SCPrepTalk

BearcatinOk/COWN wrote:By the time I got activated and logged in I forgot what I wasn gonna post.......lol......looking good SF

You can try to blame that on the webpage, but it is just OLD AGE!

Yeah....but it took an OLD GOAT like you to catch it....lol

Administrator wrote:Welcome to SCPreptalk, a forum for high sports fans created by a high school sports fan and parent that is frustrated by the frequent pop-up ads and daily surveys at Palmetto Football Talk.

I have never used forum software before and I'm still figuring things out. At least for now I am this forum's sole Owner, Administrator and Moderator. Since I have yet to post any rules or posting guidelines, please just use common sense. You have to follow Forumatic's terms-of-service which you agreed to when you registered, you have to obey all laws. (No slander, no posting of material that is Copyrighted.) Bashing or insulting kids will not be tolerated. Personal attacks are not allowed, unless the target is a fan of a school in 4A region 2.

I have setup this forum using free webspace from Forumatic using open-source phpBB software. Any advertising you see may see is Forumatic's, not mine. Those ads allow them to provide the service at no charge. If this forum becomes popular I will have to upgrade to a paid service-plan and I may consider placing advertising to offset those costs.

Welcome!
SF Band dad
Administrator

If this site gets up and going good with a lot of members and it's necessary to go higher than the free version, A small user fee would probably be accepted by most.

jhs65 wrote:If this site gets up and going good with a lot of members and it's necessary to go higher than the free version, A small user fee would probably be accepted by most.

If we have to upgrade I'll first try to cover the costs with some google ads in the sidebar and at the bottom of the page. Maybe setup a paypal account and add a tip-jar to the home page. No worries.

SF Band dad wrote:

jhs65 wrote:If this site gets up and going good with a lot of members and it's necessary to go higher than the free version, A small user fee would probably be accepted by most.

If we have to upgrade I'll first try to cover the costs with some google ads in the sidebar and at the bottom of the page. Maybe setup a paypal account and add a tip-jar to the home page. No worries.

I would have no problem with that. The other site isn't trying to make it. They're trying to make a killing.

cavaliereagle wrote:

SF Band dad wrote:

jhs65 wrote:If this site gets up and going good with a lot of members and it's necessary to go higher than the free version, A small user fee would probably be accepted by most.

If we have to upgrade I'll first try to cover the costs with some google ads in the sidebar and at the bottom of the page. Maybe setup a paypal account and add a tip-jar to the home page. No worries.

I would have no problem with that. The other site isn't trying to make it. They're trying to make a killing.

They have a lot of costs and overhead that they are trying to cover, and I strongly suspect they are not being successful at it. They are pushing the envelope to see how much revenue they can squeeze out of their digital offerings. I imagine they will continue ratcheting it up until they see revenues fall, then they'll know they went too far and will back-off.

Their original product (printed newspapers and advertising) is being made obsolete by technology. They are trying to adjust their model to deliver by internet but they are finding that people are not willing to pay the same subscription and advertising rates as they did when "the paper" had a virtual monopoly on the delivery of information. There are too many competitors on the internet, most providing the information for free. We no longer need to get a paper to find out what happened at last night's city council meeting or to get the box scores of yesterday's games. We no longer buy ads in the classified section if we have something to sell or need a new employee. Local businesses no longer buy a full page ad in the Sunday paper to announce their big sale, they buy a google ad that is targeted to show up in people's browser based on their location and any number of other demographic measures they have been able to gleen.

Their subscription numbers and advertising rates continue to decline. I suspect we are witnessing the death-rattle of the Newspaper business. Most of the workers will move on to other industries, the remaining "journalists" will end-up creating and aggregating content for delivery by TV, radio and internet.

Can you imagine how many "ad clicks" they have to get to pay for even a single employee? In contrast, I would just be trying to cover the web-hosting costs of $10 a month. I think that would require 100 to 200 ad-clicks. I'm thinking that wouldn't be a very high hurdle if the forum is getting over 30,000 page views a month. (30K is the max we get for free.) I might find that a single banner ad at the bottom of the page does the job.

SF Band dad wrote:

cavaliereagle wrote:

SF Band dad wrote:

jhs65 wrote:If this site gets up and going good with a lot of members and it's necessary to go higher than the free version, A small user fee would probably be accepted by most.

If we have to upgrade I'll first try to cover the costs with some google ads in the sidebar and at the bottom of the page. Maybe setup a paypal account and add a tip-jar to the home page. No worries.

I would have no problem with that. The other site isn't trying to make it. They're trying to make a killing.

They have a lot of costs and overhead that they are trying to cover, and I strongly suspect they are not being successful at it. They are pushing the envelope to see how much revenue they can squeeze out of their digital offerings. I imagine they will continue ratcheting it up until they see revenues fall, then they'll know they went too far and will back-off.

Their original product (printed newspapers and advertising) is being made obsolete by technology. They are trying to adjust their model to deliver by internet but they are finding that people are not willing to pay the same subscription and advertising rates as they did when "the paper" had a virtual monopoly on the delivery of information. There are too many competitors on the internet, most providing the information for free. We no longer need to get a paper to find out what happened at last night's city council meeting or to get the box scores of yesterday's games. We no longer buy ads in the classified section if we have something to sell or need a new employee. Local businesses no longer buy a full page ad in the Sunday paper to announce their big sale, they buy a google ad that is targeted to show up in people's browser based on their location and any number of other demographic measures they have been able to gleen.

Their subscription numbers and advertising rates continue to decline. I suspect we are witnessing the death-rattle of the Newspaper business. Most of the workers will move on to other industries, the remaining "journalists" will end-up creating and aggregating content for delivery by TV, radio and internet.

Can you imagine how many "ad clicks" they have to get to pay for even a single employee? In contrast, I would just be trying to cover the web-hosting costs of $10 a month. I think that would require 100 to 200 ad-clicks. I'm thinking that wouldn't be a very high hurdle if the forum is getting over 30,000 page views a month. (30K is the max we get for free.) I might find that a single banner ad at the bottom of the page does the job.

The surveys were what bothered me.

cavaliereagle wrote:The surveys were what bothered me.

They are what pushed me over the edge, but the pop-up ads that cover-up the whole screen or jump out into the content are pretty annoying too.

I particularly dislike those video ads with sound that some websites have, that's a quick way to get me to leave a webpage.

SF Band dad wrote:

cavaliereagle wrote:The surveys were what bothered me.

They are what pushed me over the edge, but the pop-up ads that cover-up the whole screen or jump out into the content are pretty annoying too.

I particularly dislike those video ads with sound that some websites have, that's a quick way to get me to leave a webpage.

Yahoo is getting bad about that as well.

30,000 page-views sounds like a lot, but it's about 1000 per day. At our current rate of growth we'll be upgrading our hosting plan in March.