I am Mike. The company I work for is the company that recently purchased Halomega forum.
I do not know anything about any of the drama going on with the previous owner/owners so I really can't comment on any of that. What I can do is tell you a little bit about the new owners, what our intentions are and what this change means to the forum community.
First off, our company has been around since 1999. We own and operate lots of sites, blogs, forums and newsletters. We are not, by any stretch, some basement operation or mom and pop outfit.
Our ownership of the forum means the forum will be moving to our equipment on newer, more powerful servers in our co-location facility where it will be plugged in to a 500mb/s dedicated pipe. In other words, hardware and bandwidth will never be an issue.
We have our own IT department, programmers, designers and developers. getting things done in a thorough and timely fashion will not be a problem.
Not that it's a huge issue to some of you maybe (it kinda is to me) but we have our own ad sales department and while we will have a couple of ad areas on the site, all of the cheesy google ads, text ads ad crappy affiliate junk that makes the place look like a NASCAR will be eliminated in short order. That is to say, we'll have some ads, sure... but not THIS many and certainly not this obnoxious. (no offense intended to the previous owner/owners).
As for me, I am a huge game fan. I have been gaming on pretty much a daily basis since I was about 7. I am a veteran of both Halo titles. I know and like the game very much. Sept. 25 is circled on my calendar just like it is on most of yours I expect.
I am or have been an admin of many forums large and small since I joined the company back in 2000. I am new here, but I am anything but new to the forum game -- or game forums for that matter
One thing the company and I bring to the table as admin and curator of the forum is nearly 8 years in the Search Engine Marketing industry and a new network of sites and traffic whose pageviews literally measure in the tens of millions.
I/we have the knowledge, resources and interest not just in 'maintaining' this foum... but in building and developing this forum into one of the pre-emminent Halo foums on the internet.
I am not hard to get along with, I am a failry laid back and easy going kind of guy. That said, I tend to be straightforward in dealing with people. I look forward to working with any and all of you who were previously associated with the forums -- whether as admins, mods, or users. I won't however be allowing you guys to post links to a forum designed solely to compete and calling for folks to leave because of some beef you have with the previous owner - sorry, I'm funny that way I guess...
I am online pretty much 24/7. I can be reached in a multitude of ways which I will list below. Feel free to yell at me using the medium of your choosing.
-Mike
Instant Messenger:
ICQ - 19760334
AOL - antim767
MSN - antim7676 -(at)- hotmail.com
Gtalk - michaelmcd -(at)- gmail.com
Email:
michaelmcd -(at)- gmail.com