PTP: Defining and refining the options

About This Message Board
1

Matron, loosen the tethers…No, not that much!

On the (in particular) last two pages of this thread, we seem to be getting somewhere on what kind of numbers we’re looking at in relation to current active membership, costs related to running the board and The Readers mind set on the issue of PTP – thanks to KellyM, kabbes, TubaDiva, Mike Lenehan and several others.

While folks are still looking at issues like how many active members there are and what they might be prepared to pay, it appears that at least three things have emerged:

  • The Reader has reached the crossroads: It needs to justify the growing expense of the board because it’s benefit to Cecil and his books and column is now proportionately seriously out of whack. That doesn’t necessarily mean profitability or even break-even, but it does mean an income of some measurable description is required.

  • The consensus of the membership is that the board will wither on the vine (if it goes PTP) without the regular watering of new members as well as those regulars who won’t/can’t pay. If predictions of its death are themselves premature, the obits can be drafted – that seems to be the general view. It is that serious.

  • The costs related to this board seem to break down to:
    $7,000 (bandwidth, power, odds and sods), $30,000 (server tech support) and (at some point in the future) $2,000+ (for depreciation on capital assets) – again, The Reader hasn’t said it need to cover all those costs but something needs to happen and soon.

So, that’s the kind of money we’re looking at. Given PTP is the answer of absolute last resort (little more than suicide if the consensus is accurate), what else have we got. Lets try to make some serious suggestions based on what we now know ?

Heres two for starters:

One – It’s a little cute. How about an annual charity drive not unlike the pledges made as a result of Anthracite’s ‘new Server’ plan. The money then comes into a designated person (one of our esteemed legal seagulls ?) by a certain date, that person places an ad banner on the board on an agreed date with The Reader (alleviating their distress) that…surprise, surprise,…is charged by The Reader at the same amount as flowed in via the charity drive ?

That method may not raise all that’s needed but, judging by the responses to Anthracite’s Server thread, it could well deal with the Bandwidth issue and leave a little over (say $7,000).

It ain’t the solution because we’d still have the tech costs but…it’s a start ?

Two – Look more closely at the possibility of the board adopting charitable status as a Bare Trust. It seems that necessarily means (under US law and in the absence of opinion to the contrary) the SDMB severing links with The Reader but it has three crucial qualities:

  • The Reader is released from bearing the costs and can even make donations to the SDMB Trust,

  • It’s better than the death of the board, and

  • Cecil still gets to publicise his column and books to a wider audience.
    So, there you go: Dis and Discuss. PTP looks like the most likely option but can we collect together any other ‘real world’ ideas/solutions that take into account the realities of this situation - and don’t use words like ‘pay’ and ‘post’ in conjunction – to form a cohesive solution ?

2

I realize I may be getting a little repetitive here, but I really believe this suggestion may work.

Classified ads.

The Reader, as a newspaper, gets its income from large, business-oriented advertising, and from classified ads. We’ve already established that banner ads on the site are prohibitively expensive for regular people. Why not establish a classifieds page for the SDMB?

One of the primary advantages is that the Reader already has the infrastructure in place to accept classifieds online. It would take, in my experience, very little to extend that to a separate forum for SDMB classifieds.

It would solve the problem of users who want to donate funds to the Reader, but have been unable to because donations to for-profit companies are legally problematic. Instead of a donation, take out an ad.

It would also have the potential to make far more than the pay-to-post scheme; while one ad would cost about as much as they’re proposing for a membership fee, there’s nothing stopping people from posting several times a year. Or a week, for that matter.

It would be easy to sell to the Reader; pitch it as getting the classified revenue from a whole other newspaper, without paying the writers, and with minimal production costs. They’ll also be able to do a good breakdown of the numbers involved, based on their readership and the frequency of classified ads placed, vs. the board readership and potential revenue.

I think it would do a great job of bridging the gap between a mandatory pay scheme, and donations. And, if handled right, it could be a rollicking, fun, bizarre bazaar, full of some of the most fascinating ads on the Net.

3

The trouble that the Reader may have with these, so far as I can see, is that they are not a stable, predictable revenue stream. Sure the ads may come in for a bit. But what about in 6 months? A year? Do they keep prodding for donations? Isn’t that a bit demeaning for something that is supposed to be a business?

I gotta admit - I see their problem. If they’re going to have an alternative funding strategy, it needs to be one that actually sells something that people want, as opposed to being a de facto charitable donation.

I personally think they could seriously crank up the memorabilia arm. I’d consider buying all kinds of Straight Dope stuff, and yet I currently have none. Now I live in the UK, so maybe it’ll never be convenient to sell to me but I’m not totally convinced. And I’m certainly sure that the US residents aren’t being aggressively hawked at.

It’s hard to see what else they could sell that people would want - except for themselves. Which is what they are attempting with PTP.

On the PTP front: maybe they should consider lifetime memberships too, to try to circumvent the non-repeaters. Just a thought.

pan

4

Hey, I like the ‘life membership’ idea, kabbes

FWIW, I threw the membership (sponsored) banner ad in the ring pretty much because Anthracite’s new server drive identified a lot of goodwill and it looked like a way to get the money through without it necessarily being ‘charity’ within the legal definition… It could be $7,000 a year in banner ad’s in an annual lump sum…

I agree, they are in a tight spot and they’re short of conventional funding solutions. The problem is finding non-PTP solutions that generate four figures and aren’t too wacky. Interesting.

MrVisible – I have absolutely no idea how much folding stuff your suggestion might generate. I guess it’s The Reader’s field of expertise but it would seem to have some Admin costs to build in.

5

The goal of any revenue generating scheme for the SDMB should be to keep one of the most vibrant and interesting message boards going. In order to do so, we must help defray the costs of running the board that the Reader is currently fronting. My goal would be to eventually acheive 100% funding without damaging the integrity of the board.

Without going too deep into numbers, how do you generate revenue and keep the membership?

Advertising is one option. It has been looked into by the Reader, but they are not getting takers. Their pricing seems fairly reasonable at $10 per 1000 views (I’ve seen that number elsewhere on the net). However, the fact that nobody is biting would suggest that the price is too high, or is too inconvenient for advertisers, or advertisers don’t know about us. Suggestion would be to outsource the advertising with a remarketer. They attract advertisers and place the banners on your site for a fee per 1000 views. Yes, we have less control over the type of advertiser, but would our membership really care if a gambling or psychic site is advertised in a banner?

Per previous threads, it appears that the SDMB gets approx. 1 million page views per year, which would translate to $5,000 at only $5 per 1000 views. Not a bad start, if you ask me. Banners are fairly unobtrusive, ad should not affect out readership much, if at all.

Pay to Post is another option, and should be considered the last ditch effort. How do you offer pay to post without affecting our membership? It’s tough, because many people will not pay to post on principle, or will be scared off from posting in the first place.

The best idea I’ve heard is to keep some of the forums free and open to anyone, ATMB, Comments, GQ, and make the other forums available to ‘premium’ members with Pay to Post. That way, newbies can post questions and answers in GQ like they do today, get the feel of the board and membership, and eventually join as premium to interact socially.

I’ve thought about other options like a phony premium membership, where all you really get is a notation in your profile. Similar to a donation, but the Reader is ‘selling’ something. That might work initially, when it’s on the collective SDMB mind, it will probably not be an ongoing thing. Donations? already ruled out by the staff.

Selling memorabilia is also a nice idea, that should be pushed to the Millions as a way to support the site. As it is today, I don’t even know what is available.

6

Pay-to-post isn’t a stable, predictable revenue stream. Heck, I don’t know if such a thing exists; it certainly doesn’t at the inception of a business. Every new business venture is a gamble; the only advantage that this board enjoys is a massive built-in user base. In 6 months or a year, the pay-to-post scheme has a chance of having killed off this board; the classified idea can’t do that. Which would you try first?

If managed right, the classifieds would turn into a good, solid national forum in which to advertise goods, services, and general weirdness, generating significant revenue. With the knowledge that they’re helping out the Reader, I believe the denizens of the Straight Dope would be happy to advertise there.

And yeah, they’d have to keep prodding for business; it’s called advertising. Put up banners on the boards, the occasional plug for classifieds in the forums, that sort of thing. It doesn’t seem too demeaning for, say, Coca-Cola to participate in; I don’t see where the Reader would have much of a problem.

Not nearly as much administration as the pay-to-post scheme would have. And a lot less chance of such hassles as chargebacks, disgruntled customers, and even lawsuits. But like you said, it’s the Reader’s field of expertise; they already know how to make money off of classified ads.

It’s a simple solution, cheap to implement, potentially lucrative, and has absolutely no chance of killing off the boards. Why not try it first, before going to p-t-p? If it works, we’ve got the best of both worlds; a board that generates an income stream, and remains free for all to use.

And about that lifetime membership; what happens if the boards do close down?

7

I’ve got no problem with the principle of classifieds. And you’re right - there is no harm in trying it first (unless money problems are so dire that they need cash NOW). I’m just not sure it will be the desired elixir. But hey - worth a shot.

As for the lifetime memberships - well, the way I see it there are two reasons for the boards to close:

  1. Reader decides that it is losing too much money; pulls plug.

  2. Posters dwindle until it isn’t worth continuing any more.

Lifetime memberships will help to reduce the risk of 2 and will work towards providing enough up-front capital to reduce the risk of 1. Further, it becomes in my interest to help recruit new entrants for the “club” because I have committed myself to it.

It is a risk though and convincing people will depend on how expensive a lifetime vs. an annual membership is.

pan

8

Chesestake – It’s a million a month.

** MrVisible ** – I guess it would be termed something like “for the lifetime of the board” and reflect a reasonable sized donation from the more affluent rather than an extrapolation of, say, 5 years membership fees…$300-$400 maybe ?

9

Lifetime membership - you have some clause that says the membership is valid for as long as the board exists, but in the event of the Reader closing the board there is no expressed or implied entitlement to a refund. Some lawyer can word that more appropriately.

I still foresee a serious potential problem with having some fora open posting and some requiring membership - more pressure on people to not bother posting in the correct forum. How much more of a hassle than it currently is I can’t judge.

10

I’ll stick my head into this thread too and see what happens, I’ve tried to read all the ideas but there as some many different threads relating to this issue it’s difficult to keep up. So, sorry if this has already been covered.

Since traditional advertising doesn’t seem to work for this site, and some people can’t afford the money for a subscription, I’d propose a different idea: Using Associate Schemes. As I understand these schemes this site would get a some money for every purchase made from a linked to vendor.

For this to work buyers have to ‘click-through’ a link on this site to the vendors site and purchase something – then this site gets the money. So what you could do is set up a new SDMB front ‘portal’ page which has links to the boards as normal but also links to vendors sites that you’ve registered with, as well as an encouragement to users to use the system.

I’ve just checked the Associate Scheme at Amazon at this page. They pay 5% for most purchases and 15% for directly linked books. So let’s say that there are 4000 regular members who, on average, purchase $50 worth of stuff from Amazon a year. That would translate to $2.50 per member, or $10,000 total a year.

Of course I could have misunderstood something and be making a fool of myself here.

The beauty of this scheme is it allows people to support the SDMB when buying stuff they need. All you’d need is a set of decent links and you should pull lots of money.

If the CR isn’t keen on maintaining this then someone else could and pass the money on – call it ‘renting’ the server and services as I mentioned in another thread.

Failing that if the CR starts subscriptions use this method to finance a fund for people who can’t afford the subscription.

For what it’s worth, I easily spend the equivalent of a good few hundred dollars a year at Amazon.co.uk and I’d have no problem if some of that money was going to the SDMB.

That’s all I have to say, hope it is of some help – or inspires someone to come up with something better.

SpaceDog

11

L_C A million a month? :eek: Wow! that’s a lotta hits! At only $1 per thousand, that’s 12 grand a year. Of course, you have to actually sell 100% of the page views… It looks like those advertising sites offer a 50/50 split for revenue if you have a month to month nonexclusive relationship. It appeared, though, that the staff here would have to manage approving and putting all of the ads up, labor that could eat the profits down to nothing…

SpaceDog’s clickthru idea is a very interesting one. It reminds me of a freind of mine who had his entire site funded by one woman clicking thru to Expedia. She was one of his friends, and arranged travel for a small company, all of her travel was booked through Expedia from the link on his site. He earned a fair amount just from this one woman, enough to fund a small site.

12

I think all off these are better than the subscription plan.

But does the board actually want input of any kind?

13

A few comments:

(1) The annual nut to run this place (the SD Website, not just the SDMB) is $35,000-$45,000, depending on what you want to add in. The major labor expense isn’t Jerry the tech guy, it’s me (I do this part-time). Throw in enough for tech support and hardware to maintain a reasonable level of service and I’d say you’re definitely heading for $45K, and that’s just cost, no profit. Leave Jerry and the hardware upgrades out of it and you’re looking at a monthly out-of-pocket of maybe $3K.

(2) In the latest month for which I have figures, the SD Website averaged 1.2 million page views per week, of which the SDMB contributed 760K.

(3) Our publisher was rather taken with the idea of selling classified ads to SDMB users, but her guesstimate is that we could raise maybe $9K/yr doing this. That’s not a reason not to do it, but it doesn’t really solve our problem.

(4) Merchandising has never been a big moneymaker for us.

(5) Setting up the SDMB as a not-for-profit entity is not a trivial or inexpensive task, and the cash flow is unreliable. As always the major expense would be labor. It’s all very well to have a pledge drive to raise $5K for a new server, but we’d have to raise $3K minimum every month. I have been involved in public radio and have participated in pledge drives and I can assure you this is not a business I personally want to get into.

(6) While people at the Reader think the SDMB is pretty cool, its dollar value to the company in terms of promotion and so on is minimal. The Reader is a local (Chicago) publishing company. The SDMB has a national (nay, global!) audience. The fact that we’ve got users in Australia doesn’t help the ad guys sell display space to nightclubs on Randolph St.

(7) I have argued that we need to have some sort of 30-day free trial for new posters. The problem with this or any similar scheme (50 free posts, one free post a day, etc.) is that it requires a lot of system development interfacing to third-party software we’re occasionally required to upgrade on an emergency basis. I think it’s doable (and essential) but the tech guys understandably want to keep things simple. We’ll see.

14

First of all, WHOOOOEEEE! I am beyond psyched that you are considering this idea. It seems that with an estimate of 9k per year, it would be worth implementing, before the Pay to Post plan gets into its final stages. If you do so, and let folks know that if the Classifieds do well, the board can stay free, I think you’ll be amazed at the response. Give us a chance to contribute this way, and I firmly believe the user base here at the SDMB will blow your doors off.

Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help this get off the ground.

15

Practical Suggestion

Can we keep this all in one place? Right now, this discussion is taking place on several different threads and it’s impossible to keep up with it. Perhaps we can have a rule that the discussion and analysis of alternatives will occur only on this thread!

16

So stop helping. You have volunteers. Make the main site dependant on book sales and Cecil column fees, and let the volunteers run the SDMB.

17

iadoraeudora, that’s the funniest thing I’ve read in all 3,576,942 pages of this debate. As much as I took issue with Ed’s word choice in his survey, I still love him to pieces and would hate it if he quit helping. In fact, I’d say we don’t see enough of him around here.

On second thought, he has some pretty juicy blackmail material on me, so perhaps it is best if he’s a bit scarce. :wink:

But back to the OP…

Why couldn’t the Reader adopt a multi-tiered approach to this thing?

How about implementing several of these options all at the same time. That way, you aren’t relying on only one source of income, since some of it’s very speculative (like the straight Pay-to-Post) and some of it isn’t quite enough by itself to support the boards.

[list=1][li]Look into THespos’ suggestions from this thread with regard to outsourcing banner ad sales for this site. As a self-proclaimed expert in this type of advertising, he projects that the SDMB could take in anywhere from $5K to $10K per month in revenues from this. Even at the low end, that’s $60,000/year in income![/li]
As to the previously stated objection to specific types of ads (such as psychic readers), according to THespos, the Reader has the right to refuse any ads they find objectionable, so I’d say that eliminates that as a concern.

[li]Initiate a subscriber option that will disable the banner advertising for those who would rather Pay-to-Post than be innundated with advertising. Based on what I’ve read in these threads, quite a few people said they’d do it in a heartbeat. That way, people who either can’t afford a forced paid membership or who don’t mind the banner ads, can still participate and know that their participation is being paid for by viewing the ads (and hopefully clicking through to some and actually buying something, like booking a vacation through travelocity.com, which is one of the advertisers represented in the third party source I mentioned in a different post), and those who would rather Pay-to-Post will be able to do so.[/li]
Possibly establish other “bennies” to go along with the subscribership, like a free coffee mug, or access to a “subscribers only” forum.

[li]As suggested by MrVisible, set up a classified ads section where SDMB members can pay to place ads. “If members bought one ad per year, that’d be equivalent to the membership fees being proposed, and it would not necessitate any changes to the structure of the board. Market it right, and it could kick the stuffing out of your membership plan. And it has no chance of killing off the board.”[/li]
[li]Sign up for one or more affiliate programs, especially amazon.com’s. Even if you only link it to the Cafe Society forum (where the readers hang out), surely it would bring in a decent amount of revenue. Heck, last year my boss spent $1,907.00 on amazon.com, and this year he’s spent $1,348.00 so far. I’d make him start clicking through to amazon via the SD for all his purchases. He alone could keep this place running! :wink: And this is something that could be done right now to at least get some money rolling in. It may not be enough by itself to cover all the expenses, but certainly something is better than nothing. [/list=1][/li]In conclusion, I think a combination of all of the above would be a great solution that addresses the concerns of everyone. And none of it seems difficult, time consuming or costly to set up. In fact, both the outsourcing of banner ads and the affiliate programs require minimal set-up time and next to no time to administer.

18

If people want to support the Straight Dope Message Board by (for example) advertisements, why couldn’t they go to Cecil’s House o’ Values, buy some Straight Dope merchandise, and put it on a table at their local coffe house / high school cafeteria / classroom / office kitchen / public library / post office / place of worship / etc… with a sign saying “free, take one.”

19

Ok, Arnold, I just bought a t-shirt. However, I won’t be giving it away for free - it’s mine to keep and wear. If you’ll promise to come to the next L.A. Dopefest, I’ll wear it so you can see for yourself. :slight_smile:

20

Like MrVisible, I am very happy to hear the Reader is considering othet options.

I think this by far, the best idea. I would absolutely click on an amazon.com and order through here if it would save the boards. I order searal cds a month from Amazon.

By the way, I am always clicking in banner ads, just because I have nothing else to do. Sometimes I have found some of my favorite places on the web through banner likns.