Happy 15th Birthday Rennlist
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From: Boston, MA
Happy 15th Birthday Rennlist
Last month I happened to be browsing through some old archived emails, when I ran across one from John Dunkle on May 24, 2002.
Rennlist was born on Memorial Day Weekend 1998, which was May 23-25. Started out as Porschelist, renamed Rennlist within the next year or so after Porsche went after the list for trademark infringement.
The email is below. Not sure how the stats compare now. Back then there were way more people on the email lists than on the web forums. I see from the stats now there are now over 130,000 registered users on the forums.
Pretty cool.
Subject: Happy Birthday Rennlist....
From: "John Dunkle" <johnd@rennlist.com>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:09:48 -0400
X-Message-Number: 1
It was four years ago this weekend that a little e-mail list server hit the
"airwaves" and "Porschelist" was born - initiated from a small group of
Founders who were "disgruntled" with a sporadic "Porschefans" list server -
PorscheList had 5,000 folks after only a few weeks. Utilizing a whopping
56KB partitioned internet connection, PorscheList was only an e-mail list
server, without any web site, with the exception of a "front page" at
http://www.porschelist.org - as the http://www.porschelist.com site wasn't
even introduced until some months later with four founding sponsors
including
Wayne at PelicanParts, Rob's dcAutomotive, Dave and Jeannie of 928
Specialists, and Dave B. with "Road and Race". While we have seen some
Sponsors come and go since then - these businesses have been here since "Day
1" - and are still an integral part of this site. My thanks to all the
Sponsors and Rennlist Members who keep this site going.
And now into our fifth year, there is no more "PorscheList" - it is
"Rennlist". And while it is still just Jen and I part time - the hardware
has changed a bit from those first years.. Two high-speed dedicated
circuits,
12 dedicated servers, routers, gateways, lots of custom programming - and
about 150,000 visits per day with approximately 12,000,000 e-mails sent in
24
hours.. Overall, the site takes about 125,000 - 150,000 unique visitors per
day (less on a weekend tho' - as most people are out driving )
And "how big" is Rennlist today?
On the web discussion forums alone, we have slightly over 7,500 "registered
users" - but if you look at the logs, there are about 5-6 "lurkers" for each
registered user who posts to the web Forums - so lets call that roughly
35,000 - 40,000 who surf in those Rennlist discussion forums...
On the e-mail lists, we have 82,000 registered e-mail accounts, but some of
them are "double" subscribed with a home account along with their company
account - so a conservative guess is about 61,000 - 62,000 unique
individuals.
In the Classifieds, we have posted just over 50,000 ads in the past two
years
from 32,000+/- unique e-mail addresses and the Classifieds section takes
about 15,000 site hits per day...
That's roughly 130,000 folks in *just* the major sections of the site..
As many know, we announced Rennlist Memberships three years ago this month
as
well - and for paying Rennlist Members (not including "Lifers")- in the last
couple of weeks, we have just hit the 2,000 mark (which equates to about
$36,000 a year (for those of you who are breaking out your calculator:-)-
*if* everyone were to renew or pay the invoice when they initially join and
asked to be billed, but historically, fall-out is about 15% - so the actual
number is probably closer to 1,750 folks or $30,000 per year... (Now you
know
why I still have my "day job":-)
Yep - this weekend - Rennlist (born: "Porschelist") now begins its fifth
year
of operation - and Jen and I want to wish each of you a "Happy Birthday" and
our thanks for your support, enthusiasm and shaping Rennlist into, what many
believe, is the predominant automotive "community" within the Internet
today.
Simply amazing.....
My Best to all for a terrific, safe weekend - and if you are in the US, a
special Memorial Day.
John D.
Rennlist was born on Memorial Day Weekend 1998, which was May 23-25. Started out as Porschelist, renamed Rennlist within the next year or so after Porsche went after the list for trademark infringement.
The email is below. Not sure how the stats compare now. Back then there were way more people on the email lists than on the web forums. I see from the stats now there are now over 130,000 registered users on the forums.
Pretty cool.
Subject: Happy Birthday Rennlist....
From: "John Dunkle" <johnd@rennlist.com>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:09:48 -0400
X-Message-Number: 1
It was four years ago this weekend that a little e-mail list server hit the
"airwaves" and "Porschelist" was born - initiated from a small group of
Founders who were "disgruntled" with a sporadic "Porschefans" list server -
PorscheList had 5,000 folks after only a few weeks. Utilizing a whopping
56KB partitioned internet connection, PorscheList was only an e-mail list
server, without any web site, with the exception of a "front page" at
http://www.porschelist.org - as the http://www.porschelist.com site wasn't
even introduced until some months later with four founding sponsors
including
Wayne at PelicanParts, Rob's dcAutomotive, Dave and Jeannie of 928
Specialists, and Dave B. with "Road and Race". While we have seen some
Sponsors come and go since then - these businesses have been here since "Day
1" - and are still an integral part of this site. My thanks to all the
Sponsors and Rennlist Members who keep this site going.
And now into our fifth year, there is no more "PorscheList" - it is
"Rennlist". And while it is still just Jen and I part time - the hardware
has changed a bit from those first years.. Two high-speed dedicated
circuits,
12 dedicated servers, routers, gateways, lots of custom programming - and
about 150,000 visits per day with approximately 12,000,000 e-mails sent in
24
hours.. Overall, the site takes about 125,000 - 150,000 unique visitors per
day (less on a weekend tho' - as most people are out driving )
And "how big" is Rennlist today?
On the web discussion forums alone, we have slightly over 7,500 "registered
users" - but if you look at the logs, there are about 5-6 "lurkers" for each
registered user who posts to the web Forums - so lets call that roughly
35,000 - 40,000 who surf in those Rennlist discussion forums...
On the e-mail lists, we have 82,000 registered e-mail accounts, but some of
them are "double" subscribed with a home account along with their company
account - so a conservative guess is about 61,000 - 62,000 unique
individuals.
In the Classifieds, we have posted just over 50,000 ads in the past two
years
from 32,000+/- unique e-mail addresses and the Classifieds section takes
about 15,000 site hits per day...
That's roughly 130,000 folks in *just* the major sections of the site..
As many know, we announced Rennlist Memberships three years ago this month
as
well - and for paying Rennlist Members (not including "Lifers")- in the last
couple of weeks, we have just hit the 2,000 mark (which equates to about
$36,000 a year (for those of you who are breaking out your calculator:-)-
*if* everyone were to renew or pay the invoice when they initially join and
asked to be billed, but historically, fall-out is about 15% - so the actual
number is probably closer to 1,750 folks or $30,000 per year... (Now you
know
why I still have my "day job":-)
Yep - this weekend - Rennlist (born: "Porschelist") now begins its fifth
year
of operation - and Jen and I want to wish each of you a "Happy Birthday" and
our thanks for your support, enthusiasm and shaping Rennlist into, what many
believe, is the predominant automotive "community" within the Internet
today.
Simply amazing.....
My Best to all for a terrific, safe weekend - and if you are in the US, a
special Memorial Day.
John D.
