Dear GlobalTwitcher user,

A few weeks back, I “gave notice” that I was no longer able to economically keep GlobalTwitcher.com online. The donator scheme that I introduced in 2010 still far from supports the external costs necessary to keep the site online. The interest in the site has however increased quite a lot over the past few years and now on average has some 25,000 hits per month (close to 1,000 per day). However, of the 750+ active users that regularly use the site to register and update their sightings and upload photo, only 15% have made donations as contributing members.

Today, I am happy to inform you that the immediate threat to the closure of the site has been removed. I have been able to get support from a sponsor who has injected some much needed equity funding and also has agreed to devote time to primarily support the administrative and commercial aspects of driving the activities around the site. Together with Bengt-Eric Sjölinder, an active member and a global twitcher himself, I have established a partnership that now owns GlobalTwitcher.com and a private shareholding company has been duly registered in Sweden and will be operating as from now. We have a clear objective and vision to develop the site into the premier site for registering, keeping and sharing records of animals and plants on a global scale.

Even though this partnership addresses the immediate financial problems and adds the management capacity that allows me to focus on building the site functions, I would like to emphasize that increased funding from members is necessary to keep the site online long-term. We therefore invite all active users who have not already done so to please, sign up as contributing member. The details are posted under Membership on the site and we will also reach out to those users in a separate communication. In parallel, we will be looking at other avenues to generate funds and increase the numbers of members. We therefore see no need, nor have any plans to increase the membership fees in the future over and above the current levels already indicated on the site.

The site also requires a lot of voluntary input from an international team of administrators. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the administrator team for their dedication and support to the site - their efforts are required to keep the site and the database information up-to-date and broaden it into all aspects of the animal and plant kingdom. Much of my own input is to take the site to another level in a new version of GlobalTwitcher - the plan is to roll out this 2nd version from the end of the 1st quarter 2012. Based on user demands communicated to me over the past few months, quite a few additional features are also in the pipeline to be rolled out in due course.

Finally, I would like to thank you as a user of GlobalTwitcher which in itself is a great support since without all of your data the site is of little value – it also proves the need for a site of this type and it encourages me to continue to develop it for the long-term.

Kind Regards,
Nicklas Strömberg