Who owns Coolrunning.com? Why did they sell out to Active.com? Were they TRYING to ruin a good thing, or would they be horrified by what has happened?

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kudzurunner

523 posts since
Dec 6, 2007

Dec 18, 2007 4:19 AM

Who owns Coolrunning.com? Why did they sell out to Active.com? Were they TRYING to ruin a good thing, or would they be horrified by what has happened?

The title line says it all. Please weigh in. Rampant speculations OK.

kfuller

444 posts since
Dec 14, 2007

1. Dec 18, 2007 6:38 AM

in response to: kudzurunner

It is like google buying youtube. If you offer them enough money. Would you sell coolrunning if you owned it and someone offered you an insane amount of money? Just my speculation. There are a couple good features, but the masses do not enjoy the new site at all.

pbs262

5 posts since
Dec 14, 2007

2. Dec 18, 2007 6:47 AM

in response to: kudzurunner

They did more than ruin it...this is a complete mess. Runners World has a better log, and it was pretty tough to get used to. won't be using this site much.

Active Sara

1,127 posts since
Oct 2, 2007

3. Dec 18, 2007 12:07 PM

in response to: pbs262

Hi Everyone,
I understand your frustration and am trying to respond and send feedback along to our people here so we can work on things for you. I saw a couple posts that were asking why the merge happened and I wanted to explain things a bit. We realize Cool Running is an amazing community and many of us actually spent time over there ourselves. We are athletes too. The merge happened because Cool Running didn't have the capacity on its server to keep the site up and running. Therefore, we merged and we realized it wouldn't be ideal, but we at least wanted you to have a home. Now we are realizing you don't like your new home, so we are working hard to sort through your feedback and start figuring out how to make changes while also answering questions and maintaining a site. Kickrunners.com recently experienced what Cool Running was on the verge of experiencing, which is a complete shut down on the server due to overpopulation. Cool Running didn't want this to happen and either did we so here we are. I apologize if things aren't great, but we are working hard to work together with the Cool Running community to improve. We appreciate your feedback and if you have any problems please let us know or email/call customer support.
Sara

bhearn

430 posts since
Dec 14, 2007

4. Dec 18, 2007 11:11 AM

in response to: Active Sara

Are we going to eventually get all the old threads migrated? Or are they lost?

The FAQ says "Rest assured, all past threads and replies have been migrated to the new forums". But evidently this has not happened yet. Is there a timeframe?

Thanks,
Bob

runninlaw

989 posts since
Mar 13, 2006

5. Dec 18, 2007 11:17 AM

in response to: kudzurunner

Yep. This place really sucks. Yeah, the lost threads are an issue, but hopefully active will also address how insanely slow the server is and how difficult it is to navigate through this mess.

mrinertia

1,356 posts since
Dec 14, 2007

6. Dec 18, 2007 11:44 AM

in response to: Active Sara

Thank you for your cut and paste response that you've posted in several other places word for word. I'm glad you're taking care of things; I feel just as reassured as I would if I were on hold with teh IRS listening to a recorded message.

mcsolar99

1,018 posts since
Aug 14, 2007

7. Dec 18, 2007 12:03 PM

in response to: mrinertia

active girl: let's see. first kick was hacked. now they are upgrading their server. hmmm, actually that's nothing like what's happened here. interesting non-point.

but don't worry guys, i saw a thread that said the old posts were being uploaded as we spoke. oh wait, that was yesterday. i bet the floppy disk drive is stuck, you know how tricky those things can be...

was coolrunning sponsored by hummer before the transfer? that hummer ad just makes me throw-up a little bit in my mouth every time i go to the main page now....

...oh wait, was the original question about selling-out?

labhiker

29 posts since
Dec 14, 2007

8. Dec 18, 2007 5:39 PM

in response to: kudzurunner

Its very frustrating to see a good thing come to an end.

Coolrunning.com had a nice thing going until the transfer to Active.com.

CR was a great help to many runners, now its a complete mess.

The staff at Active should be ashamed for completely screwing it up and causing the CR community to break up.

_angrek_

2 posts since
Dec 17, 2007

9. Dec 18, 2007 7:15 PM

in response to: Active Sara

"Cool Running didn't want this to happen and either did we so here we are."

Interesting. I didn't realize that Coolrunning had a huge influx of people that overwhelmed their servers.

Your answer sucks. Servers can't handle it? Cluster the servers in sets and add a few. Explain this to the users and they'll be fine. Want to lose a customer base? Completely screw up what they came for. If they wanted the Active forums, they would have come to the Active forums. They didn't, they came to the Coolrunning forums. So what did you do? You decided that what YOU wanted, was what WE wanted. Great business model. What you're giving us isn't why we came to coolrunning. Thanks. Oh, and thank you for removing the threads that I came to every couple days for motivation through my thigh injury. It's doing wonders.

Yeah, I'm bitter. This sucks. Can't even use my own username. Great job. And can I have a few more options in the editor? Mine loads too fast...

RacingThoughts

109 posts since
Aug 23, 2006

10. Dec 19, 2007 12:52 PM

in response to: pbs262

Runner's World's log was actually licensed from RunningAHEAD.com. The RW log won't be getting any of the new features that the RunningAHEAD.com version will.

Also, RunningAHEAD.com now has an automated Cool Running log importer.
No more waiting. Just sign up, click the "Training Log" tab, click
Tools on the left, then the "Import Log" link.

Schnakees

58 posts since
Dec 14, 2007

11. Dec 19, 2007 12:49 PM

in response to: RacingThoughts

Yes, my training logs have transferred but half of my runs are missing. At first I thought I was going crazy, and then I thought "Maybe I don't run as many times each month I thought". I decided to look up important races for which I remebered the date. Chicago Marathon - Gone! Boston Marathon - Gone!, Philly Marathon - Um gone!. Plus I still can't see my mileage for the year. God this sucks.

VictorN

406 posts since
Dec 14, 2007

12. Dec 19, 2007 5:57 PM

in response to: Schnakees

Schnakees wrote:

Yes, my training logs have transferred but half of my runs are missing.

Schnakees, are you talking about the import to Active, or are you talking about the import to RunningAhead that some others are talking about?

Victor

kudzurunner

523 posts since
Dec 6, 2007

13. Dec 19, 2007 8:20 PM

in response to: VictorN

All:

After reading the co-founder's letter, I'm pacified for the time being. I've posted to that effect in another thread.

I wish I could say that every transition I've made in my own life has been handled skillfully, smoothly, perfectly, but I can't. I wish I could say that every race I've ever trained hard for and planned to the last detail has been executed precisely according to plan, but I can't. So I can hardly expect that my fellow runners--including those who founded this site--will be flawless.

Let's chill for a little while, post about what interests and moves us, and give these guys a chance to clean things up. I've cast one of the first stones, but I hereby pick it up and toss it on the trash heap.

A New Year starts in a week or two.

milkbaby9

45 posts since
Jun 26, 2006

14. Dec 20, 2007 3:11 PM

in response to: kudzurunner

I agree with the sentiment that the transition has really hurt the original coolrunning community especially with the negative response to the change in running log as well as some problems with the discussion forums. It kinda reminds me of when some big company buys a ittle company but then takes away a lot of what made the small company competitive during the integration.

I'm guessing that active wanted to retain their usual infrastructure, so that's why the old coolrunning log went out the window. The same thing with the discussion forums -- they already had something set up and figured they would just import the users. However, it doesn't always work that way. I think the folks at active should've looked at what made coolrunning attractive and implemented those things in their active network before burying the old coolrunning.

Anyhow, no use crying over spilt milk. Just hope that the experienced and helpful runners and racers out there come back to give us good advice and some good discussion...

This Question is Answered

Dec 18, 2007 4:19 AM

Who owns Coolrunning.com? Why did they sell out to Active.com? Were they TRYING to ruin a good thing, or would they be horrified by what has happened?

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