PixlBit

A Message from the new "owner"

Hello everyone. I’m sorry I was “AFK” for awhile but I’m doing my best to get caught up reading/commenting to all the blogs and blog comments from the various sites I frequent. As you can guess life has been rather hectic since I went silent near the end of February. But there is a reason for such that I’m now finally able to speak about. It’s very exciting news that I hope every will be excited about!

As late as February I’ve been in negotiations with IGN about the possible ownership of 1up.com. Apparently someone at IGN noticed how frequent I’ve been on the site with the blog postings I’ve done, as well as the traffic I seem generate with my presence on there, and decided I was the best person to contact to see about possible collaboration on 1up.com’s new direction. I’ve been in talks with IGN representative “Louis Friend” about possible ownership of some assets that are directly associated with 1up.com. It would seem that IGN is resistant to pulling the plug on 1up.com given how it still generates some ad revenue yet is not willing to assign specific personnel to help bolster the website itself.

That’s where I came in.

According to Mr. “Louis Friend” IGN is looking for someone to be kind of a webmaster to 1up.com with some ownership of the content on the site, while at the same time helping to gather a community to the site in helping it to become a more “user generated” website. The details are very fluid and complex but essentially it’s that IGN wants someone looking after the 1up.com website itself on a regular basis yet at the same time not be an actual employee of IGN itself (AKA not getting paid). Various scenarios were drawn up on what my role would be with 1up.com, from being a “shadow partner” to a mixing of “webmaster+community organizer”.  All that “Mr. Friend” and IGN were focused on is that it had to be someone with strong ties to the 1up.com of old, as well as someone that was still active with the website itself. Honestly the whole ordeal got so complex that I had to retain a lawyer to help me draw up the final details that I am now able to speak of: to put simply I am the new “owner” of 1up.com!

Though I’ll be register as a “private contractor” with IGN, I’ll gain access to the 1up.com website and change what I see fit with the approval of IGN beforehand. Though IGN itself will still retain the rights to all the “features” articles on 1up.com, as well as all the ad revenue generated by the site itself, I’ll be taking full “ownership” of the “user generated content” that is currently found on the site. Yes you read correctly, I basically own all user generated blogs, reviews, and forum posts as of 04/01/2014! Basically I’ll own pretty much everything that can be put to words on 1up.com. In the coming weeks emails will be sent out to active and non active users of 1up.com informing them of the new ownership change. By late summer we should have the proper code installed on 1up.com that’ll leave a little copyright symbol (with NSonic79 annotation) at the bottom of any written content generated on the site.

Now before you begin to log back into 1up.com for the sole purpose of deleting your user generated content I ask that you hold off on that. Even though I’d be given “ownership” of the active/non active content on 1up.com, any past content found on the site from before 04/01/2014 is exempt from this deal. So you don’t have to worry about me trying to monetize user’s hard work and dedication in what made the 1up.com of old so great. But instead it’s all part of the new plan to help active users of the site to be able to monetize their work.  It’s only in the beta stage at the moment but the current plan works out like this: Any active or inactive user of 1up.com that receive the email that informs you of my “ownership” of new content will get a chance to retain their “ownership” of the content they created, with the incentive to be able to monetize their work in the future. The deal so far gives users a chance to actually earn money from their content via page views.

Remember that “ranking” system” that 1up.com used that had little to no bearing other than bragging rights to your activity on the site? That will now serve to help tier the earning potential users will have with the new 1up.com! Right now the currently formula that IGN is thinking about is for every 0401 page views an active user gets on their profile page/blogs, they’ll bank .04012014 cents on the dollar! It might not seem much (and an odd number calculation at that to boot) but think of it: No worries about how many comments you get or thumbs up you obtain. All that matters is that the content you create (with specific guidelines of course) you can actually earn some money from it all.

Like I said though this is all in the final planning stages at the moment but we hope to have the beta of this project up and running in the coming months. All I do know about the beta is that it’ll only be available to past 1up.com users till we are able to work out the spam blog issues and tighten up some vulnerabilities with the website that could be used to artificially bump up page views. Old 1up.com users that do get the email and beta invite will have till 04/01/2015 to reply to either sign up or opt out.

I know I could’ve taken control of all the user generated content on 1up.com, more so given how I’m not getting any money from IGN in either work performed or ad revenue received, but I wanted to give 1up.com a chance to come back again.  We were told time and time again that the community and the commitment that users poured into `1up.com was what help make it so great. And as much as I’d like to claim all that user generated content for myself, I want to be able to give back to the possible return of the 1up community with this deal that’s soon to close between myself and Mr. “Louis Friend” from IGN. Personally I think only a “fool” would pass on this offer.

As the “Owner” of 1up.com, I do hope I see a return of the greatness that was 1up.com. From the wonderful content generated by active bloggers to the sharing of ideas and features that could be covered, I look forward to the day that I’ll be able to officially make this deal known to the public.

UPDATE

As we speak the final touches are being drafted to this deal. Expect to hear an official announcement in the coming days from IGN itself but for now here’s a video of the “unofficial” announcement of my new ownership of 1up.com!

 

And in case you didn’t watch the video (or notice the title of the video posted)

 

April Fools!!!!

I know it’s a day late but I didn’t have the heart to post this on April 1st itself. That would’ve been a dead giveaway…

Ta-ta

“N”