Exciting News About DailyStrength!
Hi DailyStrength friends. I want to be the first let you know about some very exciting news that we're announcing today. DailyStrength has merged with HSW International (HSWI), a leading provider of authoritative content on the Web. HSWI has deep expertise in creating quality, locally relevant content for consumers, and we're excited to merge our wonderful community tools with their excellent content. I bet you're thinking two things: a) "Why?", b) "Now what?" or "How does this affect me?" Let me try to answer both. Why? The inspiration for DailyStrength was, and remains to this day, my cousin Andrew Kirsch, who died of cancer at the age of 20. I wanted to make Andrew proud by helping others on his behalf. With Andrew in mind, I developed a theory which ultimately became DailyStrength. The theory was that I could create a successful for-profit business, but, at the same time, help others in a profound way. I wanted to provide a product or service that improved the lives of the people that used it every day, and I didn't want the people who came for help to have to pay for it. The last 3 years have been a wonderful struggle to prove that theory. Running a business, especially in this economy, has been a challenge, but every time I got down, I'd jump in to one of our communities and see the emotion, the support and the love that you all were offering each other, and I'd be re-energized. Everything we did, from hiring folks to building new features to making money, was done with the view that it must ultimately benefit the folks who come to us for help. HSWI has seen the tremendous value of DS, and wants us to keep doing what we do best. They are offering us the resources to invest heavily in new content and features to improve your experience and bring the power of DailyStrength to others. Now What? How Does This Affect Me? The only effects for you, my friends and fellow DS members, are positive. We can finally throw long-needed resources towards the features and needs of DS. We can expand the reach of communities and content we offer. Most importantly, we can continue to be here in your time of need. In the short term, nothing will be different. Over the coming months, however, you'll start to see both big and small improvements to your DS experience as we offer new and improved services to you, our members. The philosophy will remain the same; we'll just have more folks to help us help you. I can't thank you enough for being a part of DailyStrength and spending your time with us. We look forward to continuing to help improve your life. Doug
Replies
This is very interesting, but I need time to digest all of this. I do hope that we get more information soon.
Pepper
It would be nice to know SPECIFICALLY how this affects us. I sure hope it won\'t keep making it easy to keep dredging up old and sometimes hurtful posts and I hope you will restore the new member feature you used to have at the bottom of each group\'s page so that we can go back to welcoming new members. I also hope the chat feature will be improved; as well as the annoying ads, some of which are actually hurtful and remind us of our problems will be placed less conspicuously. It would also be nice to have the ability to pick and choose which of our friends we want to read our journals.
I wonder why you haven\'t asked us, the users, for our suggestions. I know you can\'t please everyone, but at least give us a chance to tell you what would be helpful to us.
Thank you & keep up the good work.
I hope that you can create a mobile application for the iPhone so I can easily and quickly access DS content on the go!! Good luck and thanks!
Alright but will this actually improve DS?
It sounds good, in theory, but so did the atom bomb, until it went off. I have seen many sites outgrow themselves, in an attempt to improve. Still, I will keep an open mind. The only thing I don\'t look forward to is more spam, more hackers, or more site issues, of which we have had more than enough.
That is Fantastic..what you created here..DS has been a success and I am sure the merge will be a continuois success..I look ed forward to the new and exciting changes..
I\'m with LindaPoet - DailyStrength has an excellent philosophy and I wouldn\'t want it to out-grow itself.
Oh my Doug, I for one recognizes how wonderful and big Daily Strenght is, and can be even bigger, and there you are letting us know it will be.
You have accomplished soo much in soo little time, and I am positive that your cousin Andrew has seen all the people you have helped over the pass three years, and loves you for it, as we do here.
I for one really appreciate all of what this site represents, and I am honored to be part of it for the long run.
As long as I can get up and type I will be right here to help anyone who needs help during their time on earth.
Love & Respect to you and all of our team here at DS, and of course the members who has made it become so big in such little time.
Peace & Love, Mckenzie
a day at the time.
Doug, I am so proud to be apart of DS. Only thing that would make me happier might be to be paid for my hrs on here! LOL!
I KNOW as important as this site is to you. You would never put all our lives and happiness in jeporady.(?spelling?)
So I know you reasearched all possibilities before making such a decision!
Thank you in our behalf for trying to make DS even better. I will keep sending you ideas for new hugs. And thanks for this site.
I do not know what I would have done when my Mom died on T-day this yr. Thank you! All who read this take the Lifeline tests to see if you are a candidate for stroke, heart attack and aneurysms and other silent killers. Only cost 130 dollars. Ck it out!
Thanks Doug! You guys give me strength! DAILY! Play on words! Very nice touch!
Love the staff!
Rhea
I dont want DS to outgrow itself, I for one feel that DS has become so big that you have lost that individual feeling, such as, If I want to contact you, I could and didnt have to wait a week for a personal response. Nor did you at first generate those automated responses, which are crass.
I have been with DS from early on, when you had a very small community, its grown too big for its own boots. but thats what happens when something like this becomes successful. I also agree with seanymph.. Once everything is in place will you be charging us membership fees.?
HMMM. the idea of too much change kind of creeps me out.
When I see the words \'Big Change! Major IMPROVEMENT! We\'re excited about...\' I worry. I think this is a REALLY BAD IDEA! Just as I thought when MyWay announced it was \'merging\' it\'s email program with BlueTie (BIG IMPROVEMENT.....) which was about the WORST change that could have been made.
The problem with changes like this is once it\'s done it can\'t be UNdone. There\'s no way you can UNmerge once you\'ve merged and the whole thing goes sour.
I like DS pretty much the way it is, private, UNmerged, UNimproved etc.
It\'s kind of like cable TV channels, they come in like TVland, MTV, VH1, with a great idea, great content, struggling, THEN all of a sudden they start adding \'improved\' content, making their own shows and the original thing, which was a great idea, isn\'t what it was and had morphed into something completely unrecognisable from it\'s original (when do you see MUSIC VIDEOS on MTV any more?). Some people say \'Change is Good\'. I say \'Not necessarily.\'. I don\'t see ANYTHING good coming from this.
My question...should I bail out now or just wait until you start charging for an \'enhanced\' version of DS and throwing pop-up ads all over the place if we don\'t pony up $20.00 a month?
BIG turn off Doug. Bad idea.
Another thought....there\'s a LOT of people here hanging on by a thread as it is. This is the ONLY lifeline they really have. You start changing things too much and you\'re going to lose those people for good.
Before making changes why not ask the MEMBERSHIP what, if anything, they want changed, rather than dictate change from the top down?
Apparently there\'s almost 7 million reasons why this is happening now. I guess we can expect to be covered in ads shortly. On HSWI\'s website they clearly state their mission to make sites attractive to marketers.
In case anyone was wondering, Mr. Doug Hirsh is now a Senior Vice President at HSWI in charge of DS and the company\'s social media strategy.
Copied below from PAIDCONTENT.COM
\"http://biz.yahoo.com/e/081203/hswi8-k.html
On November 26, 2008, HSW International, Inc., or HSWI, entered into a merger agreement pursuant to which HSWI agreed to acquire all of the capital securities of Daily Strength, Inc. in exchange for cash. The transaction was structured as a reverse triangular merger in which Daily Strength became the wholly owned subsidiary of HSWI. The transaction closed simultaneously on November 26, 2008.
HSWI paid $3.125 million at closing. HSWI is contingently obligated to pay an earnout of up to an additional $3.525 million. The earnout is payable by HSWI if in any two months before November 26, 2010, the total page views of
? DailyStrength.org,
? any HSWI website or section thereof that Douglas J. Hirsch or Daily Strength is managing, and
? the social media webpages or section of an HSWI health-focused website
exceed a designated number of page views. The earnout will be paid in five equal installments, provided that the level of page views is achieved for each installment. The level of page views increases for each installment.
Daily Strength agreed in the merger agreement to indemnify HSWI for breach of any representation, warranty or covenant contained in the merger agreement and other losses and expenses arising out of the merger agreement, if any. An amount equal to 45% of the earnout is available to cover indemnity claims. In addition, $150,000 of the purchase price will be held in escrow for two years after the closing to pay indemnity and other claims.
There is no material relationship between HSWI or Daily Strength or any of their affiliates, other than the merger agreement.
A copy of the merger agreement is filed as an exhibit to this report. \"
Thank you Doug. I appreciate the fact that you are always endeavoring to enhance this site. I LOVE this site. It has carried me through many difficult times. A bear hug for you, sue