From the crew at Sydney Airport Message Board we wish all our users a happy and safe new year.
2009 was a big year for us, we had our 7th and most successful Spotting Weekend to date and co-founder of the board Will Tidmarsh went into semi-retirement from his role of board publisher. We have also had our busiest year on record for traffic to the site, with close to 30 million hits this year. November also set an all-time record of 2.2 million hits! We now have close to 1000 registered members, with a larger majority than ever being active (posting) users. We are proud to have members from many areas of the industry, including pilots, engineers, news and media, airport and airline staff, military, the governing aviation bodies as well as our enthusiasts, spotters and photographers. It creates a great mix of people and ensures the board provides a wealth of knowledge for our members and visitors.
Our google advertising which was introduced in early 2009 covers around 50% of our costs at this stage, these will continue to be tweaked to try to provide the best revenue, however we are all in agreement that we will never result to popup ads or adwords being integrated into the board.
2010 will see continued improvement of the board software, as well as relaxation of moderation polices to create a more friendly environment and allow more fun into the forums (however our zero tolerance approach towards bullying will remain). We also intend to take more user opinion into major board decisions, such as the recent "
Moderation of Quotes" poll which we feel has been successful.
Once again, happy new year, and thanks to all our users for making 2009 the great success it was.
Kind Regards
The Admin/Moderation Team;
Kurt Ams
David Knudsen
Justin Lazaroff
Nathan Long