Adverts (was: Funny Linux animation)

[Travis Roy]

> On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, at 10:08pm, travis at scootz.net wrote:
> > I think the best way for a site to make money is to sell a real 
> > product. ... Slashdot is under the same umbrella company as 
> thinkgeek 
> > and they sell cool (but usually overpriced) stuff.
> 
>   Incredible.  You assert that the best way for a site to 
> generate revenue is to sell merchandise, but then complain 
> when said merchandise necessarily has a higher price.

Please, just because I support a site doesn't make me want to pay more
for a product then I have to. Why should I buy a DVD player from
ThinGeek when I can get the same exact DVD Player from another site for
sometimes 50% less. I've gotten t-shirts and a hat from ThinkGeek
because the price wasn't unreasonable and I couldn't get it anyplace
else.
 
>   Back in 2001, the cost of operating Slashdot was estimated 
> at roughly one million dollars per year.  Where, exactly, 
> should that money come from?  
> Hats and T-shirts?  You need to sell a lot of hats, or sell 
> them at a rather high mark-up, to generate one million in revenue.

They will get it more from T-Shirts and hats now adays then from banner
ads. With CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) around $2.50 when I was
working at Burst, with the site only getting half that think about it.
The mark up on T-Shirt from a site is probably $3-$5. If only one in
every 2000 people that visit your site buy just one t-shirt then you're
already making more then you can get from any ad network. Plus, think
about slashdot for an example. At least 50% of their ads if not more are
for other VA owned companies.
 
> > When banner/skyscraper/box/button ads are paying 0.0000003 per 
> > impression it's time to look for a better source of revenue.
> 
>   Indeed.  Which is one of the things I am trying to get at.  
> People seem to object to adverts.  Yet at the same time, they 
> complain when other forms of cost recovery are attempted.

Complain about what? The two most popular forms are to sell stuff and to
get subscription. I don't complain about about thinkgeek selling
products, I complain about how some of their products are overpriced.
That's a legit complaint about ANY business. Sure, I'll buy a Got Root?
Hat from thinkgeek because it's not 20-50% more then any other hat I've
seen, plus it's the only place that I know of that I can get that hat.
But I'm not going to buy a stupid PC window/light kit to mod my box from
them when I can get the same, sometimes better quality version of it
from somebody like 1coolpc.com.

The other form of getting money is subscriptions. It's worked well for
many sites, including k5. The reason it doesn't work for slashdot as
well is because they have way to many spelling errors, bogus stories,
and repeat stories. Other sites can't do it because they don't have
enough content.