The plan - Please read

whack a bunny though, is legal and fun!

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oh yes, i'm in for whatever is needed.

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I thought you were languishing in bed, close to death. I want to hear something from "La Boheme", with plenty of spluttery lung fragments hitting the ground!

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Bad luck - I can't even speak! I can type though, when I am not sleeping.

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Craven --

Glad to hear PayPal is such a good option!

Re: "taking out more credit and assuming more responsibility"...that sounds like you're noncommittal about how long you want to do this site. Or am I wrong about that? (I hope.)

Still think you ought to look into a contest or another type of one-time promotion. They can be fairly easy to do, and it's not that hard to find a company that will sponsor a contest.

Paid subscriptions are sure to cut down on the number of new members, and I know that's not what you want. Relying on donations will put you in the role of always begging for money, and I don't think you'd like that. People will always wonder if your comments are sincere or if they're designed to gather more support. Eventually you would find yourself self-editing to make sure you didn't lose members with your comments. I think you would hate that.

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craven,
I would be happy to contribute to help defray the costs.I could go about $25 a month.But,I do not have,nor do I want,credit cards.So,I would also have to pay by check or money order.

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a money is a very good option

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craven, I appreciate your efforts and thoughts about all the alternatives presented and also the ones you have been researching on your own.

When someone begins a business or organziation like this one, there are many ways to "pay the bills" or at the very least cover the cost of the "hobby". One of the things you hoped would come from developing this site was the use to your experience and to your resume and future employment. Sound to me like you are doing well with this already!

I have my business going now, combining private instruction, group presentations, representing other learning mentors, and sponsoring seeral websites and bulletin boards / forums. I am at the point that the sole revenue I expend is $6.95 per month and my time. The subscription-only email newsletter is set to launch in two weeks, and that is the only way I will "make money" from all these efforts. The real future I envision is the teaching and consulting I am and will be doing - where I pay my bills and get a good return on the efforts.

As you, I do not want to make money on a posting forum or web site, per se, as a subscription or donation-based plan. As you, I am adverse to advertising which is intrusive. Sponsors are a option to consider - and it appears that many of the members posting here in this thread are quite willing to sponsor the site, just to maintain it's existence! I too would be happy to donate through PayPal. I have no problem sending a check to you or a fund, either. And, I also like the Visitor suggestion of having a promotion on occasion to raise funds. I believe you could easily dray sponsors for a promotion that gives prizes for randomly-drawn donors during a special promotion.

Maybe you could get a travel agency to donate a cruise or trip? You'd be surprised how often these are available. You could interest a magazine who could award subscriptions, maybe a hardware or software provider? How about a digital camera or online photo services? Maybe publications from Microsoft, Adobe or O'Reilly? Lots of things would be of broad interest to this forum membership.

Let me know, and I will be happy to send some bucks. Can't do a lump sum at this time, but you said even $5.00 helps.

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Visitor wrote:

Craven --

Glad to hear PayPal is such a good option!

Re: "taking out more credit and assuming more responsibility"...that sounds like you're noncommittal about how long you want to do this site. Or am I wrong about that? (I hope.)

Still think you ought to look into a contest or another type of one-time promotion. They can be fairly easy to do, and it's not that hard to find a company that will sponsor a contest.

Paid subscriptions are sure to cut down on the number of new members, and I know that's not what you want. Relying on donations will put you in the role of always begging for money, and I don't think you'd like that. People will always wonder if your comments are sincere or if they're designed to gather more support. Eventually you would find yourself self-editing to make sure you didn't lose members with your comments. I think you would hate that.

Visitor,

I can assure you that much of your concern is displaced. First of all I want to make a lasting site. I just don't want long term financial obligation. Most sites would just say it's a non-refundable "as is" service thing and if they went belly up so be it.

I like many of the people here and it's more than just declaring bankruptcy. It's letting down some people I don't want to let down.

As to your concern about my sincerity editing etc, I'm afraid that helping defray the cost of hosting the site is not enough to otivate me to be patient (a in editing my posts) or to be more amiable.

Some of the current subscribers are among the people I most vigourously debate with.

As to begging for money I will not do that. A hobby that makes one resort to begging should at least involve riotous living.

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Craven,

I have a few suggestions I'd like to offer and experiment with before going the subscription route (or in conjunction with the subscription route).

1. I had no clue that there was anything more to this website then these forums. What else is here and how can we better highlight the presence of things other then the forum?

2. I had no clue that this site was in affiliation with some of the shopping sites. What are our affiliations and how can we better exploit that affiliation to benefit our site?

Have you considered creating and running some in-house banner ads of your own to advertise various areas of interest for this website? Also create some banner ads that promote the affiliation programs. I am constantly buying things from Amazon.com but I go directly to their website to do so. Had I known you had an affiliation program with them, I'd be navigating to Amazon through A2K.

Maybe run some monthly contests (like the concentration game) that require $3 to enter with half of all the monthly contest fees going to the winner and half going to the website kitty.

If you're interested in exploring these options, I'd love to help out with them. I can work on some banner ads and come up with a few contest ideas.

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LOL, I wrote my post before reading the others. Looks like a lot of us are on the same wave length.

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cobalt wrote:

One of the things you hoped would come from developing this site was the use to your experience and to your resume and future employment. Sound to me like you are doing well with this already!

Hmm, I wrote one resume in my life as a 14 year old. I was trying to get my first job so I just made it funny. I haven't used this site on a resume but who knows.

cobalt wrote:

I have my business going now, combining private instruction, group presentations, representing other learning mentors, and sponsoring seeral websites and bulletin boards / forums. I am at the point that the sole revenue I expend is $6.95 per month and my time. The subscription-only email newsletter is set to launch in two weeks, and that is the only way I will "make money" from all these efforts. The real future I envision is the teaching and consulting I am and will be doing - where I pay my bills and get a good return on the efforts.

A brick and mortar base with online enhancement. I'd say you got your priorities straight. :-)

I wish I could use shared hosting but as it is the site is outgrowing dedicated boxes.

cobalt wrote:

As you, I do not want to make money on a posting forum or web site, per se, as a subscription or donation-based plan. As you, I am adverse to advertising which is intrusive. Sponsors are a option to consider - and it appears that many of the members posting here in this thread are quite willing to sponsor the site, just to maintain it's existence! I too would be happy to donate through PayPal. I have no problem sending a check to you or a fund, either. And, I also like the Visitor suggestion of having a promotion on occasion to raise funds. I believe you could easily dray sponsors for a promotion that gives prizes for randomly-drawn donors during a special promotion.

Sponsors are indeed something to look into. It would cost a negligible amount (to the sponsor) to support the site.

I am not sure what kind of events/promotions you bith are talking about but I'm not sure hat one time events are stable enough. I'm open to ideas though.

cobalt wrote:

Maybe you could get a travel agency to donate a cruise or trip? You'd be surprised how often these are available. You could interest a magazine who could award subscriptions, maybe a hardware or software provider? How about a digital camera or online photo services? Maybe publications from Microsoft, Adobe or O'Reilly? Lots of things would be of broad interest to this forum membership.

Those are definitely options. But the whole idea of the plan was to offer select services to the people most interested in our success. Hunting for promotional aid is the other option.

My ideal was to hav a core set of services availabe to a restricted amount of ppeople.

Just enough to make the site self sustaining. Keep it small but ensure it's longevity.

cobalt wrote:

Let me know, and I will be happy to send some bucks. Can't do a lump sum at this time, but you said even $5.00 helps.

We are still in research phase. I probably won't decide on anything anytime soon.

Right now I'm considering core services.

Small managed hosting, data backup and photo album hosting seem to be a way that I can do it.

A deal on shared hosting is about the 6-8 bucks you mention and for the right kind of site I can offer a better deal and still keep it small and managable.

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You know, another idea....there are an awful lot of writers, cooks and artists who post here. What about creating an A2K cookbook illustrated by our artists and narrated by our writers with poems and short stories? I bet that would sell well to our own group as well as quite a few "outsiders." It would be a great win-win situation for everyone. Folks get published and pride in helping to support the site.

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Butrflynet wrote:

You know, another idea....there are an awful lot of writers, cooks and artists who post here. What about creating an A2K cookbook illustrated by our artists and narrated by our writers with poems and short stories? I bet that would sell well to our own group as well as quite a few "outsiders." It would be a great win-win situation for everyone. Folks get published and pride in helping to support the site.

Hey Butterfly - I am an Irish Bostonian--I am closet gourmet chef and this would be a GREAT opportunity to make a traditional Irish breakfast.... black & white pudding, bangers & rashers, etc.... There is more to Irish than just the pint!

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Butrflynet wrote:

I have a few suggestions I'd like to offer and experiment with before going the subscription route (or in conjunction with the subscription route).

I'm always ready to hear 'em.

Butrflynet wrote:

1. I had no clue that there was anything more to this website then these forums. What else is here and how can we better highlight the presence of things other then the forum?

Much of the non forum stuff is in the developmental stage. The forum is easily the main part that is online. I have plans for a refdesk type portal and many other things.

Butrflynet wrote:

2. I had no clue that this site was in affiliation with some of the shopping sites. What are our affiliations and how can we better exploit that affiliation to benefit our site?

Actually I have done very poorly with the affiliate links. I only put them in banners and mixed them with the regulat CPM and CPC ads. I didnt want to incentivise the clicks.

The affiliate links should better be utilized on static pages where they match the content.

For e.g. if we started a database of book reviews (just one example) an Amazon link to the book review would draw much more revenue than a rotating banner.

Some have already said "hey i saw an affiliate banner, i buy all the time but don't have a place to click".

I need to work on this. If peopl who have web design skills are interested this can be stared soon.

But the thing is, we have impressive traffic stats but less impressive reach.

This means a core group who consume a lot on bandwidth but not enough unique visitors to have top tier ad potential. We get a good amount of uniques but the problem is that we get a stupendous amount of traffic and it's disproportionate.

It would build slowly. Thus my lack of urgecy in the affiliate development.

Butrflynet wrote:

Have you considered creating and running some in-house banner ads of your own to advertise various areas of interest for this website?

I have alsready done so. I got 4 subscribers to the ad-free forums but felt that I needed to iron out some technical details before I continued. So ï pulled the ads

The problem was that there was a glitch in the system i setp and though I fixed it I felt bad about having a glitch in a paid service.

I decided to wait to improve my code.

Butrflynet wrote:

Also create some banner ads that promote the affiliation programs.

Banner ads for affiliates have displayed over 2 million times on this forum. No sales were generated and no affiliate fees are forthcoming.

I need to make a static text based area for them.

Butrflynet wrote:

I am constantly buying things from Amazon.com but I go directly to their website to do so. Had I known you had an affiliation program with them, I'd be navigating to Amazon through A2K.

When I redesign the site i'll add an Amazon box to the home page.

Butrflynet wrote:

Maybe run some monthly contests (like the concentration game) that require $3 to enter with half of all the monthly contest fees going to the winner and half going to the website kitty.

That would involve a little more fiscal responsibility than i'm willing to take on.

Butrflynet wrote:

If you're interested in exploring these options, I'd love to help out with them. I can work on some banner ads and come up with a few contest ideas.

There are a lot of ways to help. Once I get more info and start to strategize I will have more ways that members can help us.

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If a cookbook is too big of a project to undertake at this time, how about an A2K calendar? Give the first 12 people to pay a $50 fee a page on the monthly calendar to do whatever they wish with it (within boundaries you set). They could put their own picture on the page along with their resume or biography, maybe advertise their own business on the page. They could have one of their favorite original short stories or poems, photos or paintings displayed on the page.

At the end of each year, the calendar goes up for sale to the rest of the folks for say, $5. To save on production costs, you could make it a file to download and print locally or display as wallpaper on their PC.

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Butrflynet wrote:

You know, another idea....there are an awful lot of writers, cooks and artists who post here. What about creating an A2K cookbook illustrated by our artists and narrated by our writers with poems and short stories? I bet that would sell well to our own group as well as quite a few "outsiders." It would be a great win-win situation for everyone. Folks get published and pride in helping to support the site.

i already have a book and CD publisher as an affiliate. I had considered this.

I will indeed explore these options. But at the volume we would be dealing with production is expensive.

And we'd have to sell many an item at a few bucks profit for every single month of hosting.

Let me explain a bit more:

Affiliates, marketing etc are all good leads, but each is not enough alone to support the site.

With plenty of work the combined effect of all of them working in perfect unison will work.

One key element of that would be the banner ads.

Banners would be the bread and butter while affiliates would be there to capitalize on growth.

This is a mehod that WILL work.

My plan was to cut out the most stable part of the mix (the banners on the forums) and try to replace that with services. That would enable a greater degree of quality in terms of site connectivity and speed and i could still explore other options in otehr areas of the site (this is why in my first post I repeated several times that the plan is only to substitute the ads running in the /forums/ directory.

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The calendar etc are good ideas. Those would be the complimentary efforts to supplement what would be our "bread and butter".

Right now I'm trying to figure out how ad based and how service based the plan will be.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

The calendar etc are good ideas. Those would be the complimentary efforts to supplement what would be our "bread and butter".

Right now I'm trying to figure out how ad based and how service based the plan will be.

How about just publishing the American Melting Pot Cook Book

It would consist of .... duh.... every traditional recipe under the sun! That is what America is... a melting pot!

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GreenEyes wrote:

Hey Butterfly - I am an Irish Bostonian--I am closet gourmet chef and this would be a GREAT opportunity to make a traditional Irish breakfast.... black & white pudding, bangers & rashers, etc.... There is more to Irish than just the pint!

Heya GreenEyes. My dad's side of the family are all Irish Bostonians too. They've been in West Hanover for close to 150 years now. My 85 year old father just recently moved back there from Georgia to be near his brothers and sister. Lots of old Irish recipes in that family that I'd love to share. Smile

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