What can we do to keep the boards up?

[maddman75]

I personally like the idea of paying for a custom title. Its a great idea, and a lot of people will go for it. Sure, they'll think they are elite, but they think that anyway. Next thing you know they'll start up a whole other message board to be smug on.

Paying for search is a great idea - I would LOVE to be able to do that.

Next time I do an update, I'll add the Support ENWorld banners to BADD. I've been meaning to do it anyway, this subject just reminded me.

Maybe a cafepress.com store - I'm sure that some people would love an ENWorld coffee mug or t-shirt. And remember the cost in setting that up - $0.

 

[Horacio]

There is already a cafepress store for EN World, or at least there was, because I think Morrus closed it because nobody bought anything...

I'd really love a EN World t-shirt and mug, but the shipping cost of cafepress to Europe are huge!

 

[Morrus]

For what it's worth, I've added the cafepress store to my sig. The only cheque I ever got from them, though was for less than the amount it would have cost me to cash the cheque (since it's in a foreign currency).

 

[xmanii]

Have I heard the magic word Search? I'd sell my car to afford Search?

Seriously that is definitely a neat idea. I'm sure people would continue to donate for it. It wouldn't be a gamble anymore.

Well, I wouldn't sell my car for it , I would pay for this feature, even as little as I use it.

 

[Vuron]

Without clear numbers as to bandwidth needs I think that it's going to be hard to beat CI Host on price, they are pretty much bottom of the barrel IMHO

So assuming that it's unlikely that someone with a private T3 would allow us to colocate for free I think I make sense to view it from the following perspective, ENWorld must either decrease costs or increase revenues.

I've noticed from other big messageboards experiences that voluntary donations and/or advanced features do not really bring in much dinero. As a result I think that any usage fees should be levied across the board if they are levied at all. Normally when you create a user fee this also decreases the number of gimpy users simultaneously reducing bandwidth costs and increasing revenues.

A corrolary to this would be keeping one or two forums open to the public and making the rest for paying customers only. This is also a valid strategy but as we don't host alot of pron here I don't know if it will reduce usage too much

Honestly I think increased add revenue is a pipe dream unless there is really more money lining publishers pockets than I think Anyway unless WW or WotC want to cough up some change in return for not having to waste time running thier own message boards (for WotC I do think this might be a good idea) I don't see them sending moruss money out of the bottom of the hearts.

I guess if I were run ning the show I'd seriously look at decreasing costs because bandwidth ain't cheap my friends.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I've noticed that the ad prices for ENworld seem to me extremely low. I checked an advertising webpage that had a survey of websites with prices per CPM (1,000 views). Most were in the $20 range. ENWorld is at one third that, and the message boards are nto charged at even that rate, instead they have a flat rate - I'm not sure why.

Seeing that the ads are sold out till Feb 03 tells me that the prices are too low. Double them, or triple them, I say. Try selling to companies like NewLine (LoTR), or Sony (Playstation), or Microsoft (XBox) rather than Mongoose. That's where the money is. Sell ads to Wizards.

If you must, offer this deal to existing ad customers. Double the length of the ad buy in exchange for freeing up 50% of all banner ads right now. Sell the newly available ads for the new, higher prices, after researching seriously what a truly fair price is. Consider hiring a company to do this for you. L90.com does the ads for Aint-it-cool-news.com. Call up someone like that and investigate the options. You'll learn a lot, and maybe they can help take that part off your plate.

In lieu of that, I like the pledge drive idea. Consider setting up an way of doing online credit card donations. This will help. Do it like a real PBS thing; try to get donations form the big companies including Wizards. Swallow a little pride if need be, don't give up any control, but allow yourself the room to succeed.

I'm no advertising whiz, but I have worked in areas connected to the advertising biz, and I think there is a lot of potential here from an ad point of view.