Quote:
Originally Posted by Blas
Being totally ignorant of the costs to operate a site like this, can someone put some numbers to the discussion? How many companies Advertising are needed to make the site self- sufficient? What does software cost on average? Someone mentioned “spiders” to convert information already in the archives. Web- hosting? Etc....
Blas
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Finding advertisers to be here is going to be difficult. For example, right now there is a "Gas-n" ad sitting on the top banner. How many of you have ever or ever will buy something from them? (not picking on them it's just the one that's here) Advertising on a forum requires that there be many visitors over long periods of time. This is a captive audience. Advertisers target their audience but the audience here is captive and static. And decreasing.
This place is similar to the worst of the Bar Rescue places. Before agreeing to anything get the books. Think about what it will take given your current clientele to turn that profitable. It starts with the fixed costs of bring it up to standards and then how much time, effort and cost to keep it running and expanding your audience.
I'm not trying to talk someone out of doing something, but I am trying to prepare you for the fact that the reality of the situation is that someone will pump a lot of money and time into this and in a year we'll be having exactly the same discussion.