For completeness, I've included our statement in this thread too.
<hr>
Most of you will have noticed, by now, that there is no longer any link to the old LazSeeker program on this site.
It has been replaced with a page describing the new UAISeeker 2003.
Now, before you riot with rage and run screaming to murder our household pets, please let us explain the reasons behind this change.
Since the original launch of Bored of Studies in July of last year, we have channelled an extraordinarily large number of hours into the site, involving the tireless efforts of our team and requiring a modest amount of funding. We originally sought no recompense for our work indeed, we saw no need to. Free lunches dont last forever, it seems.
The popularity of the website grew far beyond anything we had ever expected, and towards the end of the year we were flooded with demands from you, the students to keep it operational. Our bandwidth consumption (the amount of data downloaded from the website) was increasing at a rate proportional to the popularity of the site, and with it, the costs of maintenance. In Australia, serving dozens of gigabytes of data every month is not cheap.
We found ourselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, we are a non-profit organisation devoted to assisting HSC students in whatever way we can, at no cost to them whatsoever. And on the other, our budgets as university students were being stretched rather excessively.
We researched as many possible solutions as we could think of, and none of them proved to be suitable. Commission from displaying advertisements is extremely limited at best. Commercial banners would cheapen the image of the website, damaging its reputation and we figured that most HSC students probably wouldnt click on them anyway.
We contacted several organisations asking for sponsorship; none was forthcoming. We wrote to tertiary institutions and popular universities; they imposed impractical conditions such as censorship. Our previous host was unable to handle the strain on the server; some of you may recall the random, spontaneous downtimes. We investigated other avenues, such as mergers with pre-existing educational websites, but could find no solution that was acceptable to us. And we obviously couldnt charge for the notes themselves.
Once these possibilities were exhausted, we were at a bit of a loss. We couldnt simply continue sinking time and energy into the website; our resources were already running thin. There seemed to be few options left to us. It was at this time that we were approached by Ozseek.
Essentially, they provided us with a way out. We were to jointly develop a new UAI program which superseded both LazSeeker and their previous UAISeeker 2002 service. In return, any costs incurred in the running and maintenance of the website would be reimbursed.
This was the ideal opportunity. LazSeeker would finally evolve into the service it was meant to be, students would have a singular and consistent resource for all of their UAI needs, and, perhaps most importantly, the Bored of Studies website would live on.
And so, we accepted. The streamlined sophistication of the UAISeeker 2002 interface was combined with the accuracy and technological elegance of the LazSeeker brain to provide the ultimate hybrid service. Our team is behind the UAISeeker 2003 one hundred percent.
One student has suggested that we were motivated by the prospect of profit. I can guarantee all of you now that profit was the furthest idea from our minds. Our primary concern was always the future of Bored of Studies. Any excess revenue gleaned from the service will be funnelled directly back into the website and related projects. Youll be completely supporting the site by using it.
We spent a good deal time of time ensuring that the new product is actually worth paying for. New functions ensure that all users receive true value for their money. In addition to this, were going to keep updating the program, adding a wide range of different calculation methods, results and statistical analyses at no extra charge so that all users keep getting value for money.
We greatly respect your opinions, and will endeavour to meet the needs of all students. If you want to see a particular feature, or have a useful suggestion to make, let us know! Well do our best to accommodate you.
We appreciate your understanding and patience regarding the launch of the new site. We will be adding hundreds of new notes progressively. In the meantime, please avail yourselves of the extensive resources already available, including the HSC Help forum we are always searching for the best way to help you, the students.
Sincerely,
James, Mark, Tim and Ian.
The Bored of Studies Team.