On May 5, 10:44 am, "Mark T.B. Carroll" <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Prisoner at War <prisoner_at_...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
> >
> >
> > [solicitation of disinterested opinions about
http://buildit.sitesell.com/sunnyside.html]
> >
>
>
> At a glance they don't seem too bad (to my surprise). They're providing
> a small fraction of the total solution, though. It's like the people who
> were making XML middleware several years ago or the people building
> ontologies to help solve problems now: sure, they're doing something
> useful but, despite the suggestions of their promotional literature,
> they're not doing the largest nor hardest part.
>
> As I see it, the two hardest parts are:
>
> Content: What can you provide that isn't better-provided by someone
> else, through Web-2.0-style user submissions or otherwise? (Note that
> some answers here make sense in a B2B sense: for example, where does the
> machine-readable TV scheduling information come from to feed services
> like TiVo? Someone presumably did some deals somewhere but I don't know
> who or with whom.)
>
> Monetization: Despite the claim that this is the "easy" part,
Indeed, I'd rather doubted that! But these guys are MLM kind of folks
(even though the founder and president was a medical doctor!) and
perhaps they'll say that "easy" referred to the *concept* being
"easy"....
> there are
> extremely many sites I use that once they became more `commercial' I
> didn't use that part or I went elsewhere.
I find that most intriguing. Why did you leave? I can understand if
they became those silly Made-for-Adsense (MFA) sites, with a
tremendous content-to-advertising imbalance, but why did you leave, if
they were useful, simply on account of "commercialization"?? After
all, you still buy newspapers and magazines, even if only
occasionally, right?
SBI! actually counsels very strongly against premature monetization.
They recommend having at least 50 visitors a day, regularly, before
monetizing -- and still advise 100 or so to be "safe." They also
actually warn about a certain amount of loss of regular visitors due
to monetization, and chalk it up to the inevitable, but understandably
didn't give details on why people should leave a site they find useful
simply on account of some advertising. So please clarify that issue
for me. You still tune into the nightly news sometimes, right,
despite the commercial breaks, don't you?
> Everyone from dictionary.com
> to imdb.com I use the free part but not the commercial part. (IMDb's a
> good example: the free site makes money from advertising, but they also
> have things like IMDbPro; they pursue multiple monetization paths.)
> Don't underestimate the size of the step from free to paying.
I also use the free part of IMDB, but I've always assumed that people
in this day and age are fairly "ad-blind" and thus could at least
tolerate advertising. I'm really surprised that you even forgo
something like dictionary.com simply on account of it hosting ads! I
mean, they're not even the kind that fly across the screen or pop-up
(at least not with Firefox' pop-up blocker enabled by default) or hold
you captive (like on gamespot.com).
> I'm not saying that either of these are necessarily difficult.
Okay, I probably should wait for more responses to this thread, but
I'm really tempted to engage your ideas ASAP, so here's an opinion
from me: at least one of them will be "difficult" -- most likely
content-creation and, really, producing popular content. There's an
intriguing case of an SBI! site that's ranked 40,000 on alexa.com -- a
low-res metric, to be sure, but about as accurate as things can be I
think -- and it's nothing but photos of scantily-clad female
celebrities! (Moreover, I just doubt the guy pays any royalty
fees....) But short of stuff like that, or DIY computer repair/home
maintenance/etc., it's the most difficult aspect of the process,
deciding on something that a good-sized group of people are actually
googling!
> Indeed,
> SBI gives some good food for thought in outlining different basic ways
> that monetization can be achieved.
Yes, I'm thinking of sticking with this service just to see what I can
learn -- but what prompted this post was my feeling that I'm fast
approaching their technical limits...given how their data structures
are organized as a consequence of the kind of service they provide
("beyond webhosting," as they like to say), there are certain rather
standard (to this newbie's sensibility, anyway) website features which
are difficult with them if not outright prohibited, from not
sup****ting the .ani, .bmp, and .cur file formats to needing another
webhost altogether for site forums and blogs!
Their private forums are great for business and marketing ideas,
though...it's a rather "less academic" version of MEM! For example,
there's a NYC company that presses *and* drop-****ps copies of your
self-made DVDs for $2.00 each, with no minimum order -- in case you
want to sell a how-to video on your how-to site! So SBI! is a good
learning experience for me, but yeah, they're not exactly the Second
Coming of Sliced Bread!
> I just have a suspicion that what
> they're offering is fairly well-known common sense and that an awful lot
> (quite reasonably and honestly) still stands between you and success.
I share your suspicion that what they offer is common-sensical, but
I'm curiously what else you think would be involved...content is king,
but SEO is queen...and SBI! claims to handle the SEO part if you
follow their "formula"...which is common-sensical (and, according to
at least one SEOer I know, out of date -- namely, "keyword hooks" in
the content for search engines)...but it's a secret how they do the
SEO part, naturally enough, and they do have enough success stories to
make you wonder whether they really have something or whether it's
really common-sense and technical know-how....
> They're a nice catalyst for discussion though!
I hope others will also lend their insights, because I'm really
committed to an online non-hard-goods (save something like the
aforementioned self-produced DVD) business...low start-up costs and
easy accessibility (work from home -- or on the [day] job!)...but I'm
very tempted to do a second site on another webhost, just to compare
results, in terms of SEO, which is what SBI! claims to handle...you
see, having content is necessary, but not sufficient -- the search
engines have to find you and list you high enough that folks see you
with ten to thirty seconds of skimming the SERP! SBI! really offers
no help WRT content, despite their advertising, I now see, but I don't
know about the SEO part, their other claim to fame, as it were....
> Mark
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