Joined: 10 Jun 2006 Posts: 140 Location: the forbidden zone
just stopping by
hey guys, i was grabbing a link from here to show a friend, whats up with the ads thumbs? i understand you pay for the site, but its kinda invasive after every post. you must make a pretty penny with all of those ads, and im sure traffic has more then doubled since i last posted here.
Sat Apr 07, 2007 10:51 am
Sponsor
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8221 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
I'm almost sure I could get much more from donations, but I don't want to. Tolerating is your equal opportunity way of donating. I'm not making a pretty penny. Working much more than full time here. Food is my main expense atm, and I'm living mostly on pretzels, bologna, popcorn, potatoes, and what ever is cheap for fruit/ vegetable. On Monday's I can get a large cheese pizza for $5.99, and it will feed me for 2 days, but I'm so sick of it I skipped this week.
I used to make 4x per hour at a factory job what I'm brining in from here per day.
On another note, the in-line ad plug-in isn't working exactly as should, so I don't have too much control. I'm not the most awesome coder around. I spend most of my time and effort advertising and searching for content. I am pondering making the forum donation driven and removing the ads. NO paypal though.
Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:47 pm
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8221 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
I took out the more annoying ad, and reworked the config a bit. Hopefully it's more tolerable.
Thanks.
Wed Apr 11, 2007 7:14 am
Sponsor
Calm
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Hi! MadThumbs
I sort of have a long story or discussion that I'd like to run past you or to have your input or ideas. First of all, I'm 59 years old and retired. So, I got lots of time on my hands. I created a hobby of sorts and I'm a news-political junkie.
In 2002 and early 2003, I began to participate within forum discussions. I'm a political or news junkie and I often found myself needing to refer to certain articles or resources when participating in any forum discussion. In order to make this simpler, I just used to save the headline with a link to the article in a Word document and often referred to this document as a resource.
However; I found that most stuff which I referenced to with just a headline and a link (perhaps a little "Snip"), would not be available after about 6 months. 90% of the links to articles which interested me were inactive within 6 months or less. Several would be archived by the original source and required payment to read the article after 6 months or so.
In May 2004, I decided to use a V-Bulletin forum template as a means of saving or storing articles or stuff that interested me.
It is quite comical to visit my forums and find only one member .... Me! And find 45 thousand posts .... by a single member!
What was most important to me was that I copy/paste the complete article so that there was no fear of finding a link to the article inactive at some time in the future. If I did not post the complete article or just posted an external link to the article, in a sense, the forums or the database I was creating would actually be self-destructing inside of 6 months because most of the links would not be valid after 6 months. So, I made certain to copy/paste the complete content just in case an external link failed in the future.
Any audio-visual content or any document, PDF, image linked to required me to also save the content to my database as well. There would be little sense in creating an external link to content unless an alternative source was made available in case the original content became unavailable at some time in the future.
You mentioned in an earlier post ....
"I spend most of my time and effort searching for content."
Well, I know exactly what you mean. My database "hobby" has almost become a full-time job for me.
So ... here I am ... 3 or 4 years later .....
What I have is:
-- A database which is 364,686,120 Mb in size (I just checked)
-- Audio/visual Content = 2,868 items 232 GB
-- Documents and images = 7,456 items 5.18 GB
I would think that my forums or database is at least 3 times as large as what Information Clearing House has.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
And, where ICH has at least 40% of content being external links which have since become inactive, my database must be 5 times as large because anything I externally link to is also stored internally within my database.
I'll tell yuh this .... you don't ever want to start arguing with me in any forum discussion because I have all my "evidence" in support of my argument within my database! You can well imagine that I could bury just about anybody with resource materials which would support any argument I chose! Quite funny, eh?
I was wondering ....
If somebody wanted to open a forum up themselves and wanted content or an immediate presence on the web .... do yuh think that my database could be their "solution" or am I just a dreamer? It would be very simple for me to alter or personalize my V-Bulletin forum template to suit any person who wanted to open up a new forum. Very easy to change the names and stuff like that.
Do you think that my database is worth any money to anybody?
I have my own site and blog which are open for public viewing, but my forums and my live-chat are closed to public viewing. At one point in 2004, I did have my forums open and I was getting 700 hits a day.
I was wondering if you thought there might be a market for a "Site-To-Go"?
I could put everything on DVD and all a person need do is click once and all the "engines" such as MYSQL, Apache and whatever would install auto-pilot. Even if the person did not want to open the site for public viewing, they could use it "local host". A simpler way would be to supply any interested party with a hard drive which contained all the stuff I mentioned earlier.
What do you think? I'm not asking if you are interested, but rather if you think my "Content" is marketable?
I'd appreciate any comments from anybody who happens to review this post.
Calm
Thu May 10, 2007 5:45 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8221 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
Picked the wrong thread to post?
Not sure there's much demand for a non-interactive forum with outdated articles selected by a single person. I know how links can die, and that's why I like to include an excerpt and often move link only posts to the spam section. With interactivity, often articles are picked apart like that 3rd grade science project involving microwaved water, and the experiment with raw vs cooked food that used meds, and soda (both rense articles). Picking apart articles can inspire others to be critical thinkers themselves.
What I've found in running this site is that my own awareness is changing and the site has taken some turns. Some of the content I've placed here, I wouldn't again.
Quote:
"I spend most of my time and effort searching for content."
This was the case early on, but we've hit a plateau where new content is either often not as necessary or not as important (there's a limit to how much information is worth posting), or it's current events. Lately my energy is spent on advertising, developing (notice the auto-embed / download link video feature), optimizing (cpu-load limit pages have been crazy lately). There's a lot of work I do here that goes unseen. Sometimes it's a little thing like the "Protected by Anti-Spam ACP" at the bottom of the forum.
Thu May 10, 2007 6:55 am
Calm
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
You make some good points about old news ....
I wouldn't ask you these questions or type all these strokes if the conversation wasn't important to me. And, I appreciate your input.
The only reason that my forum is "non-interactive" is because I don't have it available for public viewing. It only means that all the content or all the posts are articles and commentaries. No posts with just a simple "LOL" from other participants. But, if I opened it up, it is just like this forum is. I got all the "toys" that these forums have.
http://www.vbulletin.com
My chat is Flash Chat. I placed 10 thousand MP3 tunes inside the Flash Chat module and where people can listen to tunes while chatting.
http://www.tufat.com/script2.htm
It just means that the day I opened it up, that there is a "history" of sorts. That the forums have content on day-one. That when Google or other Robots visit, that the robots index all the content for any net searches people perform and thus a better opportunity of new guests (potential members) being directed to the forums in this fashion.
For a news junkie, I think that having a resource or a reference-base is important because when your discussing issues in a forum, you often like to reference material or information. (Old news, as you mention.)
Let's use your audio-visual content here, as an example. For those of us who have been visiting your site for an extended period of time, then yesterday's content is old news. But, I would think that half a million people buy their first computer every day somewhere in the world. So, old content would be new content to them.
When speaking of Old-News, I'm not talking about an auto accident somewhere ..... but the Iraq war in an historical context or the Iran Contra affair as an example. Perhaps content dealing with depleted uranium or whatever. Stuff like that. Maybe "Topical" would be a better description as opposed to news.
If old news was not interesting to people, then why would Information Clearing House (as an example) have a search feature on site?
You had a thread here dealing with Depleted Uranium. I posted content there and it was just stuff which I had separately and not any of the articles which I had available. The same would be true for the Israeli Lobby as an example. "Topical" stuff and not what might be described as "old news". The Palestinan/Israeli conflict in an historical context. Not just post after post of each killing or suicide bombing. This is the type of content I'm talking about.
Oh! I quite aware of what a moderator has to do in order to maintain a forum. It is alot of work and takes alot of concentration. And one poster or one member can ruin the atmosphere. One Candy-Ass poster can really agitate or aggravate other members.
I was wonderin' about your advertisement stuff .... is that easy to arrange and are advertisers banging down your doors begging to sign up to your fourm? Or do you have to beg them or show them that it is worthwhile for them?
How would they pay you? (I'm not asking how much?)
And, are you paying to host this site somewhere or are you like me and have your own server in your home?
Calm
Thu May 10, 2007 8:09 am
Sponsor
Calm
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Hi! MadThumbs
I guess I must of offended you by asking you all the questions because you never replied.
If that is the case, you can delete my "question" posts.
I apologize for buggin' yuh.
Calm
Sat May 12, 2007 3:45 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8221 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
Quote:
I was wonderin' about your advertisement stuff .... is that easy to arrange and are advertisers banging down your doors begging to sign up to your fourm? Or do you have to beg them or show them that it is worthwhile for them?
How would they pay you? (I'm not asking how much?)
And, are you paying to host this site somewhere or are you like me and have your own server in your home?
Besides Newshosting, we're just using standard services that anyone compliant with their TOS's could use. I've been approached a few times by advertisers, but I've been busy, and thought I was happy with the setup at the time.
I guess I must of offended you by asking you all the questions because you never replied.
I've been very busy. The cpu load limit pages were a serious problem that would get worse and worse. I had to optimize code on the forum, and disable RSS and pings on the Vlog. If I don't respond to something right away, it's forgotten.
I saw that Vbulletin can cause these cpu-load limit pages on our host also. It's not necessarily traffic that causes them, but the size of the forum and how it references the database. Some of the queries here were taking around 10 seconds of cpu time to complete.
Sat May 12, 2007 5:28 am
Calm
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
If you were ever to leave that service, are you able to take your database with you? Presently I'm using Apache and MYSQL.
I had a friend who once used Invision Forums and when he wanted to move to another hosting site, he was not allowed to take his database with him.
About a year or so ago, I considered utilizing a commercial host to host my site. In fact, I contracted with a company only to find out that they did not service my area of Toronto. So, I had to put a stop-payment on the cheque. The company was offering "unlimited" in almost every area of service.
I got no real problems hosting my site with my own server, but I don't think that my ISP (Rogers) has adequate speed. I can't remember exactly, but I think it is 8 for upload and 3 for download. Because I've not had my site available for public viewing, I can't really be certain just how many users that I can handle before it becomes to slow to manage properly.
I use a Pentium4 3.2 Dual Core as my server and with 3 Gig of Ram. However, my ISP does not encourage people to use servers. I think they might shut me down if they found out. I see they always ping Port 8080, but I host my site on a different Port.
Initially, I always posted any content as streaming or broadcast, but it was alot of work creating those damn .asx files. So, now within my forums, I simply post audio/visual in the same fashion as Crooks and Liars do. (Post as a download only and not streaming)
http://www.crooksandliars.com
When I asked you about advertising ....
I was wondering if you need to chase the advertisers down and ask for a contract or do they chase you down and beg you to sign a contract with them?
Calm
Sun May 13, 2007 8:32 am
Sponsor
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8221 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
If you were ever to leave that service, are you able to take your database with you?
Yes. I own the domain name, and have full access to the databases. Illuminated and edisme should be able to move the database as well if it ever needs doing.
Quote:
I had a friend who once used Invision Forums and when he wanted to move to another hosting site, he was not allowed to take his database with him.
There's a difference between using the software producer's hosting service and hosting their software on your own server space. Invision isn't free software like SMF and phpBB, but I have read good things about them from people who moved from phpbb to Invision but they don't mind paying for themes and other unnecessary costs either. If I had to choose a software atm, I'd go with SMF. I wouldn't use a free host. It shouldn't be difficult to get your money back for hosting costs from ads. Bluehost is only $6.95/mo. The first month this site was up, it was able to bring in more than that in ad revenue, but I'm also ambitious and put in 12 hour days.
Quote:
The company was offering "unlimited" in almost every area of service.
There are many host sites that over-sell (Bluehost is often accused of this), and some even lie about unlimited services. I think Bluehost is good, but not if you're using a database based site and don't want to have to deal with optimizing code or the subsequent bugs from following non-official guides. The first month the vlog was installed; I had to disable RSS because it was causing the cpu-load limit pages. The sad thing is that you can setup phpbb, SMF, and Wordpress through Fantastico in their c-panel, when both Wordpress and phpbb have issues with SQL efficiency. (searching 25,000 rows instead of ~100 for the index).
Quote:
I got no real problems hosting my site with my own server, but I don't think that my ISP (Rogers) has adequate speed.
It's not so much an issue of speed. I'd bet a buck that they have a policy against you running a server on their normal package.
Quote:
Because I've not had my site available for public viewing, I can't really be certain just how many users that I can handle before it becomes to slow to manage properly.
I don't know if the amount of users has much to do with forums. It's more a matter of the size of the forum and how the database is used. One person accessing the index page could cause a query over tens of thousands of rows.
Quote:
Initially, I always posted any content as streaming or broadcast, but it was alot of work creating those damn .asx files. So, now within my forums, I simply post audio/visual in the same fashion as Crooks and Liars do. (Post as a download only and not streaming)
Use third party for streaming. There's little reason to stream from your own server other than to not have to deal with replacing videos when they go down. Third parties like myspace take a financial hit on this part of their site. You can also use these third parties for direct downloading like we are. If people want quality, they usually know how to use bandwidth sharing programs like ed2k, torrents, etc, and others have usenet.
Quote:
I was wondering if you need to chase the advertisers down and ask for a contract or do they chase you down and beg you to sign a contract with them?
I haven't signed on with any advertisers that approached me, but have been approached. I offered one a banner ad over 90% of the pages for ~$10/mo and didn't hear back. I don't think I'd be so generous now because they were a conspiracy clothing type company that could reflect bad on us. On the homepage, you'll see a section to sign up for the ad servers we do use, and yes I could get a commission from them but haven't yet. This past week we've received less than $3 a day from the ads. Other than the 3 on the homepage, there's Newshosting. I'm not making much off that at all and by comparison to the other ads; it's not worth having. However, I like Newhosting and can highly recommend them. As more people sign up to Newhosting, there is a cumulative effect on income. I have yet to see my first $100 check from them though, but trust it will come in time.
Sun May 13, 2007 9:31 am
Calm
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Hey! MadThumbs ....
You are a very kind person. I know how much effort and time it took to type all those strokes that you performed in the message posted above.
I want you to know that I really appreciated it.
Yuh know .... I'm sort of hung-up on creating a database. How or where I created it, is secondary. I just wanted to put together a "small" encyclopedia of sorts. I never dreamed .... I never-ever thought I would end up with 45 thousand pages or posts!
It began as a hobby. I began to save stuff that interested me (and perhaps others too), using a Microsoft Word Document. But, it just got too cumbersome to use.
I had my site/mail/chat/ up about 2 years earlier, but not my forums. I just created my site in early 2002. I just wanted to learn how. I used a PVII template.
http://www.projectseven.com
I had collected about 5 or 6 thousand cartoons and stuff over the years, so I just created photo albums and made them available at my site. Since then I've done nothing at my site. No update for 2 years or more. I just wanted to learn how to set up a site. Since then, I got another 10 or 15 thousand cartoons and stuff like that, but I'm too lazy to create more photo albums. I used KeyBook for my albums.
http://www.keeboo.com/enu
So, I decided in late 2003 to quit storing news-stuff in a Microsoft Document and began using a forum template. I chose the V-Bulletin format because it was "Free". (if yuh know what I mean?)
Like I said, I'm all hung-up on creating a database. It was important that the database did not self-destruct. I think it is kind of crazy to create a forum which self-destructs. To have a forum without a history ... then you may as well just read the front page of a newspaper everyday and not a forum or a discussion board. A discussion board is just a place for people to exchange information. If I wanted to be social, I'd be in Live-Chat. Live Chat would entertain me or allow me to be more personal, but a disussion board is just for trading of information. To reference materials or things of interest on the net or out there in Mouse Land. (Maybe, I think weird?)
I never wanted to link to a story or a document or audio-visual at a site out there in Mouse Land and only to find that the link was no longer valid. That pisses me right off! Call me a freak, but an inactive link puts me right over the edge. It means that my database is crumbling! I would never build something and then only watch it self-destruct. I think (for the purposes of my database), that if the item was important enough to link to today, then it was important enough to keep in case I wanted to refer to it in a year or 5 years.
So, now I have 45 thousand posts! 3000 audio-visual files and 4000 documents ....
You mentioned that to keep your site up and running is a 12 hour a day job. Well, keeping my forums updated with "information" has been at least 8 hours a day for nearly 4 years. That is alot of "information" .... a huge "database".
In the back of my mind, I always thought of my 25 year old nephew. (He is not a news-junkie.) I think that he will appreciate my database 20 years from today, after I'm dead and gone. I'm 59 years old and I enjoy watching the History Channel as they show stuff about the late 50 and 60's, Especially the 70's. In 20 years from today, I think my nephew will appreciate being able to watch "MY" History Channel in the furture and to think back to this time in our lives or when my nephew was only 25 years old. If my nephew has my hard drive and just changed text in the database .... just changed my site address (URL) to a path on the hard drive, then he can utilize the database without using the V-Bulletin format. There are several database conversion programs out there in Mouse Land.
The reason I asked you about if you thought it was "Marketable" or if you thought my database was valuable .... (I was thinking of about 250 bucks Canadian) .... I was thinking about a "Site-To-Go" which would include all the utilities and engines. (Maybe put it all on a hard drive and sell the hard drive for 500 bucks including the price of the hard drive.) The reason I asked was because I thought that there would be news-junkies like me out there in Mouse Land who might appreciate having my database. It would be simple to give it to anybody as separate html pages or just as a forum template.
I think back to when I first opened my forums. I was sort of rushed into it because my ISP used to have Chat-Rooms and forums but shut them down in 2002. People asked me to provide a Live-Chat and Forums. I already had my site and Live-Chat, but no forums. I would of killed my grandmother to have some content on the day I first opened the doors to my forums. I would of appreciated a history .... some content for discussion. A context. An historical account of world events. My forums were pretty empty except for page after page of "LOL" and some goofy animation ... and that was after 6 months. So, I just walked away from them and shut down the forums. I'd rather have my "LOL" in Live-Chat and not in a forum or discussion board.
The reason why I asked you about hosting is because I think I would open the doors to my forums if I was able to buy space on some hosting server out there in Mouse Land. I could just host the content (Audio-Visual and documents) at a commerical site and host the forums on my own server? Maybe, put it all over to a commerical host?
But, I don't want it to cost me any money. Nothing at all. Not a dime.
I'm not looking to make friends! I'm not looking to impress anybody. If it cost me money to open my database for public viewing, it would feel too much like I was paying to be loved or admired.
If it ain't totally free, then I would never go with a commercial hosting service. That is why I asked you about advertising.
Last edited by Calm on Sun May 13, 2007 11:51 am; edited 1 time in total
Sun May 13, 2007 11:35 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8221 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
Quote:
You mentioned that to keep your site up and running is a 12 hour a day job.
No, I spend about that advertising, and on other related things. Much of the advertising currently involves typing in a captcha code ever so often and doesn't include all the time in between them while I've been doing related work. I can't keep up this pace forever though. No one can live and do this on less than $3 a day.
Sun May 13, 2007 11:50 am
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Calm
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Hi! MadThumbs ....
I don't understand what your meaning to say when you wrote about advertising in the above post.
Are you talking about travelling around Mouse Land and posting content with links referencing the Opposing Digits site?
I thought that an advertiser just paid for you to locate an animated .gif with their name or product on your pages?
I thought that people made money from that?
Are you telling me that your only earning 3 bucks a day for all the "Opposing Digit" trip? All those Google and whatever links and advertisments only earn you 3 puny bucks a day?
You gotta be kidding? I must be missing something. It don't make sense to me.
Just to host a forum like these does not seem to be all that complicated. I never need to fool around with any of the toys or with my V-Bulletin format. I only get alerts from my database (or database errors) because of having too many characters in a post. I get about 10 of those a day via my mail program. I just ignore them. Every thousand posts I back-up my database and do the maintenance .... repair tables and update the "search" module. Other then that, I never have had problems with my database. I've never had any part of my site or any "engine" go beserk on me. Maybe I'm just lucky? Maybe I'm not giving enough work to the "engines" and thus they are not screwing up?
So .... I don't get what your trying to say.
I thought that if the name of this site turned up at Google or whatever during a "Search" by somebody in Mouse Land, it sort of upped your credibilty ... that advertisers would notice and be banging on your door for the opportunity of placing a small ad or an animated .gif or flash item somewhere on your site.
I thought that the more content people had in their forums, the more likely the forum content would be "searchable" via Google and thus more opportunity for people to visit this forum. The more members, the greater your visibilty ... the greater the value being placed on advertising space here in these forums?
Not just the clickable ones .... Like Google where they might pay you so much a click originating from a user of this site, but rather from just people paying for the chance to show their "face" in an ad within these forums.
Where am I wrong?
Calm
Sun May 13, 2007 12:05 pm
Calm
Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 72 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I forgot to mention .....
About a year ago, I read where Information Clearing House had the site up for sale. The guy was asking for 12 thousand bucks U.S..
I don't know whether or not he sold it. But, what does the guy have? Just a database. Nothing else. A database which is self-destructing, I might add.
Even if 6 thousand bucks was the price he wanted and not 12, all the guy has is about 100 thousand html pages and 40% are links to "inactive" content or links.
Every once in a while, the guy puts out a plea for assistance. He tells everybody that he is bankrupt and would appreicate donations. I never gave him any money because I'm on a disability pension or a fixed income. In his "Plea" he indicates that he does not expect "Poor" people to donate. Well, I'm poor. I live on 12 hundred a month.
So, why would a guy like the owner of ICH think his database was worth 12 thousand bucks?
I own 2 domain names. I pay this outfit once a year and have done so for the past 4 years.
http://cadns.ca
Calm
Sun May 13, 2007 12:39 pm
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8221 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
With ICH, you're looking at the value of the domain name, and the copy written articles. It doesn't matter whether an embedded video works or not regarding a hit to a page.
