The future of DDN – funding, advertising, paying for server etc

[samhs]

Wotcha gang. It's that time again when we're all scratching our heads wondering about what to do to fund DDN.

Each year we need to meet server costs of £138 and domain costs of around £20 (some domains are renewed for two years, others for only one). As you'll know we've resisted the idea of advertising on the site in the past, and I think we still all agree on the idea that the site should exist without intrusive advertising (.net's advertising was one the things that caused Burt and myself to spawn this whole DDN thing way back in 2001).

Still, things move on and in the time that DDN has been in existence it's cost well over £1000 to maintain. We're a pretty tight community I think, but we aren't exactly expanding rapidly, and some of the enthusiasm we had going for the front-end redesign was lost with Khalid. Losing Khalid does demonstrate what a good community DDN is however; we pull together, help each other out and have shown time and time again that we care for our own. That's something worth maintaining in my opinion, but none of us have bottomless pockets which leaves us with a conundrum.

As a result we're thinking about introducing unobtrusive advertising to help fund DDN and we think it's possible DDN will be entirely self funding in future years as a result. This wont help meet the costs this year however. Tony has already stumped up the cash and the admins will be splitting the cost between us. We would welcome, however, any member wanting to make a donation towards the running costs. Tony will be along with a paypal account shortly for such purposes, and any donations made will be either anonymous (if desired) or shouted from the rooftops (if desired). We've been extremely grateful for member donations in previous years - without which we may not still be here. Please don't feel obliged to donate, but if you feel DDN is worth a fiver that would really help.

We're also still open to hearing your thoughts on the question of advertising and how we move forward with the front end of the site - we're currently a shadow of what we set out to be in 2001, and it would be nice to start a new decade with a fresh vision for what we can become.


Your friendly local admin team,

Sam, Nige, Matt & Tony

[Ben]

Will it be advertising that is visible to visitors, but hidden when someone registered/donates/posts-above-mark?

[Tony]

If you do wish to donate, use the donations link at the top, should find it's way to the DDN coffers.

Ben, No decision has been made yet, but thats a good suggestion!

[Mr Anderson]

If you do wish to donate, use the donations link at the top, should find it's way to the DDN coffers.

You'll incur charges that way, if people make a gift payment through their own account to donations @ dotdragnet.com then there should be no charge added.

And if someone comes up with a design that meets with everyone's approval then I'm still happy to convert it to a WP template.

[net-curtains]

I can chip in with the design side of things, or collaborate with anyone else working on it if it'll help. Maybe someone could post a spec of what's required, and we could submit our ideas and put it to a vote?

[Matt]

Id rather avoid adverts, but I wouldnt mind donating towards hosting and maybe even a bit towards a nominated member to build the site as to a spec we discuss and agree on?

The community approach of building the front end clearly hasnt/isnt going to work - unless we have specific people doing specific tasks by a deadline with someone managing the whole project.

[slaughteredlamb]

I've donated in the past and happy to do the same again and each year to be honest. As for advertising, I don't have particularly strong views either way, at least if it's done fairly unobtrusively i.e. not how I've seen it on other forums where an advert appears between posts!

It would be nice to not have advertising but I guess the trouble is that without a regular revenue each year we are going to be faced with the same problem. That said, is DDN really going to earn that much from advertising, I mean our target audience are the kind of people who tend to go out of their way to NOT click on adverts!

One solution would be to make DDN subscription based but then you'd basically kill off any new members ever joining. Perhaps as a better solution to advertising/donation or at least as something to work alongside it would be if DDN had it's own store. This could work by either members/admin donating 'products' to DDN be they t-shirt designs, e-books, web hosting packages, etc etc and all proceeds go to DDN or any member can offer anything for sale at any time and a percentage of the sale goes to DDN. 

[net-curtains]

Id rather avoid adverts, but I wouldnt mind donating towards hosting and maybe even a bit towards a nominated member to build the site as to a spec we discuss and agree on?

The community approach of building the front end clearly hasnt/isnt going to work - unless we have specific people doing specific tasks by a deadline with someone managing the whole project.

I can't see it being a problem, anyone who's interested can submit a mock-up of their design which gets voted on, and the winner collaborates with Mr Anderson who then does the difficult bit. If a new logo is required then that could be a separate project, once again with members submitting their ideas.

There seems to be plenty of pros on this site so a brief detailing the requirements should ensure it's a reasonably quick and painless process.

As someone who's benefited from help from other members on here I'm happy (if my design is selected) to do it as a freebie.

[Matt]

Id rather avoid adverts, but I wouldnt mind donating towards hosting and maybe even a bit towards a nominated member to build the site as to a spec we discuss and agree on?

The community approach of building the front end clearly hasnt/isnt going to work - unless we have specific people doing specific tasks by a deadline with someone managing the whole project.

I can't see it being a problem, anyone who's interested can submit a mock-up of their design which gets voted on, and the winner collaborates with Mr Anderson who then does the difficult bit. If a new logo is required then that could be a separate project, once again with members submitting their ideas.

There seems to be plenty of pros on this site so a brief detailing the requirements should ensure it's a reasonably quick and painless process.

As someone who's benefited from help from other members on here I'm happy (if my design is selected) to do it as a freebie.

But all this has been discussed before and people have said the same, and nothing has happened - which is why I said needs to be managed at least

[Jeep Stone]

I've just made a small donation. Every little helps.

[Charisma Bypass]

DDN had it's own store. This could work by either members/admin donating 'products' to DDN be they t-shirt designs, e-books, web hosting packages, etc etc and all proceeds go to DDN or any member can offer anything for sale at any time and a percentage of the sale goes to DDN. 

this is rather an interesting idea.  Worth exploring.

[Mr Anderson]

But all this has been discussed before and people have said the same, and nothing has happened - which is why I said needs to be managed at least

It wasn't so much the management that was an issue, more the lack of a consensus. Leaving it possible that someone could come up with ideas, implement them, and then have others say no afterwards.

In order to work we need to know what is wanted, otherwise we become mirrors of our worst clients.

I can't see it being a problem, anyone who's interested can submit a mock-up of their design which gets voted on, and the winner collaborates with Mr Anderson who then does the difficult bit. If a new logo is required then that could be a separate project, once again with members submitting their ideas.

The logo at the top of the forum is the new one, we had a logo design competition a few months ago (I was robbed ) and that one was the winner. So a new design would have to take that into account.

DDN had it's own store. This could work by either members/admin donating 'products' to DDN be they t-shirt designs, e-books, web hosting packages, etc etc and all proceeds go to DDN or any member can offer anything for sale at any time and a percentage of the sale goes to DDN. 

this is rather an interesting idea.  Worth exploring.

Ditto, certainly a better option than advertising IMO.

[Matt]

But all this has been discussed before and people have said the same, and nothing has happened - which is why I said needs to be managed at least

It wasn't so much the management that was an issue, more the lack of a consensus. Leaving it possible that someone could come up with ideas, implement them, and then have others say no afterwards.

In order to work we need to know what is wanted, otherwise we become mirrors of our worst clients.

{/quote]

I agree, and was shooting along the same lines

[orydian]

DDN had it's own store. This could work by either members/admin donating 'products' to DDN be they t-shirt designs, e-books, web hosting packages, etc etc and all proceeds go to DDN or any member can offer anything for sale at any time and a percentage of the sale goes to DDN. 

this is rather an interesting idea.  Worth exploring.

Donation made. I also like this idea and would be willing to chip in a design or twelve.

ory.

[Tony]

Thanks Guys and gals, up to £82 at the mo. Much appreciated!

[orydian]

I've been having a think about this; at least from the t-shirt design point of view. I'd be willing to offer the use of one of my five letter .coms, plus associated (unregistered) trademark, plus a load of traffic to get it off the ground. The site itself could be custom built and/or based on one of the many popular 'sell your own products' stores out there. DDN members would create the designs, then all/some of the profits would go to DDN for hosting/domains/promotion. This won't work if it's just a CafePress site, but could really take off if it has a strong wearable brand. Something along the lines of ThinkGeek crossed with FCUK.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

ory.

[Matt]

I've been having a think about this; at least from the t-shirt design point of view. I'd be willing to offer the use of one of my five letter .coms, plus associated (unregistered) trademark, plus a load of traffic to get it off the ground. The site itself could be custom built and/or based on one of the many popular 'sell your own products' stores out there. DDN members would create the designs, then all/some of the profits would go to DDN for hosting/domains/promotion. This won't work if it's just a CafePress site, but could really take off if it has a strong wearable brand. Something along the lines of ThinkGeek crossed with FCUK.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

ory.

Sounds like a plan.

[orydian]

Ha!

ory.
Thread killer.

[sarahA]

Another option could be to set up a couple of affiliate links up top eg. one to Amazon, one elsewhere. Then just get members to use them when they buy online. I'm sure we all buy at least a couple of items off Amazon a year each (we've done half our christmas shopping on there!). The 5% or so you get back on the affiliate payments throughout the year would probably add up to at least half of what's needed. No advert, just a single link with the affiliate code in it.

My 2p

[kimpossible]

I love slaughteredlamb/Ory's t-shirt/products idea but it does sound quite involved....and although we're all normally hugely enthusiastic when talking about the idea...when the reality of putting into practice comes along, for whatever reason, our enthusiasm wanes!

SarahA's idea is much simpler and I don't see why we don't do that anyway! I've bought quite a bit via Amazon and Play for Christmas (and do regularly throughout the year too).

[Shirker]

Happy to donate and no problem with ads if it helps.

I think part of the problem is that other media and twitter especially has a negative impact on DDN. There are loads of DDN posts on twitter that would have been on here previously, which given the constant-stream nature of Twitter is to the detriment of all as posts there get buried too quickly. Consequently you see fewer DDNers posts as they're buried in the crap of trivia and competition entries and conversations are harder to follow, meaning a net result of a weaker DDN and some of community element which was here is lost.

[net-curtains]

I think part of the problem is that other media and twitter especially has a negative impact on DDN. There are loads of DDN posts on twitter that would have been on here previously, which given the constant-stream nature of Twitter is to the detriment of all as posts there get buried too quickly. Consequently you see fewer DDNers posts as they're buried in the crap of trivia and competition entries and conversations are harder to follow, meaning a net result of a weaker DDN and some of community element which was here is lost.

It's possible to embrace social networking options and integrate them into the new website, which becomes a centralised resource supported by posts from, for example, Twitter, rather than the other way around. Don't underestimate the benefits of Twitter as a marketing tool, I run a few websites where the hits go through the roof every time I link to a feature via Twitter.

Maybe some of the regular features on the forum, such as the photography contest, could appear on the new website instead as they could attract a lot of visitors who may not necessarily be interested in posting or joining a forum. I've noticed this on the .Net forum, where people would join just to enter the image competition, but not participate elsewhere. Competitions, other features and resources could then be promoted via Twitter etc and this forum to drive traffic to the website.

I think the website could act as a centralised resource that backs up the aims of this forum. A library of important information from existing posts, features, articles, and competitions, and an opportunity for members to showcase their talents. I'm a new boy here so I don't personally know what your aims are, but I do think it's a shame though that members spend hours providing excellent information to queries only for them to be 'lost' under a mass of unrelated replies or even worse, 'pruned'. .Net certainly suffers from this problem.

I agree with Sarah and Kim about the ecom side - it'll be quicker to set up an Amazon Affiliates account to make a bit of extra cash, recommend books and other products on the website with an associate link so DDN gets 5% of the sale. And if the website is Wordpress based then it'll be fairly straightforward to add shopping cart facilities or Paypal links once the products have been created.

[robwhizz]

I think Sarah's idea is a good one. I use Amazon and play etc throughout the year.

Ads don't bother me particularly, I'd use greasemonkey to get rid of them anyway, but I do think that ads can drive away new users. That said I know any ads on here wouldn't be like the travesty that is the .netmag forum!

I'm more than happy to make a donation (but it'll have to be in the new year when hopefully I won't be overdrawn!).

[ih8mondays]

I'll put a few quid in as well - prefer that to adverts (although I use Adblock now...)

Just got to wait for my paypal account to link up with my bank account (I'm sure it was before, but no longer is!)

edit: money sent.

[yawner]

Another option could be to set up a couple of affiliate links up top eg. one to Amazon, one elsewhere.

I could swear we used to have an Amazon affiliate link and can`t for the life of me think why we dropped it....... As much as 5% commission you say? I've spent over £1400 with Amazon this year - so thats £70 we could have had? Is this correct? If so I say grab it with both hands. 

[keri]

I'm up for throwing some money in the pot, unfortunately it won't be until the end of January as i'm off skiing at the start of the month so it'll be coming from January's pay.

I'm not bothered by adverts as i block them in firefox, the amazon link is a good idea i'd quite happily buy via here.

We could knock up a quick page/form for those not shopping in a rush that you bung the ASIN product number in and it diverts you to the affiliate link for that item, that would earn more than the average commission for the kitty.

[Mr Anderson]

We could knock up a quick page/form for those not shopping in a rush that you bung the ASIN product number in and it diverts you to the affiliate link for that item, that would earn more than the average commission for the kitty.

We use this method:

amazon.php

Code:

<?php
$asin_no = $_GET['id'];
header ("Location:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2&path=ASIN/".$asin_no."&tag=USERID&camp=1634&creative=6738");
exit;
?>

Usage:

Code:

http://www.yourdomain.co.uk/amazon.php?id=[ASIN Here]

Replacing [ASIN Here] with the Asin for the product. Eg. http://www.ap4a.co.uk/amazon.php?id=079223913X

[orydian]

Okay, my wildly ambitious and overenthusiastic approach to everything might not be required here then.

ory.

[charlie]

Amazon etc links sounds a great idea but equally not opposed to discreet advertising if that's what it takes to keep DDN going .. though would be better to avoid if possible.

Happy to send a small donation but will have to be once a client or 2 have paid .. grrrrrrrr

keep reminding me !

[slaughteredlamb]

Affiliate links are good BUT, and not wishing to be the voice of doom here, people WILL forget to use it. As sad as it might be the fact is that most people simply won't do something, at least on a regular or consistent basis, unless it benefits them in some way. That's why I put forward the idea of a DDN shop. Pretty much all of us Ebay and many of us try to flog it on here first before going to Ebay because it saves a lot of hassle.

I'm not suggesting that a DDN shop would pay for the hosting all on it's own but it could pay towards it and the ability for everyone to be able to sell their stuff on DDN in a way that not only means that they can make some money but also could generate a bit of cash for DDN I would think would have much longer longevity then people always having to remember to use an affiliate link whenever they want to buy something.

Off the top of my head I would have thought that members here could sell the following on DDN:

Web Templates (Joomla, Wordpress, OSCommerce etc)
Web Hosting
Web Scripts
Prints of photos
Clothing
e-books on a huge range of subjects that might be of interest to DDN members
Not to mention all the usual stuff like old games, DVD's, CD's, phones, computer stuff, etc etc

Obviously I'm not the greatest coder in the world (read, the worst coder in the world) but I can't see it being that difficult to edit an off the shelf e-commerce product such as OSCommerce to these needs. Admittedly the terms would have to be that DDN cannot be held responsible for any fraudulent activity and the onus is on the seller and buyer to verify each others details. Equally I would think it would be fairly simple to have it set that only once your post count on DDN is over x and/or that you have been a member for y that you can actually buy or sell anything. At the end of the day it would have to operate on a honor system where when a sale is made DDN sends an invoice to the seller saying that they now owe x (based on a percentage of the sale) and the seller would have to pay that to DDN. Either that or all money is paid to DDN and then DDN forwards the payment to the seller minus the fee. Yeah it's potentially open to abuse but we arent looking to compete with Ebay just to earn a little bit here and there for DDN so if someone doesnt pay their dues to DDN it's not the end of the world and they can be banned after all.

Just an idea