[I.M.O.G.]

Hi ABW.

My name is Matt Bidinger and I'm from Lakewood, OH. I joined ABW a few weeks ago with an interest in online communities. I was hired by iNet last month as a community manager responsible for helping out various communities in different ways. I've been a member at Overclockers.com since 2002 and on staff over there for the past few years or so. I have a fair amount of online community presence behind me, as well as some fortune 500 IT experience. My username stands for "In Memory Of Gus"; Gus was my potbelly pig many years ago.

As for specialties, I've got a good deal of customer service experience behind me and have developed a decent knack for cutting to the core of issues to resolve problems. Additionally, I'm an alright process guy in regards to identifying ways to achieve goals and organize things to assist in getting things done.

As for what I'd like to get out of ABW? If the community is happy, and has what it needs to do what it loves, then I'm happy... I'm really into the free exchange of information and experience, and thats what inspires me and makes me passionate about helping online communities.

I live with my girlfriend Kim and my dog Bubba. We spend a lot of time walking when the weather is nice. I'm a Cleveland sports fan, but am very casual in my interest (its less traumatic that way). I like to relax at home, watch movies, and booze responsibly.

For fun, I overclock computers with liquid nitrogen and race against other computer enthusiasts on hwbot.org. Current processors are typically rated to operate at a frequency of 3Ghz, the fastest I've ran one is just over 7Ghz. It's geeky, and not something I talk about often outside of certain company, but there you have it.

So thats me, thanks for having me at ABW. Looking forward to meeting more great people around here.

[Convergence]

Welcome, Matt!

Interesting hobby you have there - and to think, my wife calls me a geek...

[kse]

So Matt your paid to post at ABW?? What is your experence with affiliate marketing? Really not sure what your roll is at ABW can you provide more details.

Thanks
Kevin........

[CTanK]

Matt, great to see you here and involved with the ABW community! I am actually pretty confident that we're going to assimilate you into the affiliate industry. All your bases, etc. etc.

[I.M.O.G.]

Originally Posted by kse

So Matt your paid to post at ABW?? What is your experence with affiliate marketing? Really not sure what your roll is at ABW can you provide more details.

Thanks
Kevin........

Good question. I am not paid to post at ABW, and I wouldn't do something like that for money. I think it would be wrong ethically (I am personally against astro-turfing in any form, which that would qualify for in my book). From a professional perspective, I think it would be a misguided approach to improving a community, destined for failure.

I am a new iNet employee (hired mid-February) with the job title of Community Manager, with primary responsibilities of Community Engagement. I get online forums, and understand community dynamics. I do not work out of the iNet offices. On the business side (traditional business processes require numbers to measure effectiveness), my key metrics are activity and community satisfaction. On the personal side, the numbers don't matter much - in my experience they are a coarse reflection upon success/failure (suitable for business requirements), but its a social movement, organization, and direction that drives a site forward (what makes a community and its membership operate smoothly).

"Officially" my responsibilities include all iNet sites - one of which is ABW (about a half dozen sites are my primary focus). "Unofficially" I estimate I spend about 40 hours a week focussed on ABW in some manner - I believe there is a lot of reading, personal interaction, and public interaction necessary to get a rudimentary sense of what gives a community its character. I don't do this because its in my job description, I do it because thats what I believe it takes to understand some basic things - and that is what I think is necessary to be a positive part of this community in my role. Joining iNet also represents a change in career track for me, and generally putting in some extra time when undertaking a life change like that helps ensure a smooth transition - so I believe my personal interests and those of the ABW community are mutually aligned.

Related experience is online community involvement since 2002. Most relevantly a vision for moderation/administration of the Overclockers.com community, including design, staffing, and management of their editorial process. I started at Overclockers as a regular member like anyone else on the internet. I accepted responsibilities as they were offered by other members and forum staff, and did what was within my control to help improve the site for my fellow members. The community mostly runs itself now, but I still oversee it. From 2004 thru 2009 OC was hit hard due to stagnation along with changes in the environment. Under my watch since then, I found ways to not just stop the bleeding but in the past year the community has experienced remarkable growth and relevance in its niche. I didn't make that happen - the gains experienced are much larger impact than one person can make - but I did do things that removed obstacles for the community and gave them opportunities to make it a better place. And they did. OC is very different from ABW, in that its purely hobby and altruism driven - ABW is much more business and personal agenda driven - that is not a criticism, but a statement of awareness. There is also tremendous altruism in ABW.

I am not an authority on affiliate marketing. The first thing I learned about affiliate marketing was taught to me by Carolyn - I met her a while back at an iNet Leadership conference. What I know now, I learned from the ABW community in reading here. I am not here to lend affiliate expertise however - the community has that covered.

[superCool]

welcome I.M.O.G.

[Haiko de Poel, Jr.]

Matt is also a very good listener and a very quick learner.

Welcome to ABW Matt

[Witzer]

Welcome to the fold...I.M.O.G.

Current processors are typically rated to operate at a frequency of 3Ghz, the fastest I've ran one is just over 7Ghz.

WOW.........and I would be pleased with an ISP that worked properly

[rematt]

Welcome aboard Matt.

-rematt

[Bill]

Hey, Matt. Let me welcome you, again. to ABestWeb. It's good to see you on this side of the curtain.

[MichaelColey]

I've had quite a bit of opportunity to work with Matt since he came on board, and I'm very impressed.

I think he is already well on his way to becoming a very important liason between iNet and ABW. He has years of experience at the Overclockers forum, so he understands us and is another voice advocating for the things we need.

Working with a number of communities, he'll also help us to discover opportunities based on things that work at iNet's other properties, and if some of our ideas can be expanded to benefit multiple communities it will help improve priorities.

[I.M.O.G.]

Thanks for the welcome all.

Originally Posted by Witzer

WOW.........and I would be pleased with an ISP that worked properly

Heh, if its any consolation, that 7Ghz processor didn't work properly either. But it did work well enough to pass the test and get a valid score. At extremes like that, processors are a lot like drag racing... You wouldn't want to take it to get groceries, but it can be a lot of fun to race with. And liquid nitrogen is neat to play with too, -320F, boils violently at room temperature - amazing they sell the stuff to anybody.

[Chuck Hamrick]

Welcome Matt and we have already talked extensively. Thanks for adding your picture as it makes you more personal here.

WOW.........and I would be pleased with an ISP that worked properly

With iNet the leader in hosting forums is there any reason we couldn't get some recommendations from their staff. There is regular questions about hosting, ISP's and other technology. Hopefully with you on board you can bridge some of the resources with the other forums/sites.

I cut my teeth on PC computers in the mid 80's and my first PC was a 286 with 256Kb of RAM which was obsolete in a year. Spend years swapping motherboards, RAM, drives, video cards. Remember swapping a modem for a 1MB RAM expansion board so I could play Harpoon ( the computer version of the game Tom Clancey cut his teeth on). Fours hours into a huge scenario the board would spark and the computer would freeze. Back then if you talked in Ghz it meant you were abducted by aliens.

[I.M.O.G.]

The picture and sig were at your recommendation Chuck, after I complained about the suggestion, which you likely recall. It was a good suggestion tho.

I could see some ways to help one another seeing as how they are essentially sister sites in completely separate markets, but I think the largest barrier is effective cross site communication. If WHT is seeking affiliate marketing insight, the best way to get it would be for them to come here and ask. In the same way, for good hosting insight it's probably best to direct people there to ask.

It would be cool if it were easier with vbulletin to do cross site authentication (maybe that will be the case with vBulletin4 and its facebook connect authentication, dunno)... If there were a WHT subforum embedded on ABW where those threads are also displayed within the WHT forums that would rock. They could do the same in reverse. Unfortunately, the only functionality I'm familiar with that is anything like that is redirecting a forum to an alternate URL, which doesn't address the cross-site authentication piece.

I could help personally connecting the dots on any issue brought to my attention, but playing telephone makes for a pretty poor user experience.

[AffiliateHound]

Hi, Matt, glad to have you involved here, but I have to say, I have met many a Cleveland sports fan, and NONE of them were casual about it, more like fanatical (especially the OSU grads).

[BurgerBoy]

Welcome to ABW Matt.

[kse]

Thank you for your reply MATT, I still not 100% sure what your role is but I sure it will become clearer as time goes by. Welcome to ABW.

Originally Posted by I.M.O.G.

Good question. I am not paid to post at ABW, and I wouldn't do something like that for money. I think it would be wrong ethically (I am personally against astro-turfing in any form, which that would qualify for in my book). From a professional perspective, I think it would be a misguided approach to improving a community, destined for failure.

I am a new iNet employee (hired mid-February) with the job title of Community Manager, with primary responsibilities of Community Engagement. I get online forums, and understand community dynamics. I do not work out of the iNet offices. On the business side (traditional business processes require numbers to measure effectiveness), my key metrics are activity and community satisfaction. On the personal side, the numbers don't matter much - in my experience they are a coarse reflection upon success/failure (suitable for business requirements), but its a social movement, organization, and direction that drives a site forward (what makes a community and its membership operate smoothly).

"Officially" my responsibilities include all iNet sites - one of which is ABW (about a half dozen sites are my primary focus). "Unofficially" I estimate I spend about 40 hours a week focussed on ABW in some manner - I believe there is a lot of reading, personal interaction, and public interaction necessary to get a rudimentary sense of what gives a community its character. I don't do this because its in my job description, I do it because thats what I believe it takes to understand some basic things - and that is what I think is necessary to be a positive part of this community in my role. Joining iNet also represents a change in career track for me, and generally putting in some extra time when undertaking a life change like that helps ensure a smooth transition - so I believe my personal interests and those of the ABW community are mutually aligned.

Related experience is online community involvement since 2002. Most relevantly a vision for moderation/administration of the Overclockers.com community, including design, staffing, and management of their editorial process. I started at Overclockers as a regular member like anyone else on the internet. I accepted responsibilities as they were offered by other members and forum staff, and did what was within my control to help improve the site for my fellow members. The community mostly runs itself now, but I still oversee it. From 2004 thru 2009 OC was hit hard due to stagnation along with changes in the environment. Under my watch since then, I found ways to not just stop the bleeding but in the past year the community has experienced remarkable growth and relevance in its niche. I didn't make that happen - the gains experienced are much larger impact than one person can make - but I did do things that removed obstacles for the community and gave them opportunities to make it a better place. And they did. OC is very different from ABW, in that its purely hobby and altruism driven - ABW is much more business and personal agenda driven - that is not a criticism, but a statement of awareness. There is also tremendous altruism in ABW.

I am not an authority on affiliate marketing. The first thing I learned about affiliate marketing was taught to me by Carolyn - I met her a while back at an iNet Leadership conference. What I know now, I learned from the ABW community in reading here. I am not here to lend affiliate expertise however - the community has that covered.

[JoyUnltd]

Howdy, Matt! Hah, I think you'll find that ABWers are already overclocked. You might even learn some new tricks!

[akagorilla]

Welcome, Matt

[BKing]

Hi Matt,
I will be attending the Vegas Summit. Could you please let me know what the discount code is, as there is nothing posted on this page?

Thanks,
Alex

[I.M.O.G.]

Hi Alex, you can find the info in the affiliate summit subforum: Affiliate Summit - ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum