I was just reading an article about News Wars who reports the news first or better...whatever.
The article discusses web site hits and how they are increasing.
These sites (it appears to me) are competing for readers and if you check “our” site, which KK does an excellent job of posting our stats, we are kick’in ass! And we are not in the news business! We are in the fun business or is it monkey business?
My hat is off to JTI...JTI rules!!!!!!!!
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3 hours ago
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I think competition is a good thing; out of it, comes innovation. It also weeds out the inferior, thank goodness. I think we may be seeing that in Racine.
While I understand the immediate ease it may bring, I'm not so sure asking readers to contribute financially to a news based page is the correct move.
By placing the burden on readers to pay for something that is available many other places for free, you may alienate them. You want your readers to feel free to come and return often, increasing your page hits, therefore making your page more attractive to prospective advertisers.
If you are looking to make your website a true business, good business practice would be to do the funding through advertising sales. That is a win-win for both sides. Choose good businesses to sell advertising to and encourage your readers to support those businesses.
I *always* come here first for all that I need to know, even though I sometimes get what I don't need to know...
We are certainly not in competition to be a news site. I would have to say we fit the monkey business title, and we do that very well!
I dunno. I admire what Dustin is doing. I don't know if it's "good business," but I think it's good for the community. Again, I know nothing about business.
I think Dustin and Pete have proven that they can and do consistently put out a good product. From what I understand, though, it is almost impossible to make money from just advertising on the net. I like the idea of being upfront with the readers and saying, "Hey, if you like this and want more, how about kicking in a few bucks?" If I could spare the dough, I'd pitch in. I'm still considering the $5 a month plan.
I could also easily go into a rant here about the Journal Times [spit] and what kind of crap they pull to stay afloat. ("If it bleeds, it leads" - vampires feeding on the community that they claim to serve.)
Anyway, I wish the best of luck to all local sites. If I ever figure out how to make a living off of the net, I'm never logging off.
I feel if people have to pay to view a site it better dam well be worth it (we are) but I also feel the pressure would be on to post great blogs all the time and maybe the quality and spontaneity and originality we all have here may be gone. Right now we are under no pressure to produce and we are awsome..I am a firm believer that if it works don't fix it!.........This is just my opinion….You’ll also need to deal with taxes. What if you accepted donations to the site and be a non-profit site…I think with the option of donating or being told to pay more people are appt to donate……………..I would totally pay if I had to because I feel we are worth it…..I’m just not a fan of it.
We have no interest in going to war with anybody. For that matter the JT is the only one that wants to fight for peoples business. We do what we do because we enjoy it, I think the post asking for money is is kind of extreme in its own way. Racine News is the new guy on the block, we have no plans to ask for money to support our site, we are just happy to have support from friends like you guys! We do wish the best to Pete and Dustin, we hope things work out for them.
It looks like they are not using "subscription" in the traditional sense but rather looking for voluntary contributions. They say the site will always be free.
Quite a few sites look for voluntary contributions on the internet as it is hard to make it strictly through ad revenue. John Dvorak's site is trying to get enough people to contribute to do away with the ads.
It sounds like they have big plans to expand the site. That will take money. They can either try to get investors or go with the subscription model. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages that have to be carefully weighed.
They have a good site that has added to the discourse on local issues and I wish them luck.
being in the monkey business is great fun!
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