Ohio MileSplit has now served the Ohio running community for over 6 years. The site was founded as the casual hobby of a former athlete and current coach; it has now grown to become the primary information source for cross country and track & field in the state of Ohio.
Over the last half a dozen years, the time commitment to the site has grown and grown to the point where I was shopping it around to a select few to gauge their interest in taking over the site. I love running this site, don't get me wrong, but it takes a lot of time and has kept me up late many nights a week. While I was shopping around the site I was offered by a friend and colleague, Nathan Kopp, a partnership deal in which we would co-own the site and share the responsibilities of running the day-to-day operations of the site. Nathan has some fresh ideas and some great contacts that I think will help this site grow and that I think many of you will like.
I have been debating for years wether or not to move to a subscription site. Over the last six years, many of the MileSplit state sites have moved to subscription sites, and Ohio is one of the largest holdouts to becoming a subscription site. But this past summer we decided to put up a “freemium” model on this site starting with the 2013 Cross Country Season. The hybrid approach offers a substantial amount of freely available content, but also a pay wall for certain features. Anybody who has watched the site grow and evolve over those years can surely attest that the quality and depth of coverage has improved every single year during that time. The difference between then and now is night and day, and we will continually work hard to improve our service to you in the years ahead.
Bearing that in mind, the MileSplit Network, as a whole, will be altering our subscription cost structure for MileSplit sites nationwide starting on August 22, 2013. Beginning on that date, we will offer monthly subscriptions for the first time at a rate of $4.99 per month. This plan will automatically renew each month, though you will be able to easily cancel it at any time. For those wanting access for the full year, we will offer annual subscriptions at $48 per year, a savings of $1 per month versus the month-to-month plan.
The auto-renewal will eliminate gaps in access to the site, and our new system will allow for instant processing of all subscriptions. Our previous system required manual processing of each order, which resulted in a delay until the subscription took effect--much to the dismay or confusion of many users.
The new plans will be an increase for our annual subscribers; however, hopefully you still see great value in what amounts to one drink at Starbucks per month. For those who are only with us for part of the year or who have a hard time paying the double-digit annual rate, we hope the monthly plan will be a nice and affordable alternative. Today only slightly more than 1% of our visitors decide to subscribe, a challenging figure to overcome. We hope a combination of better communication of the subscription benefits on our part, along with the more approachable monthly rate will help us increase that percentage substantially.
We will use these additional funds to re-invest right back into our coverage to bring more timely, informative, and comprehensive coverage of the sport in every corner of the state we can! As subscribtions grow, we will look for covereage contacts in various parts of the state to help write meet recaps, capture meets by camera and maybe even do a few video interviews. For those of you that are interested in contributing to our content (there will be compensation) please contact me at jimfindlay1@gmail.com with your name, the area of the state you live in, and your skills, writing, video interviews, photos, etc.
We also have plans to add new features and capabilities on the site to the benefit of our subscribers. Just two weeks ago we released some new cross country team scoring features. Look for a consistent roll out of more ways to mash up the statistics, rankings, graphs, and tools for you stat junkies over the coming weeks and months. These features will be available only for subscribers!
In addition, starting this fall subscribers will notice our photo albums will feature photos that are higher quality and 55% larger resolution than before. The advertisement on the right column will be removed to make room for the larger photos. Non-subscribers will continue to see the lower resolution photos.
Later this school year, we will also likely be increasing the resolution and quality of our videos. Look for improved ways to consume those videos on your portable devices and even your WiFi-connected televisions.
Most importantly, we thank you all for your continued support. I hope you will be part of our community for many years to come. The support of your subscriptions will propel us forward to serve you better and hopefully encourage the growth of the sport for a new generation in the process!
Free access will still be available for reposted articles, some original articles, meet results and for online registration. Besides the free access, Subscribers will get access to athlete profiles, full rankings, advanced stats (such as virtual meets) and to all original articles and athlete interviews. On August 15th we will be locking down athlete profiles to subscribers only. On August 22nd we will be locking down the advanced stats features to subscribers only, and on August 29th we will lock down the rankings to subscribers only.
Again, Thank You for your support of Ohio MileSplit throughout the years. Nathan and I look forward to serving the Track and Field, Cross Country and running community of Ohio for years to come.
Subscribe Today - $48 for a year long subscription or $4.99 monthly subscription
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