"How do I start getting sponsors to my site?"

I could join an ad program but my previous experience has left me kinda bitter. ($2.50 for 1000 impressions) Might as well find a bridge to live under. :<

Okay.
A bit of info on my site:
It's at
It generates 100-150 ppl per day
It's related to topics such as flirting and dating.

What I want to have is sponsors from related types of sites, say, a matchmaking service or something.

1)How do I start asking them for sponsorship?
2)How much do I charge?
3)Should I bother using a rotation cgi/perl script?
4)Some networks offer services to track the number of click thrus my advertiser gets and I pay them a commisiion. Is it worth it?
4)How much do I charge for text banners?

P.S
If you know of a site which answers these questions, I would be happy if you could direct me to them.

yours faithfully,
afian

My site is for new and expecting parents and the newsgroups are full of loyal posters on every parenting topic known to man, so I know there are plenty of people who want to talk. But I'm also wise enough to know that new and expecting parents are probably going on the Web just as often to get away from all that as they are to talk about it.

So I've relaunched my board with an "Open Forum", created a couple of fun areas, turned off registration (for the time being), answered the odd post as it's come, posted myself, attempted to make it more 'homey', and announced it to other communities/news groups.

Once the Open Forum takes off (I hope), I was thinking about creating a "Lifestyles" area where folks can talk about movies, life, relationships, home -- everyday topics -- and not just parenting and kids.

Anybody have any ideas, criticisms? I want to keep the number of forums down to a bare minimum and expand them as things develop. (A piece of good advice I'm happy to follow from someone else. I'm sorry. I don't remember who at the moment.)

Any takers? You're my heros. www.babygiftset.com/forums

Now, I gotta go debug this *&@#! script, so I'll check back in a bit. I also have a Feedback forum; feel free to use it!

I've noticed one or two references to forum members selling e-mail lists. I'd like to consider this. How much can you expect, say, per 1000 (is that how it works)? Any specific recommended buyers.

At present we do not take authorisation from mailing-list members to pass on their identity so it'd be out of the question unless we changed that, but I'm curious...

quote:

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Originally posted by rcjordan:
MM,
I'm VERY interested in your bulletin board comment. (This may not be the proper thread, so another one might be started if anyone else expresses an interest.) I've recently been asked to bring a site to market http://gethighforums.com/Forum19/HTML/000044.html This site's posting community seems to love those old WWWBoard style programs, which I cannot understand. Personally, I like UBB. Back some months ago, the site owner moved up from WWWboard to Discus, which seemed like a mid-point between WWWboard and UBB. The users hated it, but have come back. I'm still inclined to believe that UBB is ultimately the way to go, but I can't argue with the users. Is that why you have chosen to write your own?

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My users hate the UBB format. Especially where long threads are concerned (and on our Tolkien/Inklings forum, long threads are the norm). I, personally, like some of the UBB-style features but hate other aspects of it (such as the fact you cannot simply look at the latest messages in the a thread, but must read them all, over and over again).

I also cannot afford, at this time, to invest in commercial scripts. None of the freebie scripts I've looked at will serve my needs. And I looked at Discus, too, and decided it wasn't for me. I tried to set up a test site with Phorums and found it was so much trouble to work with it just wasn't worth the effort. On top of that, it won't clear the database of test tables, and I got tired of leaving garbage in the database.

My new message board system will have flaws and limitations. I simply don't have time to write the World's Greatest Message Board system. What I'm sacrificing are mostly bells and whistles which are superfluous (mostly all the funky graphics people like to throw in).

I'm not going to use a database, either. At least not in the first version, though I will allow people to register if they want to edit or delete their own messages. Anyone will still be able to post as in the old WWWBoard-style forums we currently use.

There will be a very hierarchical structure to the forums. There will be a top-level index such as you have for UBB-style systems, but each forum will also have its own index page. The forum index pages will list only threads, and each thread will have its own index page in a dedicated thread directory. All messages will be stored as independent files (people who wish to will be able to read the messages by loading them directly into their browsers).

However, people will have the option of browsing the threads in UBB style (up to 25 messages per page) or in WWWBoard style (1 message at a time, clicking on links to move from message to message).

People will be able to reply directly to existing messages or to simply add a comment to the end of the thread.

The index pages for the top-level page, the forum index pages, and the thread index pages will be customizable. I'll have header and footer files for them. The secure information will be stored in a directory outside of the HTML tree, so people won't be able to look at the files through their browsers.

I'll have an admin interface that will let us archive individual threads simply and efficiently, that will let us block screen names and IP addresses, and that will let us add, delete, enable, or disable forums.

I think this design will work for both WWWBoard and UBB advocates. They may miss the other systems, but I think they will be satisfied with this new format. I may also add file libraries to the forums, and perhaps a couple of other features that will make them more interesting. One feature I've been asked for more than once is the ability to let people post essays.

Now, anyone could just email me an essay and I could create a Web page and upload it, but I cannot handle any kind of volume, and linking it to a forum would be a hassle. By allowing people to attach their own content to the forums (while providing for an administrative function to edit or remove undesirable content) I think the forums will become a more interesting place and draw more surfers.

UBB, unfortunately, just doesn't address the real needs of a user community. It's a discussion tool that keeps piling discussion on top of discussion without regard for how much load time and bandwidth is being eaten up. That turns people off, and my communities have gotten used to fast-loading forum pages. It's just become a real hassle, as those communities gain discussion, to trim the older messages off the boards.

So, this way, I hope to have the best of both worlds. People who want to read only new discussion will be able to do so, and people who want to see the entire thread will be able to do so, and when I need to create an archive I'll be able to do so without spending half a day on the project.

And then I'll be able to add other features that simply haven't occurred to the commercial script writers.

If people like my new forums, I'll make the scripts available for free to anyone who wants to use them, although I don't believe they'll be suitable for large commercial sites with thousands of visitors. I don't think the registration would work well in that kind of environment.

It would help if Perl could update the middle part of a file, but it won't let you do that, so far as I know.

[This message has been edited by Michael_Martinez (edited 05-14-2000).]

This was slightly different, however; as it required you to also cc an email address from a real cell phone company. It turned out that this was fraud as well, since the company did not initiate these email messages.

However, what if the free cell phone came and the user could only buy the service from that company(and it was an official deal). Now that would be a promotion if it worked.

Has anybody ever attempted this type of thing? What type of results did you have if so? What types of problems might you forsee if not?

Applicable Material - "Will the site have material that is interesting, etc., to MY target market"

Hit Rates - "The more unique page views the site has, the more likely I will purchase banner space"

Click Thru's - "The click thru rate must be above 1.5%. Anything less and I could just mass mail (smail not spam) my target audience and get a better return on my $$$."

Ease of Use - "If detailed statistics are not available online (or via automated email) then I won't use the site at all."

Take these things into account when you design your ad selling program. Think how your customer (advertiser) thinks and see what makes sense for both the advertiser, and your web visitors.

Honestly, with only 150-200 unique page views per day, it's not gonna be easy. Most sites I advertise with do that in less than an hour.

scottm

You make a good point about UBB forcing you to load the entire thread.... I have a habit of CTRL+END when I go in, but I still hate opening a thread that goes to 100k.

From what I gather, most boards end up needing heavy control available to moderators and an admins --locking threads, editing posts, etc. Also, admins always comment (as you have done) that an easy way to delete old threads --particularly in popular boards where the size might get to cost something-- is a must. Another have-to-have cited is the IP logging, this reminds users that nothing is really private when the lawyers come knocking.

I like what you've laid out, ESPECIALLY the "add essay" feature. Let me add a small incentive.... you get it up and running on your site as you've described --with and index & essays-- and I'll buy a copy for $200. I figure you'll be making 50 cents/hr.

[This message has been edited by rcjordan (edited 05-14-2000).]

I suppose someone might think that they recieved such an email as spam even if it came from one of their friends. Some people are really anti-spam fanatics and think everything is spam and might imagine that somehow you forged their friends email address or something - get the idea.

You would need to be very careful about setting a plan like that in motion.

I've worked with a number of different forum formats, including Matt's original WWWBoard and, of course, Ted's UBB. All are good for different purposes and people. And, of course, all require different compromises. I don't think there is a perfect format, nor do I even believe one is possible.

My current system is based on the UBB, and we'll be celebrating our first anniversary this month. I suspect few at Infopop would even recognize the code. I've stripped away all the parts I know I'll never use in order to increase the speed, and added features few others would ever need. To be honest, I'm not sure I would select the UBB if I had it to do over again. I chose it because it's the most popular forum software on the Internet and, as a result, a LOT of people already know how to use it. I thought having pre-trained users was a large benefit. Not incidentally, Jim's boards here were a prime factor in the decision, if only because I'd already been posting at VP for over a year when I first made the decision. Like you, there were a few things about the UBB I didn't like. Unlike you, however, I needed an immediate solution and didn't have the time to write a system from scratch. Customization seemed the obvious answer.

When I moved from a threaded forum to the UBB's linear format, I only had about a hundred users, but it was still a battle to convert them. It was so very different to them. Within a few weeks, though, most admitted they couldn't imagine going back. One compared WWWBoard to his old WordStar days.

Interestingly, almost a year later, I'm now facing the same battle again. When we converted, you see, I switched the forums to my main domain and we effectively just abandoned the old system. Somehow, that old system got picked up by a few search engines and, just a few weeks ago, I discovered it was in fairly heavy use. So I have another large batch of users complaining, now, because they don't want to lose the "simplicity" they had grown to love. Sigh…

If it wouldn't be too presumptive, Michael, I'd like to offer a word of caution based on my own experiences in programming BBS software. I know you don't think it necessary right now, but I strongly encourage you to base your new system on a database, rather than text files. I know you have a lot of programming experience, so I suspect what I'm going to say won't really come as new knowledge, but might serve as a reminder. I spend some little time over at the UBB forums, and I constantly hear people encouraging Infopop to go to a relational database because they perceive it as faster. A RDBMS certainly offers considerably more power, but you and I both know that kind of power always comes with a price in speed. The system is working a lot harder in a relational system and there is much more disk activity for even the simplest requests. A RDBMS is substantially slower than straight text files - until you get a whole lot of straight text files. Unfortunately, on a Unix-type system "a whole lot" of files isn't a very big number. Because of the linked-list structure of a directory, Unix starts slowing down after only 512 files (or directories). If you put every message of every thread in its own file, even a moderately busy board is going to be slow. If you're going to invest all that time to build your own system, you might as well make it one you can grow into. IMHO, of course…

(p.s. - Perl will let you update the middle of a file. The trick is finding the middle of the file. That effectively means fixed-length records or a fairly complex indexing system. The latter often slows down access enough to negate the benfits and the former obviously doesn't work well with a BBS type application.)

1) There's no (easy) way to give out a phone and only make it work with service from one particular company. You'd have a build a wireless network that didn't use one of the standard protocols and give out a phone that only worked with that protocol. Otherwise they'd be able to take the phone to their local AT&T or Sprint or Cingular store and get service there. There are only a couple standards out there.

2) It's illegal to run a contest where the winner needs to buy something to claim their prize. You could probably get around that (McD's is always giving out those buy one get one coupons) but you'd have to be careful how you structure it.

yours faithfully,
afian

So I started to look around for a new BBS. I tried looking around at some of the alternatives (iforums, phorum, w-agora, wwwthreads, ACS etc.) but found that they either didn't provide for the level of customization that I required, cost too much, or their source was too confusing for me to alter. I decided to take a look at webmonkey's bbs tutorial ( http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/99/31/index3a.html?tw=programming ) and write my own BBS.

My design contsraints:

# I was moving all my users from UBB - that meant I needed to have an interface consistent with UBB (flat view) and be able to import all the old posts from the UBB file system.

# I wanted to be able to query posts from other parts of the site - the easiest (and most sensible) way to do this would be to store the posts in a DBMS (btw, I use php & mysql).

# Many of my users are on low-bandwith connections - I needed a threaded view, which would allow them to view posts without fear of a 100k file being shoved down their phone line.

# I wanted a way for users to rank other users' posts (poor man's /. moderation) - as such, I would also need a ranked view.

# I wasn't too concerned with advanced moderation features - the more moderation features there are, the more my moderators have to work. I stuck with three - edit post, suspend post, and suspend user. ("suspend" - the posts are made inaccessible to the users but still held in the database).

# I wasn't too concerned with persistence of url's - my users weren't posting valuable information. When old posts were cleaned (deleted) from the database down the line they would simply disappear. Likewise, indexing by search engines is not important at this time.

Anyway, it didn't take too long to put it together (about 10 days - it's be much less if I didn't have a day job). I ended up with a BBS with a flat view, a threaded view, a ranked view, email notification (opt-in - sent to all posters on the thread, not just the first), new post lightbulbs, censoring, super-smileys, ip logging and all of the basic bbs features.

When I imported the old posts from the UBB into my new BBS, the disk footprint was reduced from 60 MB to 6 MB. The access time for the bbs increased by at least an order of magnitude. More importanly, I know the code upside-down and inside-out so I can add new features at any time. Creating an article-comment system would be simple with the existing code (just use the threaded view). I haven't written in a search option yet, but since it's all stored in a DBMS, it's basically built into the system - just something I have to hack in on a rainy day.

You can check out the bbs index of one of my bbs's at http://ekilat.com/go-sip/browse.php3 - it's not in english, but the basic navigation is similar to the UBB so you should be able to get the hang of it.

Considering friend spamming...this is about the same level as the 'refer a friend' scripts running on many web sites. It may be perceived as spam by some, but I would imagine it would be quite legal assumming your initial seed contacts had agreed to receive messages from you.

My site currently does around 50-60,000 page impressions a month- has a very defined 'readership' but anyone i've spoken to decides no.

I'm tried targetting specific companies / organisations but to no avail.

Its not as if I'm looking for all that much - just to cover the expenses of the site woould be a start.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you have done any surveys of your users to see what features they like and don't like to determine which features you should include? I know Michael has a huge user base, and I'd be curious what they actually have to say about it. Does the "average Joe" even notice the same kinds of things we do?

Could it be that your pricing isn't right?

How is placement on the pages?

Are you using a good banner rotation system that gives statistics (like bbmat, webadvert, or similar)?

If you want, email me your url and I'll look your site over and give you an opinion (for what that's worth).

(Remember, I do not run a board myself, I'm in a 'management' position on a site that has one) I was just discussing this with the admin of the site. He says his users are now OK with Discus, but that he does need the comercial script ($150 I think) to minimize the maintenance burden.

quote:

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Originally posted by rcjordan:
I wasn't so much interested in your end product as I am the reasoning behind why you decided to 'roll your own.' As I suspected, your users had much the same needs/likes/dislikes as enlisted.com's.

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You misunderstand (or, more likely, I misstated). The end-product is equally the reason I want to do my own. Yes, the users' desires are important, but so are mine. You can't do this stuff with what's currently available.

quote:

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From what I gather, most boards end up needing heavy control available to moderators and an admins --locking threads, editing posts, etc. Also, admins always comment (as you have done) that an easy way to delete old threads --particularly in popular boards where the size might get to cost something-- is a must. Another have-to-have cited is the IP logging, this reminds users that nothing is really private when the lawyers come knocking.

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Yeah. The IP logging may discourage spammers. Certainly putting up in big bold letters a warning such as BEFORE YOU POST THAT MAKE MONEY FAST SCAM doesn't discourage them from slightly altering the subject line to saying something like, "This is not a scam!"

quote:

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I like what you've laid out, ESPECIALLY the "add essay" feature. Let me add a small incentive.... you get it up and running on your site as you've described --with and index & essays-- and I'll buy a copy for $200. I figure you'll be making 50 cents/hr.

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If I sell it to you I should sell it to everyone.

However, since I'm not equipped to actually sell stuff (and don't wish to get into being responsible for sales tax), I'll make the scripts available for free. That will also help me avoid too many obligations, such as upgrading on demand. Once I get the scripts to where I like them, I'll want to just put them aside and not deal with the coding again for a long, long time.

And that's another problem with buying or subscribing to upgraded software (to try and stay on topic). I don't want to HAVE to upgrade. I mean, if I'm going to use software someone else supports, I want support until I stop using it. I'll stop using it when it stops meeting my needs, or when it's no longer compatible with my operating environment.

On the other hand, upgrades almost always brutally destroy the simple functionality of good software. Too many useless bells and whistles are added to perfectly good programs these days. In my opinion.