Why do you think TBD is shutting down?

[Elizabeth Sheppard]

Some of the people who are here in the Return to College Ning group just switched here from the TBD.com site, where there was a big group there for adults returning to college.

Now there is this great Ning group. This is a good change, because now the Return to College Group will have its own site. I like that part about it. But I am curious about the other site, TBD.com still.

TBD said they are shutting down, and sent their members an email about it. I think they said they were closing it because it just wasn't economically feasible anymore. I wonder what they had to spend to keep it open? They did have ads on there, but you never know how much they earn for people, a lot depends on the traffic. They did seem to be an active site, and lots of people were participating.

I think they had several employees too. Plus they probably needed to check the site to make sure everything was going well, and take off offensive postings, etc.

One thing I am wondering about is the name, TBD. Do you think it was too hard for people to remember? Anyway, I think they should have given it some more time... to be a successful site.

I am just curious. Maybe somebody else has an opinion about this?

[Elizabeth Sheppard]

Wow - ONLY $70,000 per month in sales?? Wow. But I guess with salaries that money would soon be gone. And 7 million to start? I guess that I was not thinking in big numbers. I think $70,000 a month in sales sounds GREAT. Of course I am only one person, but can you imagine?? Sounds good to me. I would operate from my huge cruise ship room whilst attending great shows and having my meals all made for me. ::ahhhh::

Eduardo Peirano said:

I found these articles worth reading: Virtual Goods News: Boomer Social Network TeeBeeDee Goes Bust and Baby boomer social network TeeBeeDee implodes | VentureBeat

I couldn't even think to start a group for adult students in a site like Facebook, full of kids, parties. Groups are even hidden now.

As far as I know Tebeedee started to grow faster when they advertised on Facebook. New members where coming from Facebook. Several members wrote that they prefered Teebeedee over Facebook to network with boomers

[Elizabeth Sheppard]

OK - just skim-read the second article. I think personally, looking from the outside it, I would sell the site first, before sending people on their way out. I guess there must be more to it, more to the story, like lots of employees all needing their weekly or bi-weekly check. Maybe the powers-that-be had to be very careful and read people's emails in case they were spammers? Or staff had to fix things when others hacked into the site, which could be a real pain. And back up everything all the time just in case. I think part of it was the name - TBD - and the fact that people just didn't know about it yet. They needed to give it more time. Just my two cents' worth.

Eduardo Peirano said:

I found these articles worth reading: Virtual Goods News: Boomer Social Network TeeBeeDee Goes Bust and Baby boomer social network TeeBeeDee implodes | VentureBeat

I couldn't even think to start a group for adult students in a site like Facebook, full of kids, parties. Groups are even hidden now.

As far as I know Tebeedee started to grow faster when they advertised on Facebook. New members where coming from Facebook. Several members wrote that they prefered Teebeedee over Facebook to network with boomers

[Eduardo Peirano]

They started TOO late selling goodies, as a way to monetize the site. Note that member didn't have to buy any goodies. But some members were actually buying them. This means some cash for Teebeedee. You can't expect the goodies to work in only 2 months. Even when there were not many members they should have tried to bring some money in, from members. No business plan!

[Eduardo Peirano]

I found this post about Teebeedee's Virtual Goodies. It was written in May 2009

[Elizabeth Sheppard]

I looked at this article. I think you are right - they did not plan far enough ahead. Many people like me were going to come back to the site to see how it was doing after taking a break from it. I have read somewhere that people who have a business need to assume it will NOT make money for awhile and budget for that.

There were other things they could have done with the site besides Goodies, which may have been a fun thing. I never tried it. They could have had premium services, like your choice of names on the site, maybe some fun games like Facebook has too, maybe with paid add-ons, like virtual money, other kinds of virtual gifts. Have you seen the games on Facebook? They have options on some of them to buy "game cash" which helps them buy things on the games. Another idea would be charging a minimum type of fee for the site.
They could also have tried different placements of ads too. The Google site says you have to keep changing placement and types of ads until you see what works on your site. I wonder if they used Google ads to advertise for it.

Eduardo Peirano said:

I found this post about Teebeedee's Virtual Goodies. It was written in May 2009