This isn’t going to be easy.

After 5 years of constant service to the Acer community, The Acer Guy has reached the end of the line.

This has been one of the hardest professional decisions of my life and one I have taken with consideration and a heavy heart but it’s the right one.

The simple fact is, despite having a community to die for, somewhere near 10 thousand pages indexed, 6,000 inlinks, 360 articles, 6,400 replies (an average of 18 for every article), 25 thousand registered forum members with 6,800 posts and close to 1 million unique visits per year, it hasn’t garnered enough support in certain key areas to be considered anything other than a private hobby.

In addition to the site itself, The Acer Guy also has an active presence on all major video, image, micro-blogging and social sharing sites with over 4,500 friends and more than 530 subscribers on The Acer Guy’s YouTube channel alone.

YouTube in particular was my favourite weapon for community building and dialogue, with “normal” videos clocking up an average of 100,000 views each, and some ranked #1 on Google for specific keywords (“How to recover an Acer Aspire One”).

And let’s not forget the most visited page of the site: the Contact Form. I receive something like 50-60 mails every day of the year from people with issues and, as Morris and Simone will testify, try my best to answer every single one.

These numbers aren’t bragging material – they’re proof that an active social media presence is a worthy project that brings together Marketing, PR, Customer Support, Human Resources and Acer customers under one roof.

Yet building a formidable reputation for authority and transparency requires some serious maintenance and I can no longer do this on my own. Trust me: it’s not a question of bottling out; it’s a question of principle.

Acer desperately needs an instrument like this but as long as The Acer Guy is up, there’s no real reason to develop something similar, so sacrificing it will, in some ways, help give their official social media communications agenda a much needed kick start.

So, in no particular order, except for the first two, I’d like to thank everyone who made a difference to The Acer Guy.

To Morris Lee and Simone, without you The Acer Guy would never have gained the first class reputation for service and advice it clearly deserves. Credit for that is yours alone and I am forever in your debt. I wish Simone in particular the very best of luck with his own new adventure – you have no idea how incredible being a father can be!

To Michelle Gonzales, Peter Senften, Jing Yeow, Eelke, Ferry Meidianto, Rich Black, Hugues Gontier, Emanuele Tosetti, Karsten Wenk, Federica Spotti, Vincenzo Grimaldi, Cristina Gualteri, Cristina Saita, John Cowan, Roberto Mainardi, and countless others, none of this would have been anywhere near as special had you guys not shown up and offered your undivided support. I believe I still owe Roberto a beer or two.

To Emily Penn and Pete Bethune, many thanks for simply doing what you do. You brought a social responsibility wake up call to the Acer community and I’m proud to have been able to put you guys in touch with the right people in Acer. I’ll do my best to make sure the bond lasts.

To Valentina from Risvegli. I am deeply sorry I never managed to get the causes section up and never fulfilled my dream of sending PCs to the orphans in Kimbondo. Please send my love to little Depardieu, and tell him he’s not forgotten – I just need to find another project to start on.

And of course my biggest thanks goes out to Gianpiero Morbello, without whose blessing this project would never have started in the first place.

One of my father’s most profound (and bizarre) pieces of advice was an Irish proverb: “If you die with a debt, you’ve made a profit”. Thanks to The Acer Guy, I have a debt of gratitude with all of you that makes me one of the richest people on earth.

Thanks Guys. Rock on.