Good idea BailOut, would be nice to know.
In the meantime a BIG THANK YOU to those businesses who are helping to support this GREAT SITE!

I didn't even realize there was paying and non-paying businesses here. Guess it makes sense that Lucky needs to make money on this site somehow. I agree with the posts above, its not only about buying advertisement for your business, its about helping to keep this great site free to the users.

Thanks to those businesses who are chipping in!

And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Everyone!

Good question. I would support businesses who support CycleFish!

Definitely a BIG THANK YOU to those businesses that support this site! With all the stuff on this site and all the new stuff we see, it can't be cheap for Lucky to to keep this going. Hopefully he is making something from it.

You know I have made a point to check out every business I see here on CycleFish.  I never click ads on the internet, but I see the businesses here as part of oour CycleFish group and most of them post stuff in the forum and comment to us just like the rest of us here.

So I couldn't care if they pay for advertising or not, actually I didn't even know you could buy it, but I do think its great if they do their part to keep the site stays free for the rest of us.  Come on guys its just a little give back like free burgers at your shop.  Yeah, maybe every one of us won't buy something from you, but not every one who gets a free burger buys something either.  Its just giving some of the money you have made from bikers back in a small thank you.

Help keep our site free!

Lucky, I won't claim to know the internet business, but wouldn't it make sense to charge every business to be here, and let the riders in free. Kind of like a rally or bike show.

I see you can now tell who the preferred businesses are. Just out of curiosity - how much does a business have to pay for that?

OKtoRide,

I believe it's $12 a month...yep only $12 a month and I only see a handful of business that are paying. That's if I am reading the little images right on the business listing page. I will definitely support those guys though because they are supporting our site.

Thanks to those of you who prefer to do business with those of us who are paying businesses and understand the importance it means to potential customers and the growth of this site that Lucky has put together. A+ for Lucky!!! Let's push to make this site take over all others in 2010....

GoFur,  You are correct...it does ONLY cost $12 a month to upgrade your business account, and yes there are only a handful of businesses paying at this time.

When this topic appeared my first thought was just to let the users discuss it among themselves.

Then my second thought was to give the middle of the road reply and say we should support all of our business members equally, because they are all part of the community, and not do anything to identify the businesses who have upgraded their accounts.

Then after reading through the replies, I must say first of all, I appreciate all of you wanting to support those businesses that support our community and our site.  So I decided that we should know who those businesses are, and if you guys want to weigh your patronage of businesses based on who is supporting the site, then that is great.  Heck, like we said above it only costs a business $12 a month to pay for the advertising they get here.  I'll bet every one of them pays more than that to get into an event just to hand out a dozen or so business cards.

So we are working on very clear ways for our users to identify those businesses who have decided to pay for the valuable advertising they get here so that all of our members know who they are.  So now when you browse the business users you will see highlighted businesses with different icons below their images to identify which features they are taking advantage of.  You will also see on the business' profile page a CycleFish logo right below their profile image indicating they are a Preferred CycleFish Business Partner.

We still appreciate everyone of our users, personal and business.  We just want to make sure that those who have decided to support our community get recognized for it.

A shout out to power Sport Models...Ordered and received a 2009 Root Beer Ultra... Very Cool the trunk and saddle bags open!!!! had an issue with the paint. Got a very quick reply by email. Got a F/U phone call. They checked their stock, same problem. Got another F/U phone call. Said they will get with supplier, they did and My new Ultra is on its way!!!!!! Great jobl and even better customer service.

Great Feedback and insight from all the riders out their - It is this forum that helped me realize the benefits that cyclefish and the riders that visit the site can bring to my small business. Rock On.....

Way to go Illuminators!!! Thanks to you and all the businesses who support the site!

Like Lucky, I was sitting on the side line on this topic and watching the chatter -
I think this is a great site - you can see I'm a regular poster on the site - and the folks on here are great as well - I've met some really kool people at CycleFish and I have even thrown a link to CycleFish on my site to promote it - there are alot of small businesses out there now struggling to make it and every dollar spent in advertising/publicity needs to make sense and tough decisions are made - Please support the businesses on CycleFish as much as you can - even if they're not paying- If they see biz coming from CycleFish members they may be able to justify the cost and be more apt to pay up - I appreciate all the support I've gotten from the members during my time here and look forward to doing biz with those I haven't already done biz with - support the businesses so they can help support you - Once again a big THANK-YOU to Lucky for providing the best on-line motorcycle commuity out there!!
Happy New Year and be safe out there -
Jay @ Hijinx

Jay,

I as much as anyone can appreciate the small businesses out there having a tough time right now. Although I have made many friends here, and enjoy the hell out of creating and running the CycleFish site, this is also my small business, and I need to make a living too. I am not picking on you, so don't take this wrong, but would you print up free t-shirts for a small business to use as advertisement, just because times are tough?

We will always continue to allow any biker related business to have a free profile here with limited promotion, but for what you get for only $12/mo, it has to be the best deal around for the advertising buck. Plus you are supporting the site for our users, your customers.

BTW - Thank you for upgrading HiJinzx as a paying member!!!

Thank you for pointing this out BailOut, I was under the assumption that all the buissness were all free like the rest of us. But yes we should support the ones that support and pay our website!

Hey Lucky -
Don't get me wrong - I'm totally on board with you!! I agree $12/month for advertising is a great deal - and you should be compensated for the great work you do here -
I was just trying to convey to the members the more they can support the businesses on CycleFish the more businesses will sign up and pay for membership that's all - (guess it didn't come across right)
Anyway....Thanks again for the great job here - and I appreciate the support!!
Jay @ Hijinx

Just a thought, but it might help to have a button on the header that took people to a vendor page.

I think another thing we can do to help out here and get more businesses to support our site, is to be sure to let the businesses know we found them on Cyclefish. I'm sure if they are not paying now and one or two of us show up at their place, or buy something online and mention we found them on Cyclefish, they would be more inclined to pay for the advertising.