It’s funny how motivation can come from the most unlikely places. In February of 2004 I remember experiencing a number of disheartening experiences with local businesses. One was a case where practically my whole family got food poisoning from the same restaurant. After recovering, we called the restaurant, not wanting free food but wanting them to be aware that a problem may exist so that they may take action. I was greeted with a general indifference. I believe the words spoken where “So, what do you want me to do about it?” The problems continued, be it myself, my family or my friends, everywhere I looked people were being slighted in some way by contractors, doctors, their employers (my employer) and even church-affiliates. Aware that these hassles are present in everyone’s lives, I recall sitting at dinner one day wishing that I could do something to give people a voice to share positive and negative experiences about local businesses. Whether poor service at a restaurant or some retail associate going the extra mile, I felt giving people an outlet to tell their stories would be both intriguing and beneficial to the community.
Three months later, GulfCommunity.Com was born. With support from my professional affiliates and friends and through the use of open source software and highly caffeinated drinks I was able to put GulfCommunity.Com online with $0 invested. This was made especially possible thanks to my good friend at Coastal Security Solutions. My friends and I posted messages on forums announcing the new site on http://www.wkrg.com, www.al.com, and other local-topiced forums and soon the site hits went from 20 a day to 200 a day. A small community of fun people began using the forums and the ideas began to pour in.
Soon we added the domains www.baldwincounty.com and www.baldwincounty.net. We purchased classifieds and job posting software, wrote resume listing software and considerable quantities of additional caffeine was consumed. GulfCommunity.Com now receieved over a thousand hits a day with still only a small group of posters writing about nearly anything you could imagine in our forums.
Life was good. GulfCommunity generated $0 in revenue but the costs of running the site were limited to the cost of caffeinated drinks and a huge IOU bill to our friends at CSSI. No salaries, no brick-and-morter buildings, no advertising costs. Just lots of $0's on both sides of the ledger.
Then something happened. The forum regulars dwindled to minimum. Those left, eventually bored with chatting with themselves online realized they could also chat with themselves anywhere.
During the hurricane season, hoping to be of service to the community and to rekindle activity, I posted tools for hurricane tracking and gas location.
No one cared. No one used them.
On March 1st, 2006 - GulfCommunity.Com received 0 hits. Not even a curious bot looking to update search indexes. 0 hits.
Being it's creator, I had never intended on building something that would require constant upkeep and had easily moved onto other things. (An overworked, underpaid job that I eventually got wise and left, for one)
On May 1st, 2006 after a painful experience trying to explain rudimentary tech principles to an outsourced, non-english speaking technician hired by a local Internet Provider I found myself wondering if someone else in our community had similar problems with the company. I googled for among other things, "(that ISP name here) sucks" and the second result was none other than a post to the forums of GulfCommunity.Com.
Even though I never quite met my goal of creating an online system for people to rate their business experiences (yet), it seems my little community-oriented site, in the end - achieved what I set out for it to do for none other than me.
So, I decided it was time to pour a little more effort into GulfCommunity.Com. The result is what you see today. A new look and feel, some old features and some new ones. The changes, more than anything else -- will allow me to create more content areas or buy additional features to plugin to this little online community. It ain't perfect and it never will be but I'll continue to add features and it's up to you whether or not you decide to use them. I can't create the content for the whole site but I can certainly provide a playground and hope that if I build it "they will come."
I invite you to tell your friends and spread the word.. This site is here for you to use, make it what you will.
Bill Dodd