Newspapers make their money by selling advertising space, and the charge for this space is based on the subscription volume … folks won’t subscribe to a newspaper if all the information is available over the internet … all the smaller newspapers are failing right and left such that only the Big Boys survive, and even these newspapers are in deep trouble … I used to advertise in our local newspaper all the time, but not only did these costs climb but responses literally stopped, so I stopped advertising there … I assume this is the problem with the Chicago Reader, why should I advertise there when almost everybody will go to my own website for information …
The question here is how to make money over the internet without pictures of naked girls … mind you, ten’s of thousands of people try to do this every day, but going up against Google, Amazon, FaceBook … even with naked girls, this is a long shot to break even … our “hook” here is The Straight Dope, and pretty much everybody who wants to hear this is already present … but most everybody doesn’t want to hear The Straight Dope … we have a niche market, low volume requires high margins … and why spend money on the top quality product if the free inferior product is better at telling us what we want to hear …
The Straight Dope is dying of old age … there’s no cure … what was hip and new in 1974 is common and mundane in 2018 … we knew fighting ignorance was a losing cause, and now we’ve lost … best we can do is agree to meet up again on another site and just put up with the ignorance, and the advertising …
Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC won’t sell? … that’s ignorant …
Yep, Tuba and I have already discussed the possibility of merchandising. It’s what I do, and I’m happy to give the Straight Dope the biggest discounts I can. I’m a '99er and this place means a lot to me, even though I don’t post that often.
My company has over 800,000 items to choose from. My supplier has been in business 124 years, we have over 4,000 factories at our disposal, and our quality is a lot better than Cafe Press.
Just say the word and I’ll hook us up with whatever merchandise we want, at the best possible price, and help get this place back on its feet. Cheers!
Certainly some of us can afford more and would be willing to pay more, if it means the site continues to operate. So how about optional higher levels of membership? (Like the way the universities have tiers of donors.)
Market the site. These days, you need some presence on Facebook and Twitter to attract new people.
Get rid of the toxic ads. Seriously, a friend pointed me here and I nearly ran away screaming, because I was afraid of malware.
Lots of sites have better-behaved ads. Ads that don’t eat up your phone screen, and that don’t open new windows, and…
But stop doing things that drive people away.
Sell merch. That’s how webcomics make money. This place can’t cost very much to run, and merch could go a long way to help. Ads that you design for your own stuff can be very well-behaved, and won’t scare anyone away.
Crowdfunding. Look at a possible deal with Patreon. Unlike “selling membership”, that’s whatever people want to give. Rather than only two price points (zero and $15/year) you have many, including “I’m feeling really generous right now!” You can give out small benefits for sustained mid-sized gifts, such as an avatar, or a bigger avatar, or a user description. (“sustaining donor”) Don’t guilt the people who don’t give, make the people who do give feel good about it.
Also this. It might not be for sale now, but it would be good to consider possible ways to exit if that becomes possible.
And, on the other end, maybe a cheaper level of membership than what we have now? Because…
Yet I notice you’re a “Guest” rather than a paying Member. That’s perfectly okay, and I’m not calling you out. But this reminded me of how we have lots of regular posters here who are Guests. I’m sure different people have different reasons why they choose not to pay for Member status, but I wonder if there are a significant number who either can’t afford, or don’t think it’s worth, the current fee, but would be willing and able to contribute a smaller amount.
Set up a handful of blogs for a select few, have the bloggers be the new SDSAB, to generate new link-worthy content. Tap into the creative talents of the Teeming Millions for a section that features short stories, poetry, essays, reviews, etc. Open it to submissions (but they’d still have to be vetted and edited). Find someone who could do a web comic for the SD. As I mentioned upthread, add a SDMB-focused podcast. Basically, could we remake the SD as a web magazine, and tap into the amazing talents of the TM to get it off the ground?
I know we’ve got good writers, designers, artists, etc here on the boards. A few years ago, I published a local arts & culture web magazine, complete with blogs, message board, submitted articles, etc., using the Bondwareplatform. It got good traffic, made a little scratch, but it was hyper-local and didn’t have 40+ years of name recognition built in. The SD could pull it off even better, I imagine.
Stop thinking about the Straight Dope as a subsidiary of whichever corporate entity owns us this week, with a character named Cecil Adams as our cornerstone, and start thinking about us as a must-read media empire in our own right. A Salon, Slate, Buzzfeed type of site, but smarter, and maybe with more focus on creative writing as well.
Offer a free tee shirt (as seen on tv nerd!) and a free membership for the most original and/or popular question (as determined by the mods) every week/month, as a promotion!
I know what you have is used here and there, and is a weird half-calque or something from the Yiddish word “putz” which many English speakers know means “dick,” and therefore came up with the “dick around” meaning.
Which is sort of like when the late NY Senator Amato called someone “a putzhead” trying to get all down and Jewishy with his voter blocs, but just made himself sound ridiculous.
But hey, language is as language does.
I gave up after the sad mistranslation and use in American speech of “schmooze” as a transitive.
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As I wrote, I suspected you did. But everything I wrote there still stands, and, FWIW, the vast majority, still, I’d wager, of people who ever let fly “your” or “my” version will find “yours” risible.
Just a few pre-coffee thoughts that aren’t intended to sound as bitchy as they probably do.
I’m another one who unsuccessfully tried to buy a gift subscription a month or so ago.
A software update is sorely needed. The board looks terribly out-of-date and even though I’m a member, I sometimes still get ads on mobile. I use a browser because I don’t like Tapatalk. It would also be so helpful to have an ignore thread function. Someone here wrote a script for that a while back and it worked, but it broke a long time ago.
What bothers me the most, however, is that there are a few posters that post juuust this side of trolling, and it’s tolerated.
I would contribute to a funding drive. It would also be nice to have a place to donate just for the heck of it. A Paypal address, link, and a “DONATE” button are all it would take. There have been several times when I’ve been so grateful for something I learned that I wanted to thank the board somehow, but there isn’t any way to do it. For example, when I bought a car there were quite a few members with very good advice that saved me a lot of money.
Fair enough. I don’t remember giving it much thought, but I think I figured since I’m more of a lurker there wasn’t much of a reason to pay up. Now that I know it would support a good cause (since at the time I wasn’t aware of any financial problems other than the usual), I’d be happy to become a Member again.
I’ll echo the posters who would like to see more SDSAB/Staff Report type of content. I’d suggest making that a focal point of the home page, with new content pretty often, maybe daily. Expand the number of members who are called on to produce content. Many of us have expertise we like to pontificate on. Many others are just great writers who can produce entertaining pieces. Some of us might like to write for the site if we can promote our personal businesses, etc., by linking to them in our posts. Original research, news, fact checking, whatever… a lot of us I think would like to generate content for a site that has a decent built in audience. Basically replace Cecil’s content with a bunch of content written by us.
I also like the idea of spinning the enterprise off as a non-profit, though I understand that may not be on the table. I think the future of news and other non-fiction content is probably non-profit in general. NPR, PBS, ProPublica, etc., are probably better able to produce high quality independent content than a profit driven company. Seek sponsors, maybe event grants. Have pledge drives or use Patreon. Admit that there’s no money in it and run it as a public service.
I also agree with those who say marketing on Twitter, etc., is important. Is the SDMB doing any marketing at all now?
Stop enabling trolls and toxic posters. Stop waiting until you have a bright line violation to deal with them. They drive posters off the board. Here is a quote from Ed Zotti:
This is ass backward. It gives comfort to toxic posters who know they have to stay juuust this side of the rules, and it encourages nitpicking rules lawyering, which most humans find insufferable. Use the “Don’t be a jerk” rule broadly, and without any further justification. You can have a few bright line rules–no socking, no altering quotes, no threats of bodily harm or legal action, no direct personal insults outside the pit–but “Don’t be a jerk” should be the main rule. I am perfectly fine with it being interpreted by moderator consensus, and I trust Tuba to pick mods who are reasonable.
The police analogy is terrible. Police and the state can take away your property, liberty and even your life. They must be held to a strict, pedantic set of rules. All the mods can do is ban you from a message board. They can be given much more leeway.
Tuba, I’ll echo Giraffe and say thanks for starting this thread. It’s really nice to see TPTB being open to new ideas and reaching out to members. There are some really good ideas in this thread.
