Why Homegrown finally went with NATS

[Far-L]

Our's has been a long history of either doing our own dev as opposed to out of the box solutions, or modifications to out of the box solutions that didn't quite do everything we required across all our online properties. We have tried just about everything out there over the years and I have to admit that I was really reluctant to get into NATS, in spite of the fact that we had been using their Carma content managment system for years. Well, we finally switched to NATS and so far it has been only a positive experience.

Now before you think I am just stumping for them - one of the reasons I didn't want to go with NATS was I wanted to see first how that from way back when lawsuit about stealing customers shook out with Tucker and co. At this point the pros have just outweighed the cons, including even that.

Any opinions? Right or wrong choice? Good or bad decision?

Starting with a "pro" column feature...

The flexibility/management with processors

[Greenguy]

To be honest, just pick one & stick with it - this is your 5th webmaster admin for fuck sakes!

(and a webmaster referral program would be cool too)

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Greenie

To be honest, just pick one & stick with it - this is your 5th webmaster admin for fuck sakes!

(and a webmaster referral program would be cool too)

lol until I start weeping...

Well, I guess the good part of this is that we have known each other a long, long time, and this is a perfectly fair criticism no doubt.

It would take a divine act from the Creator Almighty to move off NATS for any reason at this point.

Probably helps to provide a bit more history here...

Due to our unfortunate falling out with a certain partner way back in the day we had to move off one platform and when we did that we became absolutely paranoid about what we would use next. Since we had always been more focused on what we do best, content creation, member management, and site maintenance, we really had to learn from the ground up about running an affiliate program and our lack of trust plus our naivete was a lethal combination which was compounded by the learning curve of figuring out what the average webmaster really wanted and liked in a program.

The good news is that, because of this experience, we did create a Patent Pending way for webmasters to be able to easily manage changes to their links. (Don't worry, we want the Patent not for Acacia like attacks, but to defend against those type of attacks).

Regarding referrals, that should be working by the end of today!

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Greenie

To be honest, just pick one & stick with it - this is your 5th webmaster admin for fuck sakes!

(and a webmaster referral program would be cool too)

The progs that went before and why we moved on...

CE's proprietary system... dissolution of deal with CE

RevEX... webmasters complaints, lacking in features common to other software

Rose something... can't even remember the name of it... but never came out of dev hell with it

Edit x - just not made for what we wanted to do so trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole

Our own proprietary system - basically cobbled together to keep the lights on

NATS - happy with feedback thus far, webmasters like it, we like the support, and so far so good.

Keep in mind this represents over ten years of trial and error. Greenguy - your point is well taken that we have moved too often but I would add that at the same time we were wrong to stay too long with things that plainly were not working rather than going with something that met our needs best and worked for the marketers efforts as well. A cautionary tale and a business lesson for all.

|tomato|

[Greenguy]

I was just messing with you, hence the big teeth smiley

[Useless]

A few years ago, I had a bunch of your free sites listed. I remember going to log in to the webmaster admin one day only to discover that it was gone and that I couldn't log in to the new one. I yanked the links and moved on. I don't recall receiving any type of warning.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I was just messing with you, hence the big teeth smiley

I know you were laughing with us rather than at us but you can only imagine the collective sigh that expels from our heaving chests when we have to recall this troubled and traumatic history.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

A few years ago, I had a bunch of your free sites listed. I remember going to log in to the webmaster admin one day only to discover that it was gone and that I couldn't log in to the new one. I yanked the links and moved on. I don't recall receiving any type of warning.

Free sites? What free sites? I think the only time we were marketed through a free site was when we went under the CE umbrella of sites and that was not only a long time ago but we weren't running the program, just the paysite.

Can you give me some more details so I know what you are talking about?

[Greenguy]

Far-L - I made you guys a bunch of Hosted Free Sites a few years back

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Greenie

Far-L - I made you guys a bunch of Hosted Free Sites a few years back

Yeah, my apologies, I forgot that anyone besides you actually sent any traffic to those.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Far-L

Yeah, my apologies, I forgot that anyone besides you actually sent any traffic to those.

Nice.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Nice.

Well, this just points out one of the reasons we had to change and once again I apologize for the inconvenience. I am pretty sure you must have been in RevEx. If you want me to investigate further then I am happy to do so but I would just need your aff id.

[LeRoy]

Hosted free sites made by Greenie would be nice.

I would use them too.

Let us know when you have them up.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by LeRoy

Hosted free sites made by Greenie would be nice.

I would use them too.

Let us know when you have them up.

Greenguy - if you have time and inclination and are up for doing that again then we are certainly up for working with you. Hit up spike at homegrownvideo dot com and he will work out details if you are down with the win-win potential.

[Greenguy]

I'm out of the HFS business But there's a good free site builder named Crazy Sy that I fully recommend

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I'm out of the HFS business But there's a good free site builder named Crazy Sy that I fully recommend

Many thanks, will check him out for sure.

[CrazySy]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I'm out of the HFS business But there's a good free site builder named Crazy Sy that I fully recommend

Thanks Greenie, I appreciate it.


Thanks Far-L, I got your message and I will send an email today.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by Greenie

To be honest, just pick one & stick with it - this is your 5th webmaster admin for fuck sakes!

(and a webmaster referral program would be cool too)

Well the referral is set up and add this to one more reason we like NATS better than anything else we have used which either didn't have webmaster referrals or was problematic to set up for one reason or another.

[CrazySy]

I sent an email last Wednesday and dropped you a private message last Friday and never got a reply to either one. If you are actually serious about having freesites built, you can drop me an email sy at crazysy dot com.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by CrazySy

I sent an email last Wednesday and dropped you a private message last Friday and never got a reply to either one. If you are actually serious about having freesites built, you can drop me an email sy at crazysy dot com.

Sorry - missed the private message. I know Spike said he got your message and was going to contact you. I will check in with him to see what's up, but, yes, we definitely are interested and thanks for checking back.

[CrazySy]

Just wanted to make sure you guys got the email, I knew you'd come back and check this thread

[HypeDough]

We're going with NATS as well very soon, I've worked with it in the past and it seems as though the affiliates go nuts over it once its implemented.

[Far-L]

Originally Posted by HypeDough

We're going with NATS as well very soon, I've worked with it in the past and it seems as though the affiliates go nuts over it once its implemented.

Good luck with it!

Definitely it makes a huge difference. We could never get affiliates enthusiastic about RevEx no matter how hard we tried... and we tried hard but it was kind of a case of square peg round hole and never quite worked out. This was as much our fault as theirs though since we required so many customized work-arounds.

We use carma too so it is a plus for us to work with someone that covers our needs end to end which we have never had before in our more cobbled together efforts of the past.

That is probably one of the great "take aways" of the experience... that too many "boxes" in out-of-the-box solutions create more problems than solutions. Software management is not like hi fidelity audio hardware where you buy the best of each manufacturer's components and put them together for an awesome collective sound. I should have realized this better after reading a good book on software engineering and management called "The Mythical Man-month", a good cautionary tale for anyone that faces these issues.

[tickler]

Originally Posted by Far-L

I should have realized this better after reading a good book on software engineering and management called "The Mythical Man-month", a good cautionary tale for anyone that faces these issues.

Systems 101 - manpower planning

Take the estimate, increase the time unit, double the quanity
1 man month ===> 2 man years