Chip in, anyone?^^

Dear users,
as you may have noticed, we recently had to move to yet a bigger server (/forum/26-announcements-a-events/67735-hey-aicom-moved-to-a-new-server#68984) since the site was just growing too big and the server was lagging all the time.

The site runs nice and smoothly since then (Thanks @ Tenshi & Kari), but unfortunately, the new server is 3 times as expensive as the interim one and 5 times as expensive as the place we used to be.
While we are able to pay this from the income that we get from our google ads, it cuts a considerable hole into our advertising budget (that we use to get new members, especially girls, to the site), so that we are less able to get you new and interesting members than we used to be. This problem will probably be solved in a few months (new members => more ads revenue => more budget), but in the interim, we could use some donations in case someone has a cent or two to spare^^.
You can find our paypal button to the right in the middle of each site.

If you are poor but would still like to help out, you can do so by:

- Printing out a couple of flyers and placing them somewhere where our target group might be (eg a bubble tea restaurant, a convention, and Asia shop, the Asian studies center at your university etc)
/images/hochgeladenedaten/hey-ai-flyers-8.png

- Sharing an interesting Hey-Ai forum post at facebook

- Inviting some of your friends^^

Thanks heaps

(Btw rumor has it the admins are corrupt and may award special forum statusses to generous donators XD)

YourSurrogateTroll:
There is no such thing as "letting a community grow organically", really.
Either you advertise through payed ads, or you advertise virally (through youtube etc), or you use search engine optimization, or you run a "partner facebook group"
Even if you said you try to grow the site solely by word of mouth, you need some members to start out with, right? XD
But yeah, them AMWF communities basically have two choices, 1) rely on viral advertising (=> site usually turns into a saussage fest) or advertise (=> fangirl influx, as in our case).
What would be your arguments for "growing it organically" though?
And btw: You can't buy a mod status, and dinners with me are free XD
Special forums statusses for donators would be newly created, not existing special statusses. I guess the price would depend on whether you want one that only you get or one that you'd share with other donators^^

DesignJunkie:
That sounds awesome, though we kinda need more girls in Canada rather than more guys. Does that uni have an Asian studies department with asiaphile girls? ^^

Tuxybento:
Aaaw thanks^^
Well, if you are thinking about donating via paypal, we'd be happier about $10 occasionally rather than $2 frequently, because paypay wants a service fee and it eats disproportionally large chunks out of sums under $10. If you're considering to donate directly to the bank accounts of one of our admins (e.g. in Canada), we don't really care I suppose =)
Apart from that, anything you feel like donating, it all helps us =)

Woohoo, thanks =D What you buy cupcakes via paypal?

That'd be awesome =D