Paying for NSC?

[Normal Rob]

I think we're ok for now - as others have pointed out - there's a few quid in the bank.

However, the current trend is....

- Revenue rising nicely.
- Costs (hosting fees) rising even quicker

...and this month we made a small loss. I will get the next hosting bill in a week or so and I think it will point to posting a bigger loss - maybe £100 or so - for November. This clearly represents an accelerating trend that I want to put a stop to ASAP.

There are a few things that will be done in the next week or so - upgrade vBulletin to the latest version and then implement a technical resource caching thingummy (memcached for those interested) which could help reduce resource usage. I'll analyse usage for a while and, if we're still racking up significant hosting bills I will look to change hosts once again for something cheaper. As ever, getting the performance/cost balance right is proving difficult.

Agree with the point - though surely with christmas approaching this is a great time for driving revenue via the Amazon link. Might be a good idea to really drive the message home of using the link on NSC.

edit - just seen the sticky - still no harm in keeping it at the forefront of people minds though. We know (and i've just proved) that many stickies are overlooked.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

I think we're ok for now - as others have pointed out - there's a few quid in the bank.

However, the current trend is....

- Revenue rising nicely.
- Costs (hosting fees) rising even quicker

...and this month we made a small loss. I will get the next hosting bill in a week or so and I think it will point to posting a bigger loss - maybe £100 or so - for November. This clearly represents an accelerating trend that I want to put a stop to ASAP.

There are a few things that will be done in the next week or so - upgrade vBulletin to the latest version and then implement a technical resource caching thingummy (memcached for those interested) which could help reduce resource usage. I'll analyse usage for a while and, if we're still racking up significant hosting bills I will look to change hosts once again for something cheaper. As ever, getting the performance/cost balance right is proving difficult.

I heard the latest version of V-Bulletin wasn't very good?

AVForums newsletter

 

[Giraffe]

It would be a sad day I suspect if we had to subsribe. The main thing would be you would lose the one off visits from passing supporters, and before long it would just become the same old posters.

I think a donations button would be a good idea and an interesting addition for Albion related good causes, although clearly NSC raises quite a lot of money for REMF etc.

 

[jcdenton08]

If we donated, then got banned for starting binfests, would we get refunded?

 

[Bozza]

Agree with the point - though surely with christmas approaching this is a great time for driving revenue via the Amazon link. Might be a good idea to really drive the message home of using the link on NSC.

edit - just seen the sticky - still no harm in keeping it at the forefront of people minds though. We know (and i've just proved) that many stickies are overlooked.

Indeed - I might send one of those oh-so-rare all user emails.

If it comes to it, I'll also make more of a thing of the numerous other affiliate opportunities that are available.

 

[Bozza]

Regardless, I could never see a day where pay-to-view is compulsory. We'd first look at a freemium model whereby anyone gets access as they do now, but those who donate, say, £10 a year get extra stuff that could include, off the top of my head....

- an NSC email address
- bigger PM capacity
- ability to attach images (as opposed to just linking to them)
- signature (or enhanced signatures)
- avatars (or enhanced avatars - bigger/animated etc)
- enhanced search

etc etc

 

[brulee]

donate button sounds good, but just make sure its easy to give money. were not all techies

 

[Springal]

Bozza, happy to look at costs with you, have a number of clients as large hosting firms and data centre operators, if you want can do this, just need to know what you're getting for your ££ at the moment

 

[Rambo]

i would happily pay 40p per day for nsc

£146 per year sounds a bit steep?

 

[Bozza]

Bozza, happy to look at costs with you, have a number of clients as large hosting firms and data centre operators, if you want can do this, just need to know what you're getting for your ££ at the moment

We're with Rackspace at the moment - Cloud Sites - Cloud Hosting with the Power of Cloud Computing - so no spec - just lots of power on demand. At a cost!

 

[Vankleek Hill Seagull]

What about a two tier model?

Members can pay an annual fee and don't have to put up with adverts and get extras like private forums, etc, but still include the Amazon link for shopping etc.
Subscribers who don't pay an annual fee and guests get all the adverts and no special stuff.

 

[Springal]

Got a customer that is a direct competitor to Rackspace in that aspect, all their own technology/system so not white labelled (they actually license the system out, to people like IBM/HP etc.) If you want a look around pm me, and if you want can introduce you

 

[fataddick]

Why not sell smileys? I can't see the point of things, but some people can't get enough of them and can barely post without attaching a dozen of them in a row. You could sell them really cheap (say, 50 for a quid) and make well enough to cover the shortfall. *nods*

 

[Giraffe]

Why not sell smileys? I can't see the point of things, but some people can't get enough of them and can barely post without attaching a dozen of them in a row. You could sell them really cheap (say, 50 for a quid) and make well enough to cover the shortfall. *nods*

4-0 4-0 4-0

Don't know what you're talking about.

 

[HAILSHAM SEAGULL]

All the time you get idiots like Jamie and Tim posting their party pieces, then a yearly donation would be in order.
Reading some of these threads and the hilarious replies are priceless

 

[crodonilson]

To be fair I get oodles of fun and enjoyment out of using this site so I would be happy to pay if it was subscription only.

 

[Bad Ash]

It might be worth putting an ad or two above the "Quick reply box", as posters who post a lot will probabaly see that part of the forum more than any other.

The Amazon link is pretty un-obtrusive, is there any other similar ones you could add, maybe play.com?

 

[Bozza]

It might be worth putting an ad or two above the "Quick reply box", as posters who post a lot will probabaly see that part of the forum more than any other.

There are small text ads there right now. I put them there a month or two back but they're performing pretty poorly so it is on my 'to do' list to look at changing them.

The Amazon link is pretty un-obtrusive, is there any other similar ones you could add, maybe play.com?

There are plenty of other affiliates, but none pay as well as Amazon where we get c6.5% (up to a max of £7 per item purchased) of every sale. Other affiliates pay a lot, lot less - generally 1-2%. This presents a small problem in that if someone is thinking "I must shop via NSC" and they have a choice of Play or Amazon, if they choose Play then NSC can lose out a fair bit. For that reason I took the decision to champion Amazon only and it's been pretty successful.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

If the Albion could start being a bit shitter again that would help too, as a lot of people would sod off again.

****post of the 2020/11 season so far****
How about a £3 donation via paypal every year which somehow would be highlighted in the username that we're a contributor ?

 

[Cian]

****post of the 2020/11 season so far****
How about a £3 donation via paypal every year which somehow would be highlighted in the username that we're a contributor ?

There's countless addon modules designed to add icons to user boxes for donators or paying members on vBulletin forums

I would also be willing to fire a few quid in to a paypal every now and then.