Hello Developer Shed Community Members,

My name is Jim Boykin, and I'm the very proud new owner of the Developer Shed network of sites. I am here to serve you, the users, and to work to make each property several times more useful than they are today. It's all about you, the users and the community.

Even though I wasn't elected for this position, I am still asking for your support in taking each site to new levels of usefulness and to grow the communities...they can grow a lot, if together we help to make these great communities. For years I've had this dream....a dream of making these properties wonderful resources for the users of the communities again. Now I have that chance, but I can not succeed without your support and your help, and your patience, and your faith in my intentions for these sites. My intentions are to make the sites way more user friendly, and to build up great communities that everyone can be proud of. My goals also include fixing, replacing, and adding new tools for the sites.

As the owner whom is responsible to these communities, I pledge to work to serve all visitors a better user experience, better information, better tools, and even better communities. I also pledge to listen to the communities, and to respect the views and wishes of each community, and to do what I believe is best for each community based on the wishes of the community, using the resources that I have available.

I understand that without your support, and without your sharing, and without your contributing to the community, that these wonderful websites and communities would die like a ghost town...but I also understand that we can work together towards making these sites and communities a much better place....a place of great value to the users (all of YOU) ...together, I believe we can create a place where everyone can be proud to say they are a member of, and where information can be shared without being bombarded with advertising... for that is the core of what I'm striving towards.

Now that I have been given this chance to lead, you can be assured that I'll work to do what is best for the communities first before I look at what is best for my wallet. If there is to be advertising on the sites, then it has to be relevant, and quality, and of use to the users...and not in their face taking away from the trust and usability of the site. If I give the users quality information, and quality tools, and quality communities....then I truly believe that this acquisition will, over time, give back in business karma. I don't have to spam the users.

We are about to upgrade these communities to a much newer version of vBulletin, and working to restructure the content so that it best serves the user on the website. Once we reach that stage, we can start looking at suggestions from that version. We'll be working on them, the best we can, as fast as we can, but it won't be overnight...if each day we get a little better, we'll be the Best by this time next year.

I would like to thank everyone who has helped to keep these sites wonderful resources throughout the years. I'll do all I can to value and honor all of you for helping to make these sites have quality information updated for so many years.

I'd like to thank the wonderful folks at the Developer Shed office (Jenny, James, Terri, Charles, and Eric). You guys are Awesome! Over the years your team has held together into one tight solid group that is all about doing all you can to make the sites better...even though your hands were tied in so many areas, and the higher up corporate people had goals that didn't mesh with how to best treat the community, you held together, doing all you could for the sites...I know you all deeply care for the properties, and I pledge to you to do all I can to help your team in transforming these communities into a greatness that you've all dreamed for these sites, and now we can start taking steps towards this greatness together.

I'd like to thank all the Admins and the Moderators of each community as well. Without your direction, and editing, there would be anarchy. I thank you for taking on these responsibilities, and for helping to keep the communities places where knowledge can be shared in an organized way. I understand that you're not getting paid, and you're only going to do these tasks if you want to...and I'll do all I can to continue to have you want to help make these great communities even better with your help...my goal will be to make you prouder than ever to say that you're an admin or moderator of your community.

I would also like to thank all the Millions of registered users who have contributed millions of threads and tens of millions of comments over the years. I will do the best I can to serve you and each of these communities. I will strive to keep as many of you happy as I can from today onward. You are the Community and I am here to answer to you. I know that many of you have seen changes over the years....some changes that were not so good...but know that I'm working hard to "Give these sites back to You...the users, and to the community as a whole."

I'm Feeling Lucky,
Jim Boykin
CEO and Founder of Internet Marketing Ninjas (http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/) And Owner (Responsible to the Community) of Developer Shed (http://www.developershed.com/)
Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/jimboykin)
Blog (http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/fun-stuff/developer-shed/)
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dev-Shed/313013982116721)