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Once more into the breech – refining the Virily options!

An excellent comment was raised yesterday by Ghostwriters Husband. I got the comment from Ghostwriter. The reality of if we ask for significant changes how does that get paid for. The interesting and sadly most likely real answer is that the value of a Vriil would have to drop again. Virily makes money from advertising, and that is a fairly steady stream. It doesn’t increase or decrease rapidly, but it is also finite. Back in a previous life when I was working for a software development company, we used to hand out the 100 dollar sheet. Here are the features that everyone has asked us to add. Here is the cost of those features. Where would you spend your 100 dollars?

Let’s talk about Virily itself for a second.

1. Virily is an application running on servers. Every upload is stored (although rumor is there are missing older posts now). Let’s think about that – the rule for upload now is eight megs or less. Assuming a standard split, more images uploaded are two megs or less. (Most cellphone pictures are less than two megs) If we bell curve that based on traditional splits, it comes to an average. Normally a terabyte of cloud storage costs between 40 and 60 cents per month. I suspect Virily generates roughly eight terabytes of new day per month. If we do that math that is 40 months (in operation) times eight which is 320 Terabytes of storage (or more at the cost of 19 US dollars per month we increase the run rate by 10% or more, the cost for the site will go up.

2. That got me thinking about the development team; they are currently working on fixing issues with the site. That means they may have to bring on short term development resources to add new features. That would increase the overall cost to run Virily when you consider salaries for Admin team, storage and computers and so on.

So let’s go back to the dollar we have to spend. I don’t know that either 1 or 2 is true. I am based on experience noting that two is highly likely. One is also likely, but I am not as sure about that. What I have is the features we’ve talked about and a couple of extras that were added the weekend. I am going create a poll that yes I would spend a quarter or not. I would not spend a quarter.

That gives everyone four votes on the poll (please make sure you only vote for your top four). Our of that I will have a good ranking and will then send that to the Virily admin team. Thanks for all the fantastic, considerate and wonderful comments I have gotten over the past five days of this series.

Remember only spend a dollar – pick your TOP 4! If there is something that you is tied without, note in the comments the one that you feel your 4th choice is tied with!

  • Question of

    I want to edit my comments!

    • Yes I would spend a quarter
    • No this isn’t important to me.
  • Question of

    Yes I want to edit my posts.

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    I would like to upload images larger than 8 meg…

    • Yes I would spend a quarter
    • No no this is not important to me
  • Question of

    I would like resizeable thumbnails when submitting posts

    • Yes I would spend a quarter
    • No this is not important to me
  • Question of

    I upload more than 10 pictures per week

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    I upload less than 10 pictures per week

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    I would like to be able to permanently remove comments from my posts.

    • Yes I would spend a quarter
    • No this is not important to me

Report

What do you think?

29 Points

Written by DocAndersen

One fan, One team and a long time dream Go Cubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

50 Comments

  1. I’ve been the admin of a site that was similar to Virily, in the past. You aren’t even talking about many of the other expenses a similar site has. Advertising revenue took a nosedive in 2011. Since then, it has been very hard to even break even.

    As for the size (file size) of the images, this can easily be lessened by using free imaging software like FreeStone Image Viewer. They are very easy to use, they can cut the file size substantially, they allow annotations even at a small memory size, and they give you control of the images. It is exceptionally rare for me to upload an image without using an image viewer/editor on the image, first. I can cut a 4 mb image to under 100 kb without a problem and the person viewing it can rarely tell the difference. That is because a camera that is set to take pictures at 8 megapixels is only valuable commercially and for hard-copy prints. A computer monitor normally doesn’t display images that are more than 72 or 96 dots per inch. Trying to display them at 1100 dpi (common with an 8 mp camera) is silly. The pictures take up more space, but you get nothing at all in return.

    Perhaps I should write some articles about using FastStone since other image editors are similar. This helps the host (Virily) and in the long term, it helps all of us. On the site I ran, image storage ran close to 10 times or more greater than that of the text of posts, just to store.

    1
    • yup and in the cloud world storage is the fixed cost!

      I ran a similar site around six years ago, but for a professional organization not a pure blogging site.

      The fixes killed us!

      1
      • You do realize, of course, that after my years as a technical engineer and senior compute technician, I’ve been purposely trying not to write anything in the technology channel. However, I’d do it if I feel that this might help people. I started out supporting image software, so that part wouldn’t be difficult and a lot of people are in a total fog when it comes to electronic images.

        1
        • I think the honest answer to that is the people asking for larger image size are more frustrated with the fact that they have to cut image sizes down for Virily. It isn’t a how-to, it’s a want to! 🙂

          I used to support Firey Printers from Canon back in the day. I was on the production side of image editing. There is not enough money in the world to get me to talk about that ever!

          But, you should post technical posts about image software and your expertise! There is a value to the community in that.

          Perhaps you could talk about batch processing of images to smaller sizes?

          1
          • I’ll give it some thought. I’d need to lay a foundation first, to explain the factors that contribute to the file size of an image. A lot of people have misconceptions about that. Explaining how to lessen the file size without affecting the image has less impact if people don’t understand why it works.

            Still, it won’t help everyone. Years ago, I remember going round and round with a business owner who insisted that he needed an 1100 dpi scanner. His purpose was to share scans with employees, digitally, and to occasionally print out the scans. All of the monitors the employees used displayed at 96 dpi and the printer he had (a nice Xerox) handled up to 300 dpi. I tried my best to explain that high-resolution scans would neither be displayed nor printed at anywhere near that kind of resolution, in order to keep him from regretting purchasing the top-of-the-line scanner that he didn’t need.

            I wasn’t successful and he ended up buying the $3,000 + scanner anyway. At least I tried and he did seem happy with the purchase, though the common file size of the images was around 8 MB. At that time, most computers still used 14.4 and 56k modems, so you can imagine the fun they had sending the high-resolution scans. That was also a couple of years before the first Pentium computers were created, so the computers weren’t particularly fast, either.

            Although the purchase meant more money for the company, the VP of marketing applauded my effort. When I talked to him about it, all he said was, “W.C. Fields”. I caught the reference immediately; a sucker born every second.

            1
          • That is the good thing about FreeSmith. If a person does nothing more than making one setting adjustment, it takes no more time to cut the file size of an image substantially by simply opening the image and saving it. It cuts the dpi quality, but on a monitor, the difference can’t be seen. (It might be observable if it was a movie production quality monitor, but not many people have the money for that.) Just using that open and save routine, I commonly cut the size of a file from 1.3 to 2.4 MB down to 75-250 kb.

            1
        • i do understand your point. People are complaining that they cannot literally shoot and share.

          There are many sites on the internet where you can.

          Your explanation of how easy it could be is a good thing, just be aware that the audience won’t respond as you are expecting.

          Not about easy, about shoot and share!

          1
          • Oh, I know. People don’t like having to even click twice if they can get away with clicking only once. That is all part of the instant gratification culture we have. It is also why so many people eat at McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s. It takes longer and actually more effort to eat at a fast-food place and the food doesn’t taste as good, but people have the belief that they are saving time.

            I suspect that it would be a good idea to first explain the constraints sites have for images and why they exist. If they can understand that, they might be more inclined to take the extra steps to take care of the issue.

            1
          • Yep. And the sad thing is that these are usually the same people who say, after a site has to close because of lack of space, “I wish someone had said something or that there was something we could have done to prevent this.”

  2. The current leaders in are listed in order the three new concepts added at the end without votes, they will be in today’s poll.

    : I want to edit my comments!
    Yes I would spend a quarter (7 votes) – 39%
    No this isn’t important to me. (11 votes) – 61%
    Q: Yes I want to edit my posts.
    Yes (14 votes) – 78%
    No (4 votes) – 22%
    Q: I would like to be able to permanently remove comments from my posts.
    Yes I would spend a quarter (7 votes) – 50%
    No this is not important to me (7 votes) – 50%
    Q: I would like to upload images larger than 8 meg…
    Yes I would spend a quarter (5 votes) – 31%
    No no this is not important to me (11 votes) – 69%
    Q: I would like resizeable thumbnails when submitting posts
    Yes I would spend a quarter (3 votes) – 23%
    No this is not important to me (10 votes) – 77%
    Q: I upload more than 10 pictures per week
    Yes (6 votes) – 40%
    No (9 votes) – 60%
    Q: I upload less than 10 pictures per week
    Yes (11 votes) – 69%
    No (5 votes) – 31%

    Three new
    Change comments to a 10 character limit
    Ability to delete posts (author posts)
    Ability to report post content.

  3. I doubt that a member was thinking so deeply. As I mentioned before, I would only change things about the comments. Changing posts and image size does not bother me.

    1
  4. You know how I feel about these issues. I have for months now. We should be able to edit comments and posts. And should be able to delete the posts as well.

    1
  5. I am trying to understand something now and I just cannot find the logic. I submitted a post about Neil Diamond and wondered why it was not approved but then some of my posts sit for several days so whenever I am on here I just check what is still pending. I look and no post. It is in drafts??? No reason why so I click edit and check the post and submit one more time. Let’s see what happens. I submitted a post of a recipe that has disappeared. I have no idea if there was a problem with it or if it was disapproved but it is gone and I am not going to make a fuss about it. Just not worth it to me. I will keep just bombarding them with more stuff.

    2
  6. It really doesn’t matter about the other ones; but I really would like to edit my posts after they go live. I haven’t had that need yet; but there are times on another site that I either want to add a photo credit that I forgot or someone’s comment made me want to add that information to the post…things like that.

    1
  7. My husband is so excited that he said something that someone understood! He just like a child at Christmas. If nothing else happens today I hope you know that your mention made him feel useful. Thank you over and over.

    PS (I really want to know your top 4!)

    1
    • I am glad he enjoyed his mention~ He was right and I am glad he mentioned it~

      My top four

      edit comments
      Remove comments on my posts that I find offensive
      Edit posts after they are live
      Edit Thumbnails

      🙂

      1
  8. I got carried away and answered all the questions instead of the top four. The biggest change I would like to see is editing posts. The others are of little concern. I get my images from pixabay and the likes.

    1
  9. Your suggestions are great although I do not quite understand everything about the requirements (for example bytes etc.) One thing for sure is I would like to be able to edit my comments, not the comments that were written on my posts, but the comments that I write on other people’s posts. As I am not that good on a keyboard, I often make typo mistakes and when I read the comment before posting them sometimes I do not catch all the mistakes. This situation applies mostly when I write comments through my cellphone or tablet (me and my big fat fingers). Also, I want absolutely to be able to edit my posts even after they have been posted as again sometimes when I reread them, I find typo mistakes. I also mostly write one post per week or two weeks so my uploading of photos is very limited… so I do not think that this section applies to me at all.

    2
    • Thanks for the comment! We are talking about editing comments that you write only, not the ones other people write!

      Typos drive me nuts when I realize i left one in a comment!

      2
  10. All great ideas and very agreeable. A comment is personal and stable and should not be edited. That is like you cannot make up your mind and will not show real feelings. I use pixabay for my images or pictures from child relatives and pick the smallest size that are free.

    2
    • Just to be clear the edit comments is an author reading your post comments on your post. They click post comment, and then realize they have made an error. A user would only be able to redit their own comments!

      1
  11. The first one is the most important for me is more than 8 megabytes for a photo. Basically I upload 2 photos a day, 14 for a week suits me. Remove the mandatory 20 characters for a comment. Everyone decides how to comment. I personally when I have time I give in extensive comments. When my time is limited they are short. These are my requests.

    3
  12. I picked up four but the most important option I left out and that is editing comments. I could not edit either to make place for it. .

    Admin knows how much it will cost them to make the changes. And that it will cost them I am sure most here know. They may have to cull out things that could be done without whatever they are so that their expenditure remains the same .

    Reducing the size of images comes to mind. Others here may have ideas too.

    1