Posted by Jason on February 23rd, 2006 — in Forums
I recently received this comment in my reputation box and although it was a bit tongue in cheek, it is actually a comment I have seen quite often, many times 
not kidding. It comes in many varieties from saying I should be spending this time on link requests or to the other extreme of just calling me a loser for posting so much. In honour of the fact that I passed 10,000 posts at DP this week, I thought I would address this and maybe even debunk it a bit. There are two parts to it and hopefully I can successfully make both my points.
The first point is that there is a lot of assumption in that comment. It basically assumes that while posting at a forum, everything else is on hold. I am sure there are some people that log on and just stay on a forum site waiting for replies but I actually have my forums running on a separate monitor. I typically work on projects and at the same time hit the new posts button from time to time. If I see anything that catches my eye, I write a reply then go back to the other monitor. The most time consuming task is catching up with the posts which went up while I wasn’t online. I have a very complicated approach to this. Each morning I simply mark “All posts read” and start from scratch. I believe if there is something important being discussed, someone will reply and I will then see the thread. If it is a thread I haven’t seen before and has a ton of replies, I often judge by the title if its even worth it for me to “catch up”. If its a General Chat thread I almost never go back and read every single post. So, I typically work an 8-10 hour day but my *actual* forum time is probably in the neighborhood of 30 minutes if it was condensed. So there isn’t a whole lot of time I could be doing anything with - Not to mention the breaks from working on sites seems to actually help my productivity.
The second aspect is that in the past, forum posting has actually been quite profitable for me. I will take DP as my example seeing as how I just passed a posting milestone. In the period from January 2005 to January 2006, I brought in approximately $12,000 through both the Buy/Sell/Trade section and through personal relationships formed throughout my posting. Now this is still just a percentage of my income but it certainly is signifigant. This money can break down into the following areas (although I’m not comfortable giving financial specifics) :
Site Sales:
This was probably the largest chunk of my forum income. Normally I wouldn’t be in the site selling business but in that particular time frame, I was building a house so every penny was welcome. Now anyone can take a valuable site, bring it to a forum, make $5,000 and say they made $5,000 by posting there. I wouldn’t count that as income in this situation because you didn’t necessarily profit by posting. For the sites I sold in the last year, many were promoted almost exclusively through the forum over time and gained much of their value through my relationships and posting. A particular example was partnerships which added tremendous value to aspects of my sites (and provided value in other ways to partners). These partnerships wouldn’t have been possible without spending some time on the forum.
Link Sales:
Link sales or advertising can be a very spur of the moment thing. By monitoring trends I was able to see when was the best time to make offerings and in what format. This is a tricky one because I have seen fly by nights come into a B/S/T section not understanding their target audience and get pennies on the dollar. Personally, I find link selling to be a bit of a roller coaster and it wouldn’t be a preferred source of income.
Revenue Share:
Many forums offer revenue sharing these days although this is in no way time efficient. In the last year at DP for instance my AdSense account probably saw around $300. The first 6 months saw the majority of that and after the NY Times article, it dwindled quite a bit. I can only attribute that to the sheer volume of threads created by a few users which seem to have thinned things out for those like myself who start fewer threads. Anything I have gained from revenue share has gone to another members Homeless Charity. I did that not only to help but I like the fact that every thread I do start is out of interest not gain.
There are many other sources including services and investment partnerships which have been direct results of my forum involvement but I hold those a little close to the chest for obvious reasons. I also chose January for the time frame as since then I have not had the time due to a hectic personal life which has only allowed me to support my primary income sources.
Regardless, although many people may be losers for how much time they spend on forums, I can tell you not only from my examples given above regarding DP, but over many forums which I am involved with, there are a lot of very successful entrepreneurs that seem to spend signifigant time while still being very efficient and profitable.
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Posted by Jason on February 22nd, 2006 — in Reviews
Well I hadn’t plan to go down this road but with the popularity of our Interview Series and after the suggestion of a fellow webmaster, I decided why not. I had toyed with the idea anyway after being reviewed ourselves on Rate My Sh*ty Website. Now I don’t plan to quite go down that road even if I do enjoy that style of review. Instead I will be featuring sites which offer blog related services. After all, I am always looking for a hidden gem to use myself and I am hoping my naivety in regards to blog promotion may actually help me.
So my first review will be the site owned by the person who made the suggestion in the 
first place. He goes by the name “Soul-Healer” on the Digital Point forums and owns Blogger Team. It is usually at this point that I would outline what they do there. Unfortunately, after 7 seconds (the approximate time the avergae person takes to decide whether to stay or leave) I have no idea. It is a pretty busy site on first entry. My eyes tended to go right for the red hyperlinks on the right side which seem to be peoples blogs.
It was after a little while longer that I realized it is a service that will basically set up and host your blog for you. Now you may think its funny I was unsure what the site did because of how many times the phrase “Free Blog” was repeated but I typically think that the more times a phrase is repeated, especially with “Free” in the title, the less truth there is that it is really free. Take the first box of text you are presented with:
Blogger Team is offering Free Blog hosting services. Start a Free Blog with us we tightened our belts to provide you Free Blog hosting for life time. You have full control over your Blog. Signup now and welcome to Free Blog community.
Holy Smoke Batman…Surely that is written for a Search Engine and not a user. I appreciate the need to get density up but I personally prefer natural language as in the end, you need to get the punters through the door.
What I would like is to have a one line mission statement featured on the page that clearly describes what they do in 10 words or less, ie:
We create and host your blog for no charge….Read More
The read more is important as it gives you the chance to get people off the doorstep and into the house. Now I am not saying to use the exact wording but certainly let your users know in a short sentence what you do. Then you can give them all the details which are listed on that front page.
Now as far as the service, here is a sample free blog. I actually like that the ads are not at the top but instead at the bottom. So often a free blog screams out that it is a free blog and has so many ads, its actually hard to read. My only advice would be to blend the bottom panel a little better although if the blog owner is smart, they use a white background to achieve that affect themselves.
All in all, its a clean and professional site and maybe its just my old eyes that found it a bit busy. I know kids and teens love busy and they are the probably the target market so take my advice with a grain of salt.
If you would like your blog related site reviewed, why not send me off a mail to info@yfs1.com - Be warned though, Spam me and I will look up your ip, find your address, fly to your city, go to your house, and punch you in the stomach.
Have a nice day 
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Posted by Jason on February 21st, 2006 — in Interviews
Our next interview is with Nicholas aka bluemouse2 from the Digital Point forum. He started his webmaster journey in 1999 when he created his first 
website, which was a fansite. The fansite still exists and suffered many modifications along the years. In 2003 Nicholas started his first commercial website, offering forum hosting services. Then, he started to develop several websites, covering major internet topics: web directories, entertainment, etc. He also owns a Webmaster Services site, which is what I based my questions on for this interview.
What services do you offer?
I offer all kinds of webmaster services: I install PHP scripts, I create small and medium websites, I do
directory submissions, I sell links, directory listings and more.
Do you package many of them together or do you tend to sell each service on its own?
Sometimes I package them, sometimes not. It depends on the customer needs.
You mentioned Directory Submissions, how does hand submission differ from using a program to do it?
Submitting by hand assures a high quality service. I can choose the proper categories, I take care of all required fields and I check the email confirmations.
How do you decide on your pricing for your services?
The price I offer reflects the quality of my service. It’s not the lowest price around but everyone should afford my webmaster services.
How do you promote them?
I promote my services through my PHP scripts installing website and through the directories that I own. I also promote them via Digital Point forum and other webmaster forums.
Do you get a lot of repeat customers and how do you encourage that?
I have customers that return even after months. I think the main factors are the quality of the services and the respect for my clients.
Do you see the small services market, such as directory submissions, as overcrowded or is their always room?
Sometimes it gets overcrowded but I can manage as I can offer other webmasters services.
Are there any tools you use to make your jobs more organized or efficient?
Notepad is my favorite tool. I use it as HTML editor and organizer.
What is your favourite aspect of providing Webmaster Services?
My favorite aspect is that I can earn the money that I need.
What is the worst aspect?
The worst aspect of my online business is that Paypal is not accepted in my country.
Where do you see yourself and your offerings in 1 years time?
I’m an optimist guy; I hope things will remain as bright as now in the future. Thank you for your interview!
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