> a computer at home. The parents because of the fear of internet
> stalking may not allow their child to have an email account. Plus,
> with so many children scholastic players are under the age of ten, the
> parents may feel their child is not mature enough to even use a
> computer.
>
> Can someone please explain to me, what good is it to send an email to
> someone in kindergarten or pre-kindergarten about reading their online
> magazine? With a magazine, people feel comfortable reading a magazine
> even that it is not mailed to them. With needing to go online, even if
> you are the parent, parents are going to feel uncomfortable accessing
> their child’s account.
>
> All that the United States Chess Federation has done is to produce a
> lower renewal rate with the online membership.
Forsythe
> IS THE USCF DOOMED?
>
When I got on the Michigan Chess Association Executive Board, and,
dealing with other organizers within the state: have to say the
leadership is idealist and are not rationalist. In a ideal society of
chess players, the members that purchase the online magazine do have
internet access and have the ability to understand how to use the
internet.
When I was an active tournament director, some schools, some
organizations, and some people will purchase scholastic memberships in
balk with the knowledge they will purchase the cheapest membership
they can get. If the United States Chess Federation only had a print
copy membership for scholastic players, than the United States Chess
Federation would have a higher amount of revenue with balk membership.
With experience, if you purchase a membership for anyone, they will
have a low renewal when they have to purchase their own membership.
With a number of these online magazine memberships, and the fact the
United States Chess Federation does not send out even membership
cards: most online magazine membership for scholastic players are
clueless they are even a member of the United States Chess Federation.
How can the United States Chess Federation expect to have renewals
when online magazine scholastic members would get information they
should renewal with emails that may only be going to the person,
organization, or school that purchased the membership in the first
place.
None
>
> Traditionally the federation as we know it mainly offfered new
> members two things: ratings and Chess Life, a printed magazine.
>
> Now what?
Cheaper scholastic dues? That'll bring 'em in. We'll sell it for 20%
below cost and make it up with a raise in adult dues.
Forsythe
>
> Cheaper scholastic dues? That'll bring 'em in.
The United States Chess Federation could go with cheaper memberships.
Going cheaper, is not going to increase renewals or going to increase
scholastics converting to become adult players. My feeling, it is the
message that scholastic players receive from coaches, teachers, and
the United States Chess Federation itself to become stronger and
stronger players with higher and higher ratings.
During the 1980’s when I got into over the board tournaments, it was
very common to have adult players always being a Class C and Class D
players. Now, with coaches and teachers, it is only in the best
interests with coaches and teachers to market themselves to get
scholastic players to play at Class A or stronger.
The United States Chess Federation when it deals with scholastic
players is working against its own best interests. They want to
convert scholastic players into adult players at a higher level when
at the same time they devalue chess players only interested or only
have the talent to be Class B, Class C and lower rated adult players.
raylopez99
> This is another completely stupid idea by Bill Goichberg. Online
> magazine readership will never be popular, regardless of how much the
> USCF tries to promote it.
>
> People do not like to read lengthy things such as books and magazines
> online. Every online magazine in the history of the Internet thus far
> has been a failure and has eventually
> closed down.
Pace Kindle, the Nook, Sony's E-reader, etc etc etc.
> Sam Sloan
> at The Apple Computer Store,
> 4th and Market Streets
> San Francisco CA 94115
You're BUSTED mister! Matt Dillon is coming to get ya...
RL
raylopez99
>
> Traditionally the federation as we know it mainly offfered new
> members two things: ratings and Chess Life, a printed magazine.
>
> Now what?
>
We read your syndicated column, liar parr?
RL
samsloan
> On Dec 30, 2:16 pm, samsloan <samhsl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This is another completely stupid idea by Bill Goichberg. Online
> > magazine readership will never be popular, regardless of how much the
> > USCF tries to promote it.
>
> > People do not like to read lengthy things such as books and magazines
> > online. Every online magazine in the history of the Internet thus far
> > has been a failure and has eventually
> > closed down.
>
> Pace Kindle, the Nook, Sony's E-reader, etc etc etc.
Those are new products, still losing money, and yet to be proved a
success at attracting enough readers to justify the cost.
I am sticking with my old-fashioned paper and ink variety.
Sam Sloan
as a free user at the Apple Computer Store
in San Francisco, California