JonyyB

Hi All,
As many of you know, I started this site in early 2004 in anticipation of the new 2005 Cobalt. Back then, a Google search for “Cobalt SS” returned only chemistry related results

I was in college and had a ton of free time to kill and I spent most of the hours of my days dedicated to growing the site and making it a valuable resource for other Cobalt owners. The site quickly grew, and over the years, CobaltSS.net became the largest Cobalt website on the web. I personally want to thank each and every one of you for your contributions to the site. Without your contribution, CobaltSS.net would never have grown to the community it is today. Thank you!

After college, I focused on my career, and my new family. My life is now blessed with a wonderful wife and a baby boy and there is nothing in the world I rather do after work than spend my free time with them. With all the changes in my life, I realized that I alone cannot do the site justice. The site requires full time attention and resources and many of you noticed I have been struggling to keep up with all that is required to keep a large forum running smoothly. I simply do not have the time.

This brings me to the announcement. Today I am pleased to announce that the site has been acquired by Internet Brands.

Effective immediately, Internet Brands will take over the site, servers, forums, advertising and all related matters. I will help transition the site over to Internet Brands and following the transition I will remain on as the Site Founder to enjoy the site as a proud Cobalt owner. I will be keeping my orange SS for years to come.

What this means for you:
You will get fast email and admin PM responses, the site will get quicker, and the forum will get some really exciting new features. Internet Brands also owns Jelsoft, the company who make the software CobaltSS.net runs on. Along with all of that knowledge and expertise, comes their experience with running over 90 different automotive forums. This also means they’re really good at fixing the issues that come up from time to time.
Another main reason I decided to hand over the reigns to Internet Brands, is the fact that each of their forums is nothing like the next. They have made a very strong commitment to maintaining the integrity & identity of the communities they acquire.

Internet Brands have a great deal of experience working with teams of site moderators, and they recognize that these moderators are an essential ingredient of a healthy community. As such, you shouldn’t expect major staff changes moving forward. It will still be the same team of moderators that you’re used to. IB does have full time community mangers that ensure things are going well, feel free to approach them directly if you have issues to discuss. I know we have recently talked about adding more moderators to the team to deal with the growing site. At this point it will be up to IB to make any such changes.

I really feel that this change will help to keep CobaltSS.net the premier Cobalt community! I hope that you share the same feeling and offer a warm welcome to our new owners!
Thanks to each and every one of you for the memories and friendships I’ve gained through this site over the past six years. Please feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any questions or IM me on AIM. I will be available most of the weekend to answer any questions.
Jonel

Robb M.

Hey everyone!

Jonel, thank you for the introduction, and thanks for all of the work which you’ve done to help in this transition. We look forward to you sticking around here for a long time to come in your new, responsibility free role

You guys probably want to know a bit more about me, so here goes.

I’m robb, aka ‘astro’ from AcuraZine. I helped start that site with a friend (soopa) way back in late 1999. We were kind of like Jonel back then. We started a site (acura-cl.com) about a car that wasn’t even on the market yet. The 2001 Acura CL Type-S. Together we built that original site up, into what it is today, the largest Acura Resource on the internet. We sold the site to Internet Brands in late 2006/early 2007. Soopa transitioned away from the site, for many of the same reasons that Jonel has listed above.
I stuck around, and have been slowly increasing my role with Internet Brands since then. Going from 1, to 2, to 10, to the 60 something sites I help to oversee now.

I will be CobaltSS.net’s direct link into all things Internet Brands. Whether it’s features you’d like added to the site, problems with site speed, or functionality, or suggestions to help make the site even better. If it’s something that the mods can’t do, chances are I might have a way.

Bob(speedlimit) will be here on the site, mostly in a listening role, but you can count on him being here, and available regularly. I will let him introduce himself further himself

You all probably have some questions about things like the servers, will they ever get faster? You probably also wonder what about the vendors and moderators who have helped to build and shape the site into what it is today.

I can assure you that none of us, have any intent of changing the make-up of the site. This means no staff changes on our behalf, and no vendor changes if possible. Our accounts team is reaching out to each of the vendors right now, introducing themselves, and what we have to offer each of them.

In terms of the servers and site speed, we intend to have CobaltSS.net up and running on our own servers by the end of next week. I am quite certain that you will all notice this as soon as it happens

I am feeling long winded, but I definitely invite you to participate in this discussion, let us know your thoughts, ask us any questions you have that Jonel, or myself may not have answered yet, I’ll do my best to answer. I am sure Bob will be here as well, and I know that Jonel will be here when he gets home from work this afternoon

Anyway, I really look forward to learning a lot more about your vibrant community

bamaboy22

i never got my sticker...

coopercharge

iTrader: (4)

Jonyyb,

Good luck in your endeavors.

Robb,

Welcome to the forum.

Robb M.

Thanks for the welcome coopercharge!

ChevyRockstar

iTrader: (4)

Hope this works out, and good luck to jonel

speedlimit

Hi everyone!

My role will be a more direct day to day interface working and listening to the moderator staff and this great community. Robb is our direct link to getting stuff done that requires IB's resources, so please be nice to him! Please continue to communicate to the moderating staff concerning site issues. Feel free to contact me if you need further help. I look forward to helping this community grow! Thanks.

Bob..

JonyyB

I will get them all out. Sorry for the wait

Billig ss/sc

iTrader: (5)

Good stuff guys!!! I really hope this forum can get back to how good it used to be. I think this is definitely a step in the right direction


PS - Can I be a mod now?

csementuh

iTrader: (18)

Welcome~!

Robb M.

Thanks for the welcome

As for becoming a mod, that will be up to the existing site staff, and perhaps Bob as well. Definitely not my territory though

BLAZIN07SS

iTrader: (7)

don't you guys own ************* too?

www. cobaltss .com

Billig ss/sc

iTrader: (5)

Well I've been more than willing for a long time

Just sayin'

JonyyB

No vertical scope does.

blacklightmachine

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Copyright Š2000 - 2010, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

Mudcrutch

How much was the site sold for?

speedlimit

I appreciate your desire to help! Additions to the staff will be discussed with moderators over the next few weeks as will other topics on their minds. Thanks!

Bob..

Robb M.

Thanks

jsscooby

This is somewhat surprising yet expected news. Good luck with what seems to be a perfect way to live Jonel. As far as the site goes, I see this as an improvement. Maybe it will get things cleaned up more and will draw back some of the members that have left do to issues on the site.

mofofernando

iTrader: (3)

subd

BYT*SS*TURBO

iTrader: (6)

Now that an admin will respond..

Ive been trying to become a vendor for months now with 0 response from a mod or admin. Im interested in info on how to become and vendor and it's costs. Please PM or email: nick@backyardturbo.com

thanks

Robb M.

This is absolutely what we hope to help achieve. We will need help from people like you though!

Thanks for checking in, I hope we hear more from you

Robb M.

Hi Nick!

I'll make sure that someone reaches out to you.

Thanks a lot for your interest in the site!

cheers,
robb

Billig ss/sc

iTrader: (5)

Yea this site has become a mess over the last year. So many random threads that have nothing to do with cars whatsoever, let alone Cobalts. Most of the really knowledgeable people have moved on because of all the immaturity. It's a shame

Robb M.

We most definitely do not

That is owned by VerticalScope.

vBulletin, while owned by us, is a consumer product, so it essentially becomes the property of the owner/site using it.

Hope that helps to clear things up. is our ONLY Cobalt site.

cheers,
robb