PanoTools:
Membership
Rick Drew 2005-Mar-12 23:05:09
I'm hoping to financially profit from the group in the future - right now
it's "educationally profitable" and priceless for the information provided.
The downside is that I have not had a paycheck for 16 months (I don't
qualify for unemployment, etc.), and have been living off my savings.
Basically I'm putting my hopes in getting my business back off the ground (I
let it go to take care of my mother who was terminally ill with cancer.)
Would $25 kill me? No. But consider this - I cancelled my phone to save
that $45 bill! I keep my house at 49 degrees so the gas bill stays under
$75. That's why I'm spending time in the WIKI, doing what I can there. You
can track changes/edits - can you track time? Perhaps doing a trade-off...
Donate $$$ or spend xxx hours community service in the WIKI. Right now I
have more time than money. Hopefully I'll be back in business, making a
decent income again - soon. At that time I would be more than willing to
donate $$$. Right now the best I can do is time.
I can't think of a single person that ever made money running an e-mail list
or community site. I managed a CompuServe forum for around 8 years (until
AOL gobbled them up) - I was paid a percentage of online time - about $1500
per month. It took 15-25 hours a week to maintain. That was OK pay, and
all members already paid an hourly fee to CIS. That was a for-profit
business from the start, and took almost a year of proposals and 5 meetings
in Ohio to get started.
I have also managed numerous e-mail groups, each with over 1,000 members.
That took about 1-10 hours per week, per group. I was paid -0- for that,
but I knew that going into it. Same thing for a couple of other sites I did
- I managed them because I enjoyed it, enjoyed "meeting" the people, etc. I
eventually added Amazon links and used book sales to the site to supplement
my time.
You'll find that (as far as I have seen) 99% of groups that are "for-profit"
don't make it past the first year. When you ask $25 per member to use the
list, I think you'll be out of business soon.
Why not do something similar to other sites and lists - add links to Amazon,
and join some of the Pano software affiliate programs? Most of them have
one. I can't see anyone objecting to that. I can also see creating a "Pano
Photographer Yellow Pages" - charge $xx per year to be listed. Sponser a
couple of contests - $5 per entry. Prizes can be software that I'm sure you
can get donated to you from the publishers. I think if you pick up a fund
raising book for clubs, you'll find some ideas.
Just some comments and suggestions
Rick
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