Dear NAM members,

I'm pleased to announce that North American Motoring has been acquired by Internet Brands, Inc. I sincerely believe that this relationship will be of great benefit to the site and my efforts to develop new features designed to serve the MINI community. I realize that this news may come as a surprise to many of you, and you’ll have many questions relating to what this will mean to the site, my role, and the future of the NAM Community.

Just who or what is Internet Brands?

Internet Brands is a publicly traded company (INET) that operates a number of leading e-commerce and community websites in the automotive, home do-it-yourself, and travel and leisure markets. In the automotive space they own sites such as AudiWorld, ScionLife, CorvetteForum, CarsDirect.com and many others.

In 2007, Internet Brands acquired Jelsoft, the company that develops vBulletin, the message board software upon which NAM is built. As mentioned above Internet Brands operates a multitude of auto enthusiast and other community focused sites. Having access to a large network of sites and their collective experience will enable NAM to develop best practices for moderation, posting guidelines, vendor standards, features, and more.

Besides bringing technical and business expertise, an added benefit to NAM is that this opportunity will allow me to return to more of a software development role. Some of the fruits of these efforts are already being revealed in the form of a new club directory, an upcoming enhanced membership program offering with an online magazine, and more. I have a lot more planned and am building a software development team to make it happen. NAM will be a beneficiary of this new development focus.

What exactly will I be doing?

Most importantly, this change will enable me to focus more time on the development of features for the site. In the past, because of all the other responsibilities I hold, development of features has always gotten delayed. I’ll still be involved in the management and organization of the site for the foreseeable future, but my focus will be development. I’ll also be working to make the membership program and online magazine successful, organizing MINIs on the Dragon for 2008, and contributing to the site in various ways.

How will the site change?

Internet Brands brings horsepower to the site that I’ve only been able to manage via brute force on my own. Functions such as upgrading to the latest versions of vBulletin, managing server infrastructure, database performance tuning, and backups have dedicated staff at Internet Brands managing these activities on a daily basis. Internet Brands and I will be working together to ensure that the site is continually improved and serves the MINI community. You won’t be blanketed by ads that aren’t in some way MINI-related. You won’t be forced to pay for basic site access. In general, NAM will continue to evolve and improve to serve the interests of members, clubs, and vendors… just like it started. Now though, I’ll be able to help affect more change through the development and release of new features and areas of the site.

Why did I sell NAM?

When Internet Brands first contacted me, I wasn’t interested in selling the site. Only after lengthy discussions on the needs of the site, community, and my vision of how to continue to improve it did a relationship emerge that respected the community and would enable it to thrive going forward. I’ve always worked to treat the site, the way I administer it, and develop features for it as a business. Working with vendors required it to be a business. I knew that I couldn’t keep up the host of site-related functions that I have been handling since the site launch way back in 2002. This move provides an opportunity to refine and focus on what I enjoy doing (software development for communities) while also allowing the community to continue its growth and development.

I have other questions. How do I get them answered?

I know there are likely a multitude of other questions you’ll have. Post them to this thread and I’ll do my best to address them. I’ve also provided some basic FAQs that Internet Brands has supplied. Hopefully they will also answer some of your questions.

I am very excited by these new developments and hope that you will welcome the site and community improvements that this will enable.

Sincerely,

Mark Ferguson
Founder – North American Motoring



FAQ’s

Q: Why did Internet Brands buy North American Motoring?
A: Internet Brands’ mission is to empower consumers to make better decisions about buying and maintaining their most important purchases, such as cars and homes. NAM’s users offer outstanding advice and support for MINI owners and shoppers, newbies and veterans alike, which should be a very good fit with the rest of the Internet Brands Automotive sites.

Q: Will NAM become part of another Internet Brand site?
A: Internet Brands plans to keep NAM a separate, thriving site and to continue expanding its content, community, and traffic.

Q: Are Mark and the other moderators going to continue on NAM?
A: Yes. Everyone will continue the level of involvement with the site and community based on their interests… just like before.

Q: How will the acquisition help NAM?
A: The main benefit will be having more infrastructure and technology resources behind the site. Better servers and hardware will mean better performance for the site and admin tools. And more technology resources will mean faster bug-fixes, quicker turnaround on site changes, and more frequent updates in site software, like vBulletin or photo-posting applications. Additionally, with Mark’s focus on software development, NAM will have some best of breed features not available elsewhere.

Q: Will my NAM log-in or password change?
A: No. You will access NAM as you always have.

Q: Will NAM’s privacy policy change?
A: No. As before, your registration and account information won’t be shared with or sold to third parties.

 

<sigh>

 

Things change, always will. This will have an effect on NAM, hopefully a good one. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out, as both NAM and the MINI brand move ahead.

Mark

 

I hope Mark made $.5 MIL on the sale of NAM. If not, he got taken.

 

sites are rarely ever worth that much. 1.5x annual revenue is the normal valuation, but that varies widely and Internet Brands is known for throwing tons of money at people. I'd be surprised if it was into six figures, but I don't know the books (nor do I care to).

 

OH goody.........now we have gone even more commercial.

This is one reason I don't go to MINI2 anymore......

 

 

Could be interesting...might be boring *shrug*

There's actually a decent discussion about this going on at the leading alternative MINI site.

 

Let's hope it doesn't turn out like ScionLife did....

 

do you mean this isn't a positive thing? like, no wai!!

 

Quoting Mark's post..

"You won’t be forced to pay for basic site access."

Does this mean there will be some fee for other than basic access?

Nothing in life is static. I hope this works for all concerned.

And, the community feeling that exists here won't be lost or taken away.

 

what about the future of MOTD? Since Mark doesn't own NAM anymore and MOTD and NAM are VERY interconnected, will this mean that future MOTD events will be sponsored by Internet Brands Inc.?

 

Cash is king.

 

As is mentioned in the announcement we will soon be releasing a new bi-monthly online magazine as part of an an enhanced membership program. I hope to post more information about this in the next few days.

Mark

 

No it does not. The software I've developed for NAM to help coordinate MOTD was not part of the acquisition. Neither was the NAM Store which handles the attendee registration, calendar sales, etc. The use of that software within northamericanmotoring.com will continue and will be seamless. In other words it will, this year and in the future, to work in a similar manner to what we've done in the past.

I'm still very involved in MOTD and spent more than two hours yesterday working on it. I hope to have registration up near the end of this month given that I can get some facility decisions in place. Unfortunately the departure of Toni Crisp (my counterpart at Fontana) has slowed us down a bit in getting some of the big issues finalized.

Mark

 

This is sad to see. Hopefully this goes for the positive.. I would hate to see people leave cause the other company chooses to run it different. I hope there car mini/car buffs like us, In my eyes you cant REALLY run a place like this if you don't like, understand, and relate to cars (mini's of course)

But Mark I am sure you made a good choice, I don't think you would do something like sell off for the money just for kicks. I reasons are probably very good. I just hope things don't go sour. If they start to is there a buy-back possibility?

 

My understanding is that Mark doesn't even own a MINI......

 

WHAT!!!!!!!!

Well then maybe you can...

He may not own a MINI, but he does have a passion and a respect for cars... Doesn't he???? I hope so.. If he doesn't WOW.. Ill look like an ****..

Hopefully people get what I am trying to say though.. or see what I am trying to get across at least

If neither are true, Mark, I apoligize, please don't ban me.. I honestly wouldn't know what to do. I would be in a world of uncertainty if that happened.

 

Last I heard he owned this one:
http://www.frankenminis.com/dragonflyer.htm

 

... if so.. pfew *as I swipe my forehead*
lol

 

We can only hope that this all works out for the best.....

Donna

 

SELLOUT. So will there be a ton of pop up ads & spam now?

 

And you would be wrong...take a look at my gallery and you will see my VTEC powered Classic.

Mark

 

not quite, but certainly more than the current level.

 

oh man, I hope not!