Closing the Traverse on 2023

Whether you’ve been with us since the BeerLeg or SurveyorConnect days, or just joined us under the new RPLS.com — we’d like to thank you for being a part of our community! We truly appreciate your support since our humble beginnings in 2010.

If you just read the previous paragraph and found yourself surprised that SurveyorConnect is now RPLS.com, we have an article for you to read. We made the transition in the 4th quarter of 2023 after we obtained ownership of the RPLS.com domain name.

We’ve also been busy moving the previous SurveyorConnect community to new website and hosting platforms to secure its future in the surveying industry. Many new features have already been implemented with plans to make further improvements in 2024. Additionally, many members suggested we implement a membership system so they could better support us and keep RPLS.com rolling for years to come. Please visit our Upgrade page for all the details!

Here are some of the things we’ve accomplished in 2023:

• Rebranded to RPLS.com
  Our biggest news of 2023 was when we discovered the opportunity to acquire the RPLS.com domain name and rebranded accordingly. Read more here.
• A new website platform
  With all of the website changes and rebranding we’ve endured over the years (by the way, thank you for sticking with us), we certainly didn’t want to put you all through that again. However, our forums have grown so much over the years that we keep overflowing the capabilities of our chosen software. With each iteration, we found ourselves surprised that we had grown as much as we did. Yet here we are. With 2023’s chosen platform, we’ve put a lot more effort in finding and building something that should be able to contain us for many years to come. Fingers crossed!
• New highs
  To close out the year, our traffic numbers continue to break records. In December, we broke the 100,000 monthly unique visitors mark and we’ve already pushed that to over 108,000 in less than a month. Now consider that we’ve broken these records despite the holiday season — which means 2024 is looking brighter than ever.
• Membership plans
  Prior to the switch from SurveyorConnect to RPLS.com, we had a serious conversation with many of you in the forums about how to keep this website afloat and successful in the long term. By a landslide, you recommended we implement paid membership plans — keep the free plan but offer upgrades to paid plans. We did that, and you’ve responded positively.
• Jobs manager
  One pain point we’ve been dealing with for many years is having job listings appear in the forums. The primary problem is that forums aren’t built for job listings — they are built for discussions. With the new platform, we’ve been able to implement a jobs manager that allows you to browse jobs, add jobs, or even add your resume for potential employers to find you.
• Events Calendar
  Yet another pain point that we resolved is the events calendar. As with job listings, events were posted in the forums and got lost in discussions. We now have a dedicated events calendar where you can submit your own events. We try to add events as we learn of them, but your submissions are greatly appreciated and helpful for everyone.
• Newsletter
  We haven’t had a decent email newsletter since we retired The Cut Sheet in 2022. We are reserving our new newsletter for specific industry events, popular forum discussions, feature announcements and other news — but we aren’t going to flood your inbox. We don’t have a specific schedule in mind, but right now we’re shooting for about every two weeks(-ish). It will mostly depend on whether we have newsworthy events to announce or important industry information that would be interesting to many surveyors. Subscribe today!

Roadmap for 2024

While we can’t say we have a full roadmap for the entire year ahead, we do have some features we’re working on. Here’s a quick list:

• Business Directory
  This will be a feature that is implemented mostly for our members that earn a living as surveyors (that’s most of you). Our intent is to provide a comprehensive directory of surveyors for hire, so that landowners, developers, etc. can find and contact you. There will be a free tier as well as upgraded features available for those on one of our paid membership plans.
• Classifieds
  You may have noticed that our classifieds are still located in the forums. We’ll soon be implementing a dedicated classifieds area so you can create your own listings for sale.
• Video Chats
  We plan to schedule monthly video chats via the BeerLegger Club social group, which is available to members with a Supporter membership. We may have occasional video chats that are open to everyone at some point, just not sure when we’ll get this setup.
• RPLS.com Merchandise
  We’re working on adding RPLS.com branded merchandise to our online store. It will also be available when we visit conferences or other events.
• Other Stuff
  We have several new features and services planned, but not sure on timing of all of them. But stay tuned — we’ll keep you up to date when we get close to launching them (or at least when we have a ballpark idea).

Thanks again for your support, loyalty and feedback. We couldn’t do it without you — and please share this article with your surveyor friends!