Subscriptions

[oleras]

Have ye set up a way to subscribe yet, after the investment of daft and the advertising over on the other place i think ye may have a better use for my 13 euro a quarter.

[6starpool]

Will probably be looking into this as a way of covering costs if people want to donate, but nothing in plan atm.

[AdMMM]

I definitely think there should be some way of having this site make money. The lads put a lot of time and effort into moderating a site and will now have to dedicate even more time to running the site itself.

I, for one, would have no problem with having (not being bombarded by any means) ads on the site. Whether or not the lads want to have this as a money making endeavour is up to them. Again, I wouldn't have any issues with them raising money and I think the fact that this is a totally independent operation means that any income raised will have a much better chance of directly contributing back to the community itself rather than help pay for the wages of some "Community Manager" who we have no interaction with!

[6starpool]

Ugh. That's a discussion for later though. It was not set up to make money, although if there is a way to become rich, that is a different matter.

[KevIRL]

Ugh. That's a discussion for later though. It was not set up to make money, although if there is a way to become rich, that is a different matter.

Pay more attention to the Theory forums obv.

Seriously though its not about making money, its about the community and not the money. Even any talk about subscriptions/donations to cover cost I'd like to leave to much much later. That said the gesture and support is very much appreciated

[AdMMM]

Here's a copy of an email I got from Boards when I was doing my own research into PokerTalk.ie. It's old, but it gives an idea of the money they were making from us.

A Breakdown of Statistics for the Poker Section for January 2009

In January 2009, the Poker section of the site received a total of 617,923 Page Impressions. This section of the website features threads relating to all aspect of the game, in addition to events and general discussion on the pursuit of Poker.

Due to the nature of xxxxxx's, this section of the website would prove an ideal platform for display advertising campaigns by the company.
____________________________


Campaign Example
1 month Campaign within Poker Section of the site

*400,000 impressions to be run within the Poker section of the site at a fixed cost of €800
200,000 Standard Banners (468 x 60, Top of Page, normally €7 CPM)

200,000 MPU adverts (300 x 250, Bottom of Page, normally 10 CPM)

Media Value = €3,400

[LuckyLloyd]

Yeah, for the moment we're going to leave these matters on the back burner. I would like to echo the lads in saying that I do appreciate the kind words and gestures above. But if we're honest, we have to accept the idea that this site is likely to not take off. As such, given that we are well able to front the initial expenses between the four of us without too much difficulty, I am satisfied to leave money out of the equation for the first few months at the very least.

If a year down the road we have a vibrant community, we may be able to justify a small whip around to cover annually recurring license / server / software costs.

[Ste05]

Yeah, for the moment we're going to leave these matters on the back burner. I would like to echo the lads in saying that I do appreciate the kind words and gestures above. But if we're honest, we have to accept the idea that this site is likely to not take off. As such, given that we are well able to front the initial expenses between the four of us without too much difficulty, I am satisfied to leave money out of the equation for the first few months at the very least.

I suppose I should actually say something in this thread too... I'd agree with the lads as well, TBH, we didn't really even bring up money (apart from how to pay and how much it would be) when we were doing this, so it genuinely wasn't a part of our decision making process, I had absolutely no idea how much advertising cost on boards because that wasn't our area at all, if people wanted to know about it, we just told them to contact higher-ups. It wasn't in anyway an issue to us, as it allowed us to be beholden to no-one and we were able to do what we wanted without worrying about upsetting advertisers.

That line of thinking is one of the (IMO) main reasons the Poker forum was so successful, we were able to make decisions without fear and it's important we remain like that, and it'll be one of the main things behind this site (which reminds me, I've to write up some blurb about what this place is all about).

Anyway, that's enough from me for now, but money isn't the reason behind this, if this place does end up turning a profit, it will be a by product and is certainly not in anyway shape or form why we did this, nor is it what drives us to continue on. We volunteered for years and years on boards and we're basically just doing the same thing now, under a different URL and without people looking over our shoulders.

Right I'm really finished now.

[Mellor]

I think making it commercial would be a bad idea.
But I imagine the traffic will be quite high, and even a simple google banner ad (top corner of boards) would generate enough to cover hosting. Without being noticable.

If you really wanted it to be about community, all the ad profits go into a end of month/quarter game