Chat feature now live, upgrade already in the works

So in case you read our last post and wondered what we were on about...chat is now live.

What's cool about this chat? Sure, there are tons but here are the neat-o features:
1) Chat with people on your friend list (if they are online and so are you).
2) Chat in a "group window" ala traditional group chat.
3) Chat anonymously with another member...yes, we don't have a lot of people using this (yet)...but, you can probably guess where and how this changes things for our site.

:) It's coming, soon.

Me, I truly can't think of a more game changing experience in Q&A than real time, instant connection to another person who shares your interests.

That's where we're headed and the whole product is being bent towards that goal. We have more planned...it's going to be a wonderful year.

No posts in two months: FunAdvice Update

It's been a while since we've updated our blog, yes, we're still here, no, we're not ignoring it :)

Thing is...well, sometimes, life gets in the way (or in this case, a TON of navel gazing). Traffic was down, as we mentioned in our last post...but, now it's trending back up.

However...something is *wrong* with Q&A on the web. We're not sure how to fix it but one thing we do know is that the way sites like ours go about the entire process needs fixing.

And, we have an idea. Perhaps it'll change the game...perhaps not. But one thing for sure is that we need to do *something* to make our product better than the rest. You can get, essentially, the same experience elsewhere online...YA, Answerbag, etc, etc. So what makes FunAdvice special?

For one, the social elements...however, those need massive improvement to match the golden standard (facebook)...and, we're impatient. So in the name of giving you something special, we're launching a brand new feature in a few weeks.

Yes, we already did videos, we did howtos and we did live upload of photos via webcam. But, this is something *new*, *different* and truly *unique*. Stay tuned.

A tail of two trends: retention climbing with overall traffic down

I'm ignorant (honest) in how to build, run and grow a community. Sure, I've got experience - loads of people do. However every community is different. Ever lived in the east coast of the US, then moved out west? Or vice versa? You get what I'm saying: culture, values, modes of interaction, norms...it's all different. We may (those of us who are, anyway) be all Americans...but, I'm a Californian first an American, second.

Most folks I've met feel the same way.

What's this got to do with FunAdvice? Well, if you read our blog...the last post talked about how overall traffic is down. Perhaps that's a good thing. Retention, as we define it, is still higher than ever and growing...wow. What's that mean?

For me, personally, it means that I'm still clueless: I would have thought constant growth in *new* traffic would increase retention, where a decrease in new visitors would decrease overall retention, as the fractional value of new visitors that convert to regular members goes down (given that it is a consistent percentage of new visitors overtime). Is that egg on my face? One sec, lemme grab a napkin.

Better. So where does this leave us? Well, there was a Google study (am I saying that too often to too many people?) they did in researching the impact of latency on their audience...fascinating stuff. What they found was that people who experienced (5%) of their audience a "slower Google" over 3 weeks conducted less searches, over the next three weeks, than the average Google user. Yikes!

Google is a brand worth $100 million dollars, according to some media pundits. That's big, in case you're wondering. There are also studies that suggest simply putting the Google logo on other search results (Bing / Yahoo / etc) will improve the perception of relevance, even if those are *not* Google search results. Wow.

Two issues, then: one is that if your brand is powerful...it matters. The other one is that nothing is more powerful a predictor on visitor behavior than site speed. Yuck. In other words: if FunAdvice works fast, we're more likely to pick up more heavy users of our system...if we work slow, we're *less* likely. Thus it could be the uptick in retention is a function of our increased speed (as we got faster with less overall new traffic to the site).

I'm not an engineer, so, I can't do anything about the speed. We are working on it, though (have you ever thought a website was "too fast"? Me neither).

Second, the "brand" issue...what does FunAdvice stand for? Well, if you read our about page...we spell it out pretty clearly. I spent this morning reading the blogs of some competitors (I've mentioned them here before) and looking at the complaints they were getting. Well, we're not perfect here, either: but we'll try to do better. And, feel free to call me on it, if we don't improve: I'm willing to listen, I won't bite your head off, AND, I'll thank you for it.

Coping with disaster: are you ready to deal with a 55% drop in your business?

It's been a long, long time (eight years, in fact) since I've personally dealt with a business I owned having taken it in the shorts as FunAdvice did in August. Thus the reason we didn't crow about the quantcast, the compete, etc, updates with our glorious ever growing traffic numbers this month. They didn't grow.

In fact, we hit 6.9 million in July, about 4.2 million in August and our run rate this month is for a meager 3.3 million visitors, if we're lucky. What happened?

1) Aggressive marketing - I'll put my hand up on this one. Lock, stock and barrel. Sometimes when you sit too close to the fire you get burned ya? We did. Lesson learned.

2) Perhaps you don't have a good comparison for what we went through...well, I've consulted with nearly 60 companies on online marketing strategic, tactics and helped them execute. Only two companies grew faster than FunAdvice did for a six month period, in all the companies we have ever worked with. There was a specific reason for both of them growing faster than us. Simply put: we were on fire.

3) The collapse happened and now we're back to the same strategy as before (which I've come around to accepting is the only strategy that builds scale, value and provides disaster proof returns: helping people one person at a time.

Marketing at the relationship level for us has always provided a massive return. "Mass" marketing for us has simply never worked...sure, we hit a random ball out of the park with our second press release (getting the NY Times pick up was sweet)...but really what we need to do is simply grind it out. One person, one relationship and building block at a time.

When (or if, really) disaster strikes, don't:
1) Make rash decisions - I made things worse, delayed recovery for two weeks and cost our site revenue, cost members the excitement of the connections they could have made, etc.

2) Blame the team - if you're running the show, the buck stops there. End of story. I'd personally LOVE it if somebody else stepped up and said it was me...but, they can't, because they'd be lying. I'm not going to encourage that, as business only works when you deal with reality, not somebody's hopeful version of it.

3) Be a jerk. I whined, I'm not too proud to admit it. You know what it got me? Zero. One night, I slept with such pain in my chest I could barely breath...it sucked. Badly. Take a deep breath and realize, remember: if you're still breathing, keep your health and live to fight another day.

4) Skip analysis: point of fact I had enough data in 3-5 days to make the right decisions. Instead, I let my ego cloud my judgement and spent two weeks waiting for nothing to start digging into things. If this happens to you remember to think quickly and smartly but only act once the data is clear. You can't have too much clarity and yes, bounce your ideas off of somebody. Outline your thinking, it may help you from jumping further over the edge.

Bottom line is you have noticed FunAdvice is less busy, well, it is. The good news is we've installed some new software so our site is working on a per visitor basis, better than ever. And, we uncovered (thanks to the drop) a series of bugs that had been plaguing us for a long time. So we'll get back there...it's just a matter of time, and building things with the right foundation.

Interviews: what would you like to see?

One thing that's been on our minds for a long time: how are we doing? What are we doing right, what could we do better? The secret to success...is locked away, inside the heads of the smart people running their sites, building their businesses and clearly, our team doesn't have a monopoly on good ideas.

As a result, we're going to start doing interviews...you know, asking questions, of those experts in the coming weeks. Do let us know if there is a specific person, category or topical event you'd like to see us cover. Naturally, we have ideas..but, it's to help all of us learn together that we're doing this so all advice will be appreciated (even if not acted on immediately).

Quantcast updates for July: FunAdvice clocks in at #275 in the US

Thanks, everybody. It's amazing to me how much appreciation I get sometimes from FunAdvice...of course, only a fraction of our members take the time to say "thanks" but, it's always flattering, never expected and I'm truly grateful, every time.

Of course, my faith in the tech media, such as it is, has completely vanished.

A few highlights, if you're keeping score:
1) We're the 2nd fastest growing social network in the US (comScore)

2) Other than FanPop we're the only ones who are bootstrapped who were in the Reuter's piece...which they clearly overlooked...thus highlighting their skimpy reporting.

3) Other than Deviantart FunAdvice is the *only* social network in the US that's bootstrapped and in the top twenty, per the comScore study that we mentioned on our news page.

I get it, though...given the stats I mentioned, there, why *would* any self respecting techno journalist give us more than the time of day? I've corresponded with Venturebeat, talked to TechCrunch (who only wrote up our bcc'd half ass acquisition offer by myyearbook b/c it was funny as heck), interviewed with Gigaom ~2+ years ago...and yet, the New York Times thought it made sense to include us in a round up of Q&A...where, ReadWriteWeb purposefully left us *off* the list, even after I commented that we should have been included. Last, but not least, the Wall Street Journal even quoted me last year...when a personal intro to Mashable's self styled social media guide didn't even warrant an email in return...WTF?

Nope, it's not about how much tech press we get, or why increasingly, our story seems to be one that most media outlets that I read, regularly would rather bury than highlight...it's about the members. The community. The excitement of seeing how many people we can help, daily.

You've probably noticed...we run a lot less ads (for members) than most sites, and more than 50% of our pageviews, logged in or out, have *zero* ads on them. On the one hand...that's "bad business" right? Sure, from one perspective...but, you didn't go to your favorite social question and answer site to check out how well targeted Google's ads are, now did you? Nope :) We didn't think so.

Over the next month, our goal is to ramp up our engineering efforts and take the product into serious high gear...there have been a *lot* of bumps so far this August but we'll come out of it with a stronger product, more fun and more helpful, to you, than ever.

Compete finally updates for July: the blogosphere continues to sleep at the wheel

July numbers have started to come in and we can finally make our public comments...of course, we prefer Quantcast data because compete is largely bullsh!t, because per Google Analytics, FunAdvice had 5.9 million uniques in July, and more than 4.4 million of those were unique visitors from the US.

Still, the
compete.com stats for the 3rd, fourth, and fifth largest question and answer sites in the US are instructional at the very least, as they highlight an important trend: Answerbag, as we know it, is failing.

If we cruise on over to Google trends to bake off the difference between FunAdvice and Blurtit, you'll see a startling fact, if you didn't know how the various sites in our category are growing: blurtit isn't growing organically. Mindcom internet, the company behind Blurtit (they won't even list their founders on the about page...what are they hiding?), is simply attempting to arbitrage their way to the top. It's not sustainable and as we've been catching up with a marketing budget of zero, it's clear that this isn't a sustainable strategy.

What does all this mean?
1) Build your product - if the media pays attention, great. If not, it won't hurt.
2) Focus on your members, not online marketing.
3) If you continue to ignore their requests (check the answerbag blog for some real gems...members there have been requesting a private messaging system for years, and FunAdvice launched Fun Mail in 2006)...it will bite you in the ass, in the end.
4) Fake, bullsh!t accounts to auto spam your sight (cough, answerbag's latest update, cough) will alienate users, piss them off AND set the precedent that you don't care about them, only questions that could generate the highest ad dollar per view.

Oooops....if you see me walking down the street and we started doing some of these things, feel free to slap me. Hard. I'd deserve it.

No stupid answers - Answers Corp Quarterly Statement has a real Gem

"...an increasingly competitive environment for our business;" so, what, exactly, do you make of that line? It's in the "threats" section, if you read about it, here. Call us arrogant (it wouldn't be the first time, nor will it be the last).

This is how life in our category stacks up:
1) Yahoo Answers
2) WikiAnswers
3) Answerbag (recently quantified their stats too).
4) Blurtit
5) FunAdvice

What's odd about this list, can you spot it?

Well, two of the sites (us and Blurtit) get very little in the way of press and media attention...and, of course, Demand Media raised $400 million, Answers is public and Yahoo is as well.

The real oddity though...FunAdvice is the only site out of the set without a points system to reward user activity. Given that we all (every site) say we are a social question & answer site...it's odd, don't you think, that an essentially worthless carrot is the backbone of the motivation on every site but ours?

Ah...one final thought: if you look at quantcast when they update for July...you'll note that we grew, a lot. Everybody else? Declining.

Sure, blame twitter or facebook. It's fashionable. However, the fact is...bullshit only takes you so far. Reality is what matters.

This is why we're going to sue softlayer.com: evidence.

Frankly, after a few weeks, I've decided I've had enough.

Several emails (no dice), note that all the requests have been blocked...and, this is just from the last 24 hours.

Facts:
1) Unauthorized crawling is ILLEGAL in the state of California, the company that's getting crawled to shit always wins the lawsuit.
2) Softlayer.com is going to get sued, shortly, by FunAdvice, LLC, becuase they won't stop.
3) We can easily prove both lost revenue, negative impact on our business and more.
4) I'm sick and tired of companies thinking that it's OK to data mine the crap out of others..we block robots all the time. We expect that, if we block you, it doesn't happen again.
5) If we contact you multiple times, and you still don't give a shit, you deserve the reaming that the law firm will give you.
6) Anybody know a good law firm? I'm shopping aronund now...it's a slam dunk of a case, and, an important precedent for the internet as a whole.

See the logs below...we're making this public to be transparent and to fight for what's right.

208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:03 -0700] "GET /search?q="messi+y+su" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:03 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="messi+y+su" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="messi+y+su"" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:07 -0700] "GET /search?q="futbol+pictures" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:07 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="futbol+pictures" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="futbol+pictures"" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/2
0070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:15 -0700] "GET /search?q="futbol+partidos" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:15 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="futbol+partidos" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="futbol+partidos"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)" "www.funadvice.
com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:27 -0700] "GET /search?q="once+caldas+manizales" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:27 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="once+caldas+manizales" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="once+caldas+manizales"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en)
Opera 8.50" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:27 -0700] "GET /search?q="bundesliga+fashion" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:27 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="bundesliga+fashion" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="bundesliga+fashion"" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:31 -0700] "GET /search?q="americas+team+fc" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:31 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="americas+team+fc" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="americas+team+fc"" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:32 -0700] "GET /search?q="deportivo+cali+que" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:32 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="deportivo+cali+que" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="deportivo+cali+que"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1
.1.4322)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:34 -0700] "GET /search?q="aab+net" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:34 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="aab+net" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="aab+net"" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:38 -0700] "GET /search?q="man+utd+tickets" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:38 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="man+utd+tickets" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="man+utd+tickets"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50"
"www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:47 -0700] "GET /search?q="lionel+messi+family" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:47 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="lionel+messi+family" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="lionel+messi+family"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Oper
a 8.50" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:52 -0700] "GET /search?q="hairstyles+david+beckham" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:52 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="hairstyles+david+beckham" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="hairstyles+david+beckham"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1
)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:55 -0700] "GET /search?q="daniele+de+rossi+and" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:36:55 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="daniele+de+rossi+and" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="daniele+de+rossi+and"" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.
6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:03 -0700] "GET /search?q="cristiano+ronaldo+2007+2008" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:03 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="cristiano+ronaldo+2007+2008" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="cristiano+ronaldo+2007+2008"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows
NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:03 -0700] "GET /search?q="santos+laguna+free" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:03 -0700] "GET /search?q="van+nistelrooy+psv" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:03 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="santos+laguna+free" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="santos+laguna+free"" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:03 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="van+nistelrooy+psv" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="van+nistelrooy+psv"" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:04 -0700] "GET /search?q="real+madrid+09" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:04 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="real+madrid+09" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="real+madrid+09"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)" "www.funadvice.co
m"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:15 -0700] "GET /search?q="cristiano+ronaldo+offered+pounds+to+transfer+to+real+madrid" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:15 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="cristiano+ronaldo+offered+pounds+to+transfer+to+real+madrid" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="cristiano+ronaldo+offered+pounds+to+transf
er+to+real+madrid"" "Opera/9.20 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:31 -0700] "GET /search?q="regionalliga+ergebnisse" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:32 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="regionalliga+ergebnisse" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="regionalliga+ergebnisse"" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:
1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:42 -0700] "GET /search?q="manchester+united+football+club" HTTP/1.1" 302 390 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "www.funadvice.com"
208.43.179.21 - - [03/Aug/2009:12:37:42 -0700] "GET /blocked.html?q="manchester+united+football+club" HTTP/1.1" 200 692 "http://www.funadvice.com/search?q="manchester+united+football+club"" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0;
Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)" "www.funadvice.com"

Should we sue softlayer.com to force them to stop crawling us?

Despite numerous attempts to get softlayer.com to stop crawling our site, despite phone calls and emails with log files, etc, they are still hitting FunAdvice daily more than sixty thousand times.

To put that in perspective, SoftLayer is the #1 consumer of content on FunAdvice, despite their not being an ISP, despite the fact that this is a no name robot, despite the fact that we have banned ALL of these ip addresses.

The court precendents are clear: softlayer will lose this lawsuit. The best estimate we have for lost revenue is 20% based on our initial analysis, to date...which means they have cost us well into five figures since this issue started.

Should we sue them? I don't think it's right to bring a lawsuit personally, as I believe that business should be conducted with ethics. However, when rational dialogue fails...well, that's why we have the court system, right?

I'll give them another 48 hours...then, we're finding a lawyer. Let us know if you know any good ones.