The secret is to save your rings from Honduran Cohibas, then replace the Cuban ring and it won’t be challenged at the border. How can you tell a Cuban? They have three wrappers and Hondurans have two.

What is your brand and size? I will get you a few next time.

Nothing better in the world than an Arizona sunset, 21 year old scotch (MacLellan / MacCallen) and a Cuban Cohiba.

Well, it’s good to know you’re not making tons of posts about how bad the Warrior forum is

The active users record on the old forum is broke, has been for years. It’s at 90 and has been that way for as long as I can remember.

On the old forum during the day we averaged about 280 people online. Lower and night and on weekends.

Is the current forum set to show members who are not even online?

Absolutely. I already told the members that in the forum. I said it was 30 minutes, which it could be longer, I’m not sure. But I like the look of it, it’s a marketing ploy plain and simple. Active looking forums are more attractive.

The genius up above, simmons, thought he was making a major revelation

Anyway, glad to see we’re not pulling out nukes. I don’t want hard feelings with Tony because he has a box of Cuban cigars I’d love to buy one day if he ever let’s them go.

Allen

As for those who are talking numbers…

ABlake Forum re-opened with the NEW format in the middle of March – just a few months ago. And rather than import all of the old membership, we decided to invite people first for a while, rather than mass promote. Do you really think the ABlake Forum has been online for over 16 years and has not got the same type of member numbers as the WF in that long? That we don’t share many of the same members?

Also, we set our “active members” to limit it ONLY to those who logged on in the past 5 minutes. That’s all. We don’t set it to show who was on for the whole day, or who just didn’t bother to log out. Just to show an example of what I mean, I was logged on to the WF this morning – I closed my window, but never actually logged out… I had someone check just now (7:36pm), and my name still shows as “active”. Doing this builds the numbers so that it looks like there are more people visiting overall. It’s an interesting technique – it sure LOOKS impressive, doesn’t it? I personally prefer a true reading of who is online, so I can interact with members in “real time”.

Just for the record, the old WF showed a “biggest day” of 138 members or something (back in Jan 2008, if I recall correctly). Not that it even matters, but it seemed to make some kind of difference to a few of the posters here.

I am POSITIVE that with the buzz about the new format, that many members will go and check out all the new stuff at the WF – and they should! There are many many many thousands of members that haven’t logged in there for YEARS. And that will definitely account for the current numbers – as it should.

On a final note, Allen, I know Tony has no personal beef with you. He is also a member at the WF, one of the very early ones way back when you were charging $30 or so for lifetime membership and before you even had the old Uni-Sol board. The new ABlake Forum is part of a serious and specifically designed updating of his old board, built from the ground up with a new look, new feel, new tools, new style and a new way of running a discussion board (with much, much more to come), along with simply addressing some of the long-standing fundamental complaints from many Warriors, while building on it’s own 16-year reputation for cutting edge business tactics and discussions. I hope you’ll have the time to drop in now and then.

Cheers!
Lisa

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As far as my name, it links to my site where I have full contact info. You can even pick up the phone and call me. That was the best thing that I learned from the old timers at the WF.

As far as “heavy hitters” I am talking about people, not marketers, people, that I have begun to forge personal relationships with, that I can call and talk to. People that I can get personal advice from. Not something that is easily available to many.

Joe, you said….

“On top of that…some of those “heavy hitters” may have business models that do not compliment mine at all…and a relationship with them would then be irrelevant.”

Don’t take this the wrong way, Joe, but that kind of thinking says that you only need other marketers to make you money and you know so much that no one else could possibly give you advice.

That is not why I keep in contact with anyone I have gotten to know from WF.

I value these people because they are the ones that taught me that there is not a good old boys club of MARKETERS out there. They are just people and if you pick up the phone and treat them that way that is the way their will treat you.

Come on Joe, open your contact list. How many contacts do you have that have been around for 15 years and been some of the movers and shakers for over 15 years? I have two and those two phone numbers are worth more than any JV contact.

These guys barely know what Digg or Stumble is. They do not even have blogs. They barely have sites by today’s standards.

If you look at your online contacts as marketers that can further your business, well they can but when you look at everyone as just people then you gain a vastly different relationship with them.

The next time some guru is celebrating his birthday with some special package promotion, try picking up the phone and just calling the guy instead. Wish him a happy birthday. I bet you will be the only one.

As far as the platform used, who cares! It matters little. Just like anything else, you get back what you give it. The WF has given me more than I can possible give it back. If anything, it is the fact they will tell me when I am full of shit. That happens more often than I would care to admit.

Yeah it’s true of every place on the web. Hard though, to get kicked in the grapes for sticking up for the people doing the kicking.

I’m gonna have to work on my forum skills and try to remember how to appeal to the folks on state assistance. I had no idea they gave such access to the internet in institutions. Maybe I’ll talk to Paul and he can give me a refresher.

We definitely got some “kooks”, nothing you can do about that when you get large enough.

Come to think about it the same can be said for any place online. Myspace, twitter most definitely, facebook and any other forum out there, even the private ones have their kooks.

Allen

Some do, most do not. I TOTALLY stand by this statement and it goes for ALL forums, not just Warriors.

BTW did you catch that I am a former mod back when modding was serious and that I love the Warriors? Don’t know how it got twisted that I am talking bad about the forum.

Some of the people are, well, c’mon. But the forum itself is an internet icon and always will be.

“I had to come back here just to see if the world was not, in fact, flat. There are some kookie ass people in the Warrior forum. Some of them are trapped back in 1999 and I can’t get them out!”

Maybe some of us “kooks” add flavor?

Judging from comments here it seems some feel only one forum is allowed to use a certain platform – that if you didn’t jump on the Web2.0 train last year, you aren’t allowed on it now -and that dissing another forum makes yours more important.

These two forums do not compare in size, age, active members, special offers (though I really like Tony’s rule on resubmission of special offers).

I see the same people on Blake’s forum that I see on the WF – starting the same threads and saying much the same thing. No problem.

I also see many there who were banned from the WF – and those are the people knocking the WF day after day. Surprise, surprise.

I’m not much of a “social marketing” butterfly but I love speed of the new WF and I think there’s room for more than one marketing forum online. I don’t see admins at WF complaining about Blake’s forum – - so assume this entire post was another great “buzz” idea to promote Blake’s forum to WF members?

I hope both forums continue to blaze a trail online but think the competition aspect is a bit silly.

kay

Either way none of this really matters. Last time I checked the Internet was a tad bit large, far too large for anyone to need to be at war about anything.

Take care,
Allen