Even though the cost of running this site is significantly offset by my other projects, I have always believed that each "project" or "site" should financially hold it's own. Whether that is through advertising, donations or other means.
MacOSX.com is my biggest site and it exceeds bandwidth usage of 10 times of any of my other sites individually. It also, with the exception of a few donations and a few advertisers over the years, as brought in little revenue to help cover it's own costs. Most advertising on our site is "internal" advertising or trade-out advertising.
This last Sunday morning I decided to run a trial. This includes charging a "cover-charge" to register on the site. Users are prompted to pay a one-time fee of $2.00 to register. Although we have seen a significant drop in the number of people who are registering on a daily basis, we none-the-less have people registering and generating some income.
This is simply a trial. The price is also being tested as well. This amount would never exceed $5.00, but could be as low as $1.50 as well. I plan on running this trial through Tuesday and will then remove that barrier and re-evaluate each.
No existing users will be charged any money. The fact people can read thread topics w/o being registered makes this method of "cover charge" more practical. People can see that data exists on the site before paying.
I also have to weigh 10 subscibers per day who pay, or 80 subscribers per day who don't. Which is more valuable in the long run.
Just a heads up.
Scott
MacOSX.com is my biggest site and it exceeds bandwidth usage of 10 times of any of my other sites individually. It also, with the exception of a few donations and a few advertisers over the years, as brought in little revenue to help cover it's own costs. Most advertising on our site is "internal" advertising or trade-out advertising.
This last Sunday morning I decided to run a trial. This includes charging a "cover-charge" to register on the site. Users are prompted to pay a one-time fee of $2.00 to register. Although we have seen a significant drop in the number of people who are registering on a daily basis, we none-the-less have people registering and generating some income.
This is simply a trial. The price is also being tested as well. This amount would never exceed $5.00, but could be as low as $1.50 as well. I plan on running this trial through Tuesday and will then remove that barrier and re-evaluate each.
No existing users will be charged any money. The fact people can read thread topics w/o being registered makes this method of "cover charge" more practical. People can see that data exists on the site before paying.
I also have to weigh 10 subscibers per day who pay, or 80 subscribers per day who don't. Which is more valuable in the long run.
Just a heads up.
Scott
