Let me first state that I do know Doug personally and have worked with him in regard to PROskydiving. PROskydiving is not a new site. It's been around for almost 18 months now. Does PRO have SEO, yes... of course it does. But if the goal was to take over search results and hijack a dropzone's customers, that would be reflected in the search results by now. But you'd be hard pressed to find PRO show up in most regional searches. And if it does, local DZs (and SR) are on top. I don't think the existence of the PROskydiving website is wrong or constitutes thievery. It is there to facilitate future plans which Doug has already spoken to. In addition PRO offers dropzones a simple solution to schedule classes and manage student reservations which can easily be rolled out to the dropzone's own website. All at a very reasonable rate, especially when you take credit card fees and other overhead into account. Is PROskydiving perfect? No. It is a young business. The website, while in existence for a year and a half has recently undergone a rewrite and redesign (i.e. it isn't perfect). Nothing was done in a vacuum or under the cover of darkness. Doug has spoken to and gotten feedback from many people in the industry – including DZOs. Things have evolved in the last 18 months and things will continue to change and evolve in order to build a system that is good for dropzones and for customers – based on input from those involved. There is a lot of cynicism and distrust here. I don't expect to sway anyone's opinion, but in time I hope that some may realize we're trying to build something that is good and useful for all involved as well as help elevate awareness and generate more business for the sport as a whole.
