The BME direction survey

Many thanks to the 2000 or so people who answered my survey on where I should take BME, and what you want from it. First I'll tell you some of your demographics, if you're interested:

71% of you are male, 26% are female, and a small percentage (about 3%) are either eunuchs or transsexuals. About 60% are straight, with 20% gay, and another 20% bisexual (which I believe is probably an honest cross-section of society). Half of you consider yourselves essentially aetheists, about 30% are Christian or close to it, with the rest evenly spread out among other spiritual options. About half are single or casually dating and the other half are married or in long term relationships, and 1/5 of them have children. BME members are well educated, with 80% having a college education or better -- a full quarter have their MA or PhD (or are in the process of getting it). I'm not going to say too much more because I can't give away all my secrets!

I am very happy to say theat the overwhelming whelming response was "don't change a thing". I was amazed that there were virtually no complaints percentage-wise. The only thing that people seemed to really want added was the RealVideo of body modification, so I'll do my best to get this set up this month coming up. I'm also glad that all but 5% of people answering the survey said that they visited regularly.

About 20% of people without a membership complained that $8.95 a month is too expensive -- however, almost nobody with a membership had this complaint (so once they saw it, they knew it was worth it). BME is already priced way below everyone else (EasyRiders charges $15.95 per month to look at their tattoo pictures, which are free on BME and almost everywhere else; Katharsis charges $10 to look at their mini web-zines and $155 per month to visit their full magazine) and BME also has far, far, far more to offer, plus you know you're doing a good deed ensuring the survival of free galleries and information that help everyone. Anyway, so the price is fair and I can't reduce it any more than I have. I was glad to see that my paranoia was wrong and people also feel that it's fair.

Overall, thank you for the vote of confidence! You'll be seeing a lot of little changes over the next couple of months while I implement many of the comments you sent in (for example, underlining the "what's new" text on the main page and making it blue). Also, I'm rewriting my indexing code to do little things like put email icons next to experiences that include email, and adding top-10 lists of people's favorite experiences (Gypsy is working on a voting engine).

Some comments from BME members

"I really like BME and find it informative and helpful. I would never have been pierced if it wasn't for the information that i found on your web site. It really is the only site on the web that provides the scope and quality of information that it does."

"You're doing a great job, keep it up! BME is a great turn-on and a valuable info source -- helped decide to get my pa and I'm really glad i did!"

"I've been with you for about two years, and your site just keeps getting better all the time."

"Thank you sooo much for being here. It helps me feel a little bit less alone, and I've learned a lot."

"Nothing at BME is too weird. BME is great. I appreciate it so much because there is nowhere else to get quality information about bod mods. It seems critical that you need more advertisers to pay the bills; and we will support them! We especially need suppliers etc for our fun, cause so many of us live too far from big cities to get any work done, or to get supplies and tools to do it ourselves. And when I do get somewhere that has a shop, no one I have yet found will do the mods I want --- they are just too conservative, uninterested, etc... so again, many many of us have to find our way through the darkness all by ourselves and do our own work. BME is really really important."

"BME itself - the original and still the best.
BME/World - invaluable, my isp wouldn't let me express myself that way I can on my BME/World pages.
BME/HARD - great; BME/extreme - well, it's extreme!"

You know, before I did this survey I was getting a little bit discouraged and depressed about how much work I was doing, and feeling that it was all a little pointless and unappreciated. Getting a thousand comments like the ones above made me feel really good about myself and BME and makes the regular sixteen hours a day that I put in on BME worth it. I want to thank all of you that answered the survey, that have sent in photos and stories, all of you that have been visiting here for the past years, and everyone that's offered their invaluable continuing help over the years. You all know who you are, and I'm very thankful for what you've helped to create.

When I saw that all of the other tattoo magazines and piercing magazines starting to go online, I thought about changing BME's format to "compete" more directly with them. However, seeing this survey reminds me that BME has something that they'll never have... A true living spirit, built by friends. Thank you all; I'll do my best to honor what we've created and keep in on a pure course.

Shannon
[email protected]