CocoonTech.com & advertising

[SnyperBob]

First off, let me say that I understand everyone's point of view. Also, I don't want to sound like a dick.

But, I'm not a fan of advertising. I mean, what does a site cost to host these days? $100-$200 a year? I run a major information website and the costs are not that bad. I think having a clean site is way better than having one that's whored out. I know you'd make it tasteful, but I'm just saying.

Having said that, I know I'll probably get flamed because I'm relatively new here. But this site's content and comraderie is what has me hooked. It's a different kind of site. It's an old-school kind of site, where the site runs off of ideas and conversation, rather than advertisements and making a quick buck.

What about some sort of compromise. Something like ad-whore the site to hell if someone is not logged into the forums. That way, if someone is just browsing the site, they see tons of ads and stuff. Once logged in, they go away. I've seen this used on one of my favorite forums and it worked well.

Some ideas that didn't work well for them.....they once set the forums so there were hot-linked words. ie... any time anyone typed "Home Theater" it would create a link to some advertiser's site. People were so pissed that they took it down within days. It really degraded the site and made the experience very poor.

I think if you had some key advertisers that wouldn't be bad. Classy banners or something, nothing flashing with flash interativity (Click the mouse to beat up Kevin Feterline!)

I always get pissed when someone complains about having to register for my site to access the content. I get pissed because I don't understand why they would complain when I de-activated the new user email activation system. I don't have any adds, and all of my content is free for the leeching. Much like your site, registration takes 1 minute for full access to everything. I guess times have changes. Everyone wants something for nothing. OK, I'll stop on that tangent...that was a rave about users that are ungrateful. Screw it, I say whore the site out. Make a million a year like ls1tech.com and ls2gto.com from advertising.

Have a different company sponsor each sub forum for optimum cash. Do eet...

Keep up the great site.

 

[Squintz]

I know Dan enough to know that he would not post anything that would take away from the content of this site. There are a ton of manufactures that visit this site daily and are in some way or form advertising on this site already. I don't have a problem with that as long as they are providing a useful service/product to us. So adding a banner here and there will not change how this site functions and it won't change the people. It will hopefully make Dan rich so that he can turn it into a full time job and provide us with even better content. Although if I know dan he will probably only charge enough to cover the cost of keeping the site and not try to profit from it. I think he should make a million buck IMO. This is the best site for HA ever.

 

[electron]

One thing I will agree with is that I miss the old school style sites as well. That's one of the main reasons that this site has not been 'web2.0-ified'. While I am still striving for that, reality is that most websites get much more traffic than sites did 4 years ago (when I launched the site), since there are so many more people using the internet now. Heck a link from digg.com or slashdot can shut a site down nowadays, that should tell you enough. Because of reasons like that, you need to get a decent host. You really get what you pay for, just look at all the problems CT has had to deal with when HostPC.com was the hosting company. As I have mentioned before, it's a cost I was willing to pay, and always will.

A quality host will cost more than that per year (I am already paying more than that), and soon the site will be moved to a dedicated server, which will be even more. With that said, I wasn't planning on quitting my dayjob, most of the money would be put into new CT features and other goodies that would benefit the community. Paying for hosting was actually last on the list.

Once again, this is just an idea, it's something I am toying with, with the sole intention of benefiting the community. Key advertisers and classy banners as you put it is exactly what I had in mind, and I am not planning on crippling access to this site.

Edit: thanks Squintz!

 

[royalj7]

Just to chime in. This site is great, it's part of my morning routine. I'd be willing to having advertising, and I trust Dan to structure it as not to detract too much from the site. I understand the idea of having a constant revenue stream, but I would prefer some type of user membership fee, or auctions, or tiered forum. This site is so valuable, I wouldn't think twice about paying for the content.

--Jamie

 

[Helheim]

I mean, what does a site cost to host these days? $100-$200 a year?

I pay about that per month for dedicated hosting. I'm in Canada and bandwidth does seem more expensive up here though but, as Dan said you do get what you pay for.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Our hosting costs us close to $300 a month.

 

[jwilson56]

All of us that know Dan personally know he is not looking to 'make' money on this... just deflect some of the costs and more importantly have funds to use for ideas that will give back more to the Cocooners that visit here.

Maybe its my age.... but I can't believe anyone would get their panties in a twist seeing a few banners from selected vendors inserted on this board. If you do then "GETOVERIT". There is NO REASON that Dan should have to take a dime away from his family to support a place where we all benefit. He does so now because that is the kind of guy he is. Doing this will benefit us all in the long run.

John

 

[ginigma]

Ads are fine, but please try to stick with simple banner ads, Google text ads, etc. Flash ads, overlays, things that draw my eye away from the content are too distracting and I will use an ad blocker o the site or not visit it.

Cocoontech is a great HA site. Lets keep it alive and useful.

 

[eufreka]

You are paying the bills, so whatever you need to do is fine.

I come here for the content, and ads don't actually have anything to do with the content...unless you let them...

Better still, because this is a rather specialized site, the ads would have to be either "sponsorship" (i.e., vendors waving the "We support the community" flag) or special offers (most people here are rather savvy shoppers already)...either way, not particularly harmful.

Hopefully, you could wade into the ad waters slowly, limiting it to say the front page and maybe the tutorials for example, but again, your call.

Now the fly in the ointment is that some vendors (cough, cough) already support the site by PROVIDING content...their presence is part of what brings/keeps the rest of us around...and it would be bad to dissuade them from continued participation due to competitor advertising from non-participating vendors...

So maybe the advertising should be limited to "newbies"...members less than 6 months or fewer than 100 posts for example. That way long term vendor members will be able to support long term cocooners without fear of their advice appearing next to a competitor's ad (but a newbie would see the ad)...

Or how about a newsletter to registered members that features advertising links to non-content ad pages on the site. That way advertisers can get raw impressions and click through without impacting the site's content at all? Say 6 non-exclusive ad blurbs or a full newsletter exclusive...

Just some random musings...

 

[kccustom]

I would pay money for this site, but, I don't like to pay money for anything so if I can look at a banner and not pay money that is what I would prefer.

That said I frequent (lurk) another site that has awesome info and some ads, (a little to many for my taste) the content is so great that I hardly notice the ads.

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

Hmmm, I'd support advertising rates based on post count

 

[elcano]

I prefer text based ads. I switched to unknown search engine Google several years ago not for the quality of the searches, but because of the simpliciy of the site (no banners using my bandwidth). In the same line, I pay www.fastmail.fm email for not seen hotmail's or yahoo's banner ads (gmail didn't exist when I started using it).

I think that newcomers not realizing the value of the CT community at first sight (does not take much to realize it), might jump out fast if it is too clogged with ads.

Other perspective is the sense of neutrality. Sometimes, because of the quality of some of our favorite products, and the good support that their sponsor give us, some people get the perception that we are biased toward some brands/solutions. Ads should be balanced as for not giving base to this wrong perception.

That said, Dan created this community, maintains it and pays the bills. So I support whatever he choose to lighten the load and keep the site running for a long time.

Go Dan Go!

 

[FrankMc]

Hi Dan

Cocoontech is a site which i frequent daily and enjoy reading the posts although im green with envy at the prices you guys pay for ha kit in the U.S..... ;-) ....So do whatever it takes to keep it alive..advertise charge membership fees, whatever it takes...

Frank from Oz

 

[pete]

how 'bout a cheap membership fee to avoid the ads.

wunderground.com has had this option for years now . . for like $5

something to look into . .

 

[bingl]

I support Dan and whatever processes he needs to sustain this site and its memberships. That said, I would pay a small annual fee to minimize any advertising necessary. This site and its members rocks!