Lost and Confused

[Vaelor]

Hey all,

Just found my way here after a fortnight of staring at WMF going "What the...?? Where did all my threads go?? Who are all these people?? This isn't the same forum!!", etc.

Finally, StephanieCordray was kind enough to explain to me that the wonderful world of WMF has been swallowed by a lesser entity, and is now (my words, not hers) no longer fit for human consumption, so here I am. Thankyou Stephanie, for saving me from blundering around the web any longer. I signed up for nearly 15 webmaster/online business/domain related forums looking for one decent one, and WMF was it. The forum that took it over, happened to be, in my personal opinion, one of the worst I came across. Personally, I don't fancy having to pay money to post on an online forum, even if I had it to blow and there weren't a billion free forums out there instead.

So I'm hoping that this Web Design Forum will be as great as the old Web Master Forum, since on most of the competitor sites out there one is hard pressed to even get noticed when asking an important question, let alone any sense of actual community or acquaintance with other board members. Just when I was starting to feel a part of WMF, it got flushed, so now I'm going to try, try again here. =)

Anyways, enough with the clichés and ramblings, just wanted to intro myself and say hi. So hi!

Cheers,

- Vaelor

[StephanieCordray]

I never said it wasn't fit for human consumption... I just said that I can't find anything to talk about there.

[ian]

Welcome Vaelor,
Yeah I am not sure what the reasoning behind merging those two forums were. But you know the owner of that forum is a very smart successful person, so even though the changes were not quite to my liking, I think he knows what he is doing. Who knows, there could be some more surprises in store that no one is yet aware of.....
Well this forum is going to be around for a long time to come, and there are no plans to sell it.

[StephanieCordray]

If it were a type of forum I'm interested in, I would pay for it... Spammers won't want to pay up to waste my time, lol... I know there are free forums galore out there but finding good ones is hard to do. The problem for me is that what is there now isn't something I'm all that interested in, except for a bit of curiosity about the whole domain name game. I don't know the owner but the wmf admin GiantDomains has been a decent sort.

[Vaelor]

I never said it wasn't fit for human consumption... I just said that I can't find anything to talk about there.
Hey Stephanie... I quote, "and is now (my words, not hers) no longer fit for human consumption"... I put the bracketed words in so there'd be no mistaken belief that I was quoting you by saying that. =)

Yeah I am not sure what the reasoning behind merging those two forums were. But you know the owner of that forum is a very smart successful person, so even though the changes were not quite to my liking, I think he knows what he is doing. Who knows, there could be some more surprises in store that no one is yet aware of.....
Oh, I'm not saying it won't turn out to be profitable, or a good business plan, or even a very valuable resource to some, I was just saying that like you, it's just not to my liking. I can't see myself sticking around there actively, and I certainly can not ever see myself paying for membership. While I'm sure it could work out very well for the new admin/userbase, that sort of thing just isn't for me.

Besides, though unlike Stephanie, I do have some interest in the domains business, I wanted a forum where I can discuss ALL my online business/website matters with like minded people, not just one solitary aspect. Also, as those few who knew me on WMF know all too well (and I hope they find their way to migrate here too!), I don't make enough money selling domains to justify paying for a forum account just to talk about how little money I make selling domains! =D

Well this forum is going to be around for a long time to come, and there are no plans to sell it.
Very glad to hear that Ian. Curiously, when did you start this board? Judging by some users signup dates and post counts, it looks as though you opened this before WMF was taken over? I was under the impression that it was brand spankin' new, but it looks like it's already been busy in some areas...

This forum post should be considered the opinions of the writer only, and should not be construed as the views of Web Design Forum, the management, Stephanie Cordray, or Vaelor. Author reserves the right to modify/retract any and all opinions given at any time. =)

[zkiller]

haha... i like the disclaimer in your last post vaelor.

first off, i would like to welcome you to our humble little community here at WDF.

second, this forum was opened quite some time after the sale of WMF. unfortunetly, most of the core group of people whom made WMF what it was, managed to find there way here. so hopefully with time, this site will be as good, if not better than WMF as was. :)

[ian]

Well computerforum.com my main site, was opened shortly after wmf was sold. I just couldnt quite bring myself to getting out of the forum game altogether.
This forum was launched in August 2004.
Mind you, all of these forums, a forum I started before wmf, was domainnameforums.com
That was actually started before dnforum.com

[Vaelor]

Sooo... hangon, let me get this straight. Ian, you run, what is it, 8? forums... and they're all about the same topic, or at least same general industry... and so this site isn't really a replacement for WMF, it's more just one of your other forums that some WMF happened to choose to migrate to when you sold WMF??

So, what's the difference between all your various forum sites? And why run so many simultaneously? Do you actually make a living doing this? Is this all tied in with mysterious "greater project" I saw you not telling people about in another thread? Is this enough questions to significantly highlight myself as the official forum n00b? =P

Wow. Closest I ever came to running eight sites at once was when I had about eight "Coming soon!" pointer pages on various domains that I frivolously bought thinking I would eventually make sites out of them.... =D

[ian]

No I currently have 4 forums only, and there will only be one more, making a grand total of 5 forums. There will definitely not be any more after that.
They are all in specialist areas, though all in some way webmaster related.
So far
Computers
Domain Names
Web Hosting
Web Design
and the last one will be about search engines, then that will definitely be it. I have no plans for any more forums. So essentially, rather than one webmaster forum, there will be 5 specialist ones.
No I dont make a living doing this, I work in a normal 9 to 5 job, so this is kind of like a hobby for me.

[zkiller]

and so this site isn't really a replacement for WMF, it's more just one of your other forums that some WMF happened to choose to migrate to when you sold WMF??
that's a big negative. :P this site did not exist back in the days of the good old WMF, as we know and love it at least. this site was created good while after the sale of WMF. i would like to say that it was a good 6 months or so later, but don't take my word for it.

[Vaelor]

that's a big negative. :P this site did not exist back in the days of the good old WMF, as we know and love it at least. this site was created good while after the sale of WMF. i would like to say that it was a good 6 months or so later, but don't take my word for it.

Now that can't be right... Ian just told me this forum was created last August, whereas I didn't even discover WMF until maybe a month or two ago. I had an account there, posted several threads, got to know people, and then it wasn't until this last couple of weeks or so until I tried to log in one day and saw a completely different forum there. And when I clicked the links from the last few automated notification emails I had here, they linked to strange topics or gave a restricted access message.

So either Ian sold WMF over a year ago and the new owners only just now decided to trash it and just redirect to their other forum, or your math is WAY out. =)

[Vaelor]

No I currently have 4 forums only, and there will only be one more, making a grand total of 5 forums. There will definitely not be any more after that.
They are all in specialist areas, though all in some way webmaster related.
So far
Computers
Domain Names
Web Hosting
Web Design
and the last one will be about search engines, then that will definitely be it. I have no plans for any more forums. So essentially, rather than one webmaster forum, there will be 5 specialist ones.
No I dont make a living doing this, I work in a normal 9 to 5 job, so this is kind of like a hobby for me.

By computers, I assume you mean non-internet related hardware/software stuff? Because one might say that "Computers" pretty much covers all the other subcategories otherwise. =)

I gotta say, I'm sold on the idea - I've spent years looking for a place I can have questions answered on pretty much every area of computer use. So many times some silly little random thing will happen that you've just never seen before, and all you need is one person who knows what it's about to point you in the right direction to fix it. Kudos for working to create communities where we can all help eachother out with our various levels and degrees of expertise.

Though I'm still curious - why five forums on five similar topics, rather than one huge computing forum with five subcategories? I mean, wouldn't it make sense to have one site with five times the memberbase who can scoot between topics easily enough, rather than five seperate sites with five seperate signup processes, which tends to discourage people from participating in all five categories?

I think this has something to do with your "master plan". I know you wouldn't tell several well-known regulars what the ultimate goal was, but how about telling a newbie and a total stranger? C'mon, you know you want to. Or something. =D

[zkiller]

So either Ian sold WMF over a year ago and the new owners only just now decided to trash it and just redirect to their other forum
bingo! :D

the reason for keeping the topics seperated from one another is quite simular. for one, it's much easier to manage than one huge site, thus there is less clutter. two, users find what they are looking for instantly, rather than having to scroll down forever and day, and possibly missing the topic they wanted in the process. :)

[Vaelor]

bingo! :D

the reason for keeping the topics seperated from one another is quite simular. for one, it's much easier to manage than one huge site, thus there is less clutter. two, users find what they are looking for instantly, rather than having to scroll down forever and day, and possibly missing the topic they wanted in the process. :)

That seems to defy forum logic to me man. I mean, for starters, more topics means more likely that your question has already been answered - you may need to spend more time actually READING forums or heaven forbid, even SEARCHING them (a concept most forum n00bs find hard to grasp, granted!), but in the offchance nobody's answered your question already, there are a lot more people available to do so, hence increasing the chance you'll get a prompt and helpful response. And let's say, for a top-of-my-head example, that I have a query about how best to use META tags on my HTML pages to make them as search engine friendly as possible. With seperate forums, I'd probably be inclined to post my enquiry on both a Web Design forum, and a Search Engine forum, to get the POV's of experts in both fields. Personally, I'd rather post it once and have twice as many people able to read and respond to my question in one place, than follow two threads on two boards from two completely different sets of users. =)

As for administration, I've never run a forum of anywhere near this scale or calibre before, but I can't imagine that adminstrating one website, with say, five major categories, and (for examples sake), 25 sub-categories (assuming five sub-forums per major topic), could be that much more difficult that administrating five seperate boards on five seperate sites that each have five forum categories on them and five different userbases to keep track of. In fact, when I put it that way, the latter sounds a LOT harder! =)

In fact, just thinking about it is making my head hurt! I guess being business related forums, you'd have considerable less trolls, n00bs, idiotic teens, spammers, and other such bannable users to worry about than say, a cars forum, or a gaming forum, or whatever else, but still... just thinking about trying to moderate so many users on so many sites is making my brain go boom. =)

[zkiller]

i have moderated on serveral forums covering various topics. believe me, once these forums reach a certain size, it will make ian's and the lives of his staff, much easier!

but i'll let him explain why he did things the he has further. :)

[Vaelor]

Sure thing. =) Actually, I was going to say that in my last post - would be curious to hear what the boss man himself has to say on the matter, since he's the one holding it all together! Seems like a phenomenal task to me, but then again, I can't even get one profitable site online these days! =/

[zkiller]

i quite simply lack the motivation and even more so, the inspiration, to get anything worth while of the ground. not sure why though.

[Vaelor]

Me, I have inspiration by the bucketload, but barely an iota of motivation, which is a side effect of having been in the business for over six years and not having a penny to show for it. The internet is like, killing my soul, man. =)

I'm beginning to think that I may never actually run a successful internet business that will be my bread and butter, let alone actually allow me to live a comfortable or opulent lifestyle. So the fact that I don't know how to start a profitable website, combined with the despondent sensation that even if I did have a great idea, it wouldn't work anyway, tends to leave me with about zero motivation to even bother attempting to start on anything, since it will just be a waste of time anyway. =/

As I mentioned earlier (thought I can't recall if it was in this thread or another, and am frankly far too tired to double check right now!), I have about half a dozen websites that consist of little or nothing more than a "This website coming soon!" page, and some of these have been that way for nearly half a decade. This is because no matter what I do, I can't for the life of me think of a way to profit from these concepts that I've had, and hence spending my time building the site up for no financial return isn't an inspiring concept...

And, no matter where I turn, or who I ask, or which web forums I whine on, nobody can tell me what I'm doing wrong, or what the key to success is, or make any sense of the puzzle for me. I get a lot of "Hang in there!"s, and "You'll make it eventually!"s, and "Everybody goes through rough patches in this industry!"s, but nobody seems to be able to say "Here, this is how I made it!", or "Have you considered doing this and this?"...

Baffling, I tell you. Baffling, and highly frustrating.

[zkiller]

it's really a matter of developing your own style. the way i work for instance, probably wouldn't work for most others here, as i tend to put a lot into marketing in manner of free services. many others would consider this a waste of time and resources, but it works for me.

ian puts a lot of effort into search engines, which i personally never put much emphasis on. however, it works great for him, as you saw at WMF and possibly over at computer forum. that's how he gets most of his traffic and builds his sites. while i counted more on word of mounth, incoming links (i still find them today and i closed the doors on my biz about 4 years ago now.) and the quality of my services/products.

you really just need to try various strategies and find what you feel most comfortable with. then it also depends on what kind of site you want to run. if it's supposed to a business of some sort, what kind of product or service are you trying to sell? there are a million factors to look at. nobody can truelly say, this is what i did and it will work for you to. that's not the case at all.

just do your research and even get creative if you have to and you will eventually see the end of the tunnel. i know it's frustrating, but don't let that get you down.

personally, i don't go into any kind of web project, unless i enjoy it. wether it is profitable or not, really isn't my main objective. besides, if you enjoy what you do, it will show in your work and increase your chances of the project being successfull. :)

[ian]

Well I have tried to cover the broad spectrum of webmaster related fields within webdesignforum.com so that you are not really forced to go to say domainnameforums.com or hostforums.com for say domain name or web hosting related questions. However domain name buying, trading, sales, appraisals is a unique field in itself, and quite easily lends itself to an entire forum of its own. And there are many in the domain name industry who whilst they would visit professional type general webmaster forums, really prefer to spend most of their time at domain specific forums.
Anyhow it is a decision I have taken, and one which I will stick with. There are also a large number of other reasons for me doing things this way.
And, no matter where I turn, or who I ask, or which web forums I whine on, nobody can tell me what I'm doing wrong, or what the key to success is, or make any sense of the puzzle for me. I get a lot of "Hang in there!"s, and "You'll make it eventually!"s, and "Everybody goes through rough patches in this industry!"s, but nobody seems to be able to say "Here, this is how I made it!", or "Have you considered doing this and this?"...Well there is a certain degree of truth in that, you really do have to hang in there, but more importantly, you have to experiment, if things are not working for you now, you have to experiement with new things. I embark on new projects not with the idea of making money, but realising it for what it is, an educational process, and if it makes money, all the better. But if you do things the same way you always have, you cant really expect different results.
And I know this is a web design forum, but running a website is soooooo much more than just the web design, and that is something that too many webmasters get caught up with, coding, html, etc. There are so many other just as important areas, and to ignore any of them is not good.
You know it is important to work on niches that do make money on the internet, you cant simply build any kind of website and expect to make a lot of money doing it. So this is like my number one concern before embarking on a new project. Mind you, like zkiller says, you have to have an interest in that field as well, otherwise it is not going to be much fun.
Then when designing, you have to consider the search engine friendliness factor, you have to decide on keywords to optimize for, and for which you want search engine people to find you via. For example, my site computerforum.com the keywords I optimize for are "computer forum"
Go to google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=computer+forum and you will see that I currently have a number one spot for that term, and no that is not just because of the domain, but that helps as well.
But you see, all of these things I have just mentioned are factors that I decide upon in the planning stage before I have executed anything.
So planning is VERY VERY important. Dont just get caught up in html and coding, there are tonnes of other equally important areas to concentrate on, you need balance.

[Vaelor]

I have to say I disagree (for the first time so far, it seems) with zkiller on this one... me, I have several site concepts, some are sites I would run for "fun" - ie. more for my casual enjoyment than as a serious profit generating endeavour, and others that are strictly business. For example, for a while I ran a bulk email business, even though I am an absolutely avid spam hater and can't stand marketing, because it was highly profitable for me to do so at the time. If I can profit from my "relaxed" sites, or enjoy myself running the "business" sites, then great, but that's a bonus for me, not a prerequisite.

As for "hang in there", I'm more at "hang myself" now. I started my business in 1998 people - that's coming up to SEVEN YEARS of "hanging in there" and "waiting for my big break". I'm quite about ready to give my PC to the Salvation Army and take up mowing lawns for a living. I don't need any more moral support, what I need is a kick in the direction of the pot of gold that has to be out there somewhere!

(And by that, I don't mean to imply that I've spent seven years looking for a get rich quick scheme, although I've trailed my toes in a few share of those along the way too! I'm ready and willing to work for my dough, I just don't know HOW!)

Ian, your advice is solid, but it steps straight over my first basic hurdle - what kind of site will make me money, and what can I do to get it started?? Since 1998 my company has dabbled in everything from hardware tech support, to web hosting, to web design, to affiliate programs, to MLMs, to the leads industry and bulk email marketing, and pretty much everything in between. And you know what? I've made maybe five grand tops in those seven years - and that's total income, not net profit. I don't want to THINK about what I've spent in that time...

At the moment, I just want to find somebody who can help me finish setting up my miserable server so I can at least get one or two of my "relaxed" sites back online... at least then I can get my name back into the search engines, get a little traffic up, maybe work in some Google AdWords and a couple of affiliate programs and draw in at least SOME money while I'm trying to work out how the hell to actually make a living on the internet!! =(

[StephanieCordray]

"Since 1998 my company has dabbled in everything from hardware tech support, to web hosting, to web design, to affiliate programs, to MLMs, to the leads industry and bulk email marketing, and pretty much everything in between."

Essentially, I can see your problems just from this. Every market you have tried is glutted to the point of bursting. When competition is fierce, you aren't going to make much money the first year, sometimes not until the 3rd year will you start seeing anything so basically you do have to just hang in there... concentrate on one or two of them at a time, build them up, and hope that what you are doing will eventually put you in the top ten.

While everybody who is doing their own website work needs a good webmaster forum in their bookmarks, you need to hang around sites where your type of business is discussed frequently. There's a site called ryze.com which is business networking as well as others of the same type... they aren't good for some types of business but work well for other types... There are all kinds of networks there for anything from technical skills to selling Avon.

Another one, although it's geared toward work at home moms is http://www.mom101.com The first owner of this site built a small bit of business from it, then sold it. I don't know the new owner but the site seems to still be doing very well, under its new management. Not all the people around there aren't moms nor even all female so it might be worth your while to spend some time there, picking up tips and advice in the forum and reading some of the articles on the main site.

If any one of the businesses you set up is taking more time than you are receiving in reward (monetary or otherwise), you can either kill it or put it on the back burner and concentrate on one that is giving you back as much or more than you are putting into it. The first rule of making a successful business is enjoy what you do, rather than make loads of money in a short amount of time.

Our first year of business we didn't break even, the second year we made a couple hundred, third year I don't know the exact amount yet but we've more than doubled what we did last year. We planned for this in our business plan so we are where we expected to be, if not a little ahead of schedule. We entered a very saturated market and knew it would be uphill going. But we have worked from a solid foundation and that is paying off over time.

reason for edit: typo although I probably missed half a dozen others.

[zkiller]

very good post, stephanie.

i would just like to add one thing to the above, you say you hate marketing, yet marketing is the key to any successfull internet business. on the internet, the phrase "build it and they will come" does not apply. it doesn't even matter how great or innovative your idea is, if you don't market it well, it won't sell.

[StephanieCordray]

Thanks, z and i totally agree with your addition, too... there are different types of marketing which produce different results.. if one type doesn't suit, try another but be prepared by understanding that some types will take you a long time to build a business into what you want it to be versus some others that can give you a viable income in a short amount of time.

[ian]

Ian, your advice is solid, but it steps straight over my first basic hurdle - what kind of site will make me money, and what can I do to get it started?? Since 1998 my company has dabbled in everything from hardware tech support, to web hosting, to web design, to affiliate programs, to MLMs, to the leads industry and bulk email marketing, and pretty much everything in between. Money can be made in all of those fields if you work hard and stick to it, dont know about bulk email marketing though. But you know if you know making money is not all that easy to do on the internet, well it is not as easy as it used to be. It takes hard work. What is your main site about? Fifthdimensioncomputing.com looks like just a parking page with a redirect to a gaming affilate page. You have to actually get something up, have lots of content pages, get those pages indexed in search engines, and as you work on things, you will learn what does and what doesnt work. I am learning every day, especially from all the problems I encounter and there have been quite a few lately.
And like zkiller said, marketing is very very important.

[Vaelor]

very good post, stephanie.
You're not kidding there! That was the most useful, helpful reply I have ever received on this topic! Thanks Stephanie!

i would just like to add one thing to the above, you say you hate marketing, yet marketing is the key to any successfull internet business. on the internet, the phrase "build it and they will come" does not apply. it doesn't even matter how great or innovative your idea is, if you don't market it well, it won't sell.
I said I hated marketing, I didn't say I couldn't/wouldn't do it, or wasn't good at it. =) I'm only hating marketing right now because of being directly in the marketing business (ie. not marketing my own products/services, but actually running a marketing business promoting other people's crap) for the last year or so, and I'm sick to death of it. I'm good at it - I just don't want to do that for a living forever. I can quite happily and successfully market my own projects, though.

Essentially, I can see your problems just from this. Every market you have tried is glutted to the point of bursting. When competition is fierce, you aren't going to make much money the first year, sometimes not until the 3rd year will you start seeing anything so basically you do have to just hang in there... concentrate on one or two of them at a time, build them up, and hope that what you are doing will eventually put you in the top ten.
This leads me to problem #1: What industry/area/niche is NOT already glutted to bursting? I need a fresh idea, or at least an idea of an area that still has room for improvement. I can't just be another one of a billion fish in the sea - I'll never have the resources, the intuition, the money, or even the patience, to actually stand out from the crowd in any of these industries. Frankly Stephanie, I'm amazed and impressed that you're still making a buck in web hosting - possibly the most oversaturated IT area there is!

As for the "hang in there" aspect, I can't afford to spend three years on a project that I don't know is going to make something eventually. If I was working on a project that I had a fairly solid guarantee would eventually turn enough of an income to live comfortably off, then yeah, I'd slog it out in the trenches for as long as it took. But I can't waste three years only to find out something doesn't work, only to try something else and spend three years on that instead, and so on!

If any one of the businesses you set up is taking more time than you are receiving in reward (monetary or otherwise), you can either kill it or put it on the back burner and concentrate on one that is giving you back as much or more than you are putting into it. The first rule of making a successful business is enjoy what you do, rather than make loads of money in a short amount of time.
zkiller said the same thing earlier, and even though I know the old adage "If enough different people tell you the same thing, it's probably true!", I still have to disagree. I don't enjoy work - any sort of work - and I never will. That doesn't mean I'm not good at it, or dedicated to it, or able to make it profitable though. There are types of sites that I could happily run for fun without expecting a profit, and other types of sites with which the only enjoyment would BE the profit. This is not a perfect world - we will not get paid to only do things we enjoy. Sometimes you just have to do something you hate to benefit in the long run.

Our first year of business we didn't break even, the second year we made a couple hundred, third year I don't know the exact amount yet but we've more than doubled what we did last year. We planned for this in our business plan so we are where we expected to be, if not a little ahead of schedule. We entered a very saturated market and knew it would be uphill going. But we have worked from a solid foundation and that is paying off over time.
My first year of business I ran at a loss, my second year I ran at a loss, my third year I ran at a loss. And so on. Last year was the first year I made any money over a hundred bucks at all, and that was barely enough to pay a few months rent in advance and keep my creditors off my back. And not even close to break even how much I'd put into it since the beginning. And this year is turning out to be another catastrophic nothing.

Money can be made in all of those fields if you work hard and stick to it, dont know about bulk email marketing though. But you know if you know making money is not all that easy to do on the internet, well it is not as easy as it used to be. It takes hard work. What is your main site about? Fifthdimensioncomputing.com looks like just a parking page with a redirect to a gaming affilate page. You have to actually get something up, have lots of content pages, get those pages indexed in search engines, and as you work on things, you will learn what does and what doesnt work. I am learning every day, especially from all the problems I encounter and there have been quite a few lately.
FifthDimensionComputing.com is just a redirect page at the moment - it's supposed to be a portal page and central corporate site advertising my various other projects. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills to set it up the way it's supposed to be, nor the capital to hire a designer for it. Hence it's just the company logo and a redirect to the only active site I have left currently.

Look at www.vaelorskeep.com, www.undiscoveredlore.com, www.socialdeviancy.com, and so on. See a recurring pattern? Every site is "Coming soon!", and a link to that stupid gaming page (an affiliate program). It's all part of the curse, you see. I need to make some money online. To make money online, I need to get some websites online. To get these sites online, I need to either hire somebody to do the things I can't do at this stage (as mentioned in my other posts in the Requests board earlier), or learn to do them. To hire somebody, or study, I need money. To get money, I need sites online. This is the mantra that keeps me awake at night...

So here's the big picture:-

Problem #1: (As stated above) What kind of site would be unique, or at least new/fresh enough, to have an edge and not just be the newest bottom rung in an industry that already has literally thousands if not tens of thousands of competing sites/companies?

Problem #2: Once I have an idea, how can I implement it, without the skills to set it up correctly entirely myself, or the money to outsource what I can't do myself?

Problem #3: How do I get traffic to that site? (This is the LEAST of my concerns - as I mentioned, marketing I can do, and I can brush up on SEO techniques and other promotional methods just by keeping active forums like these.)

I'd just like to make one dollar online. Just one. And then have a sure means to reinvest that dollar and make two dollars out of it. You know the dream. Where I am now, you could drop a turnkey million dollar "eBusiness" in my lap and say, "There you go! Just transfer this domain to your ownership, put this site on your server and activate it, and the money will roll in!", and I'll be stuck not being able to afford the domain transfer fee, and my server will still be riddled with functionality holes which will prevent me from having the site working.

I'm so tired of it all..... =~(

[[tab]]

Totally off topic... but I'm glad you finally made it to WDF Moondancer :)

[ian]

I'm so tired of it all..... =~(I never tire of it. By the way google adsense is a really good system. It is definitely worth checking out if you havent already done so, but to get accepted, you will need to get at least one content site up and running.
A lot of the stuff you said towards the end is very negative, you know it can take over a year before a site can start to show some good encouraging results.
One of my sites computerforum.com does reasonably well, as does my domain registration site and a few others. But for the most part, I am still just building a foundation stone for something bigger and better. Even if the sites didnt generate a profit, I would still continue to work on them with the end goal in site.

[StephanieCordray]

']Totally off topic... but I'm glad you finally made it to WDF Moondancer :)

Thanks, [tab]. I found it by accident... followed a link that took me to another site that had a link for here. I'm glad I found it, too.. have missed y'all.

They did put up some of the webmastery forums on dnforum as promised. I got grandfathered in to dnforum with a platinum membership, so I'm glad they put up something where I can contribute a little bit. There's just not that much I can say about the domain name game.

[ian]

does that mean my thousands of posts have dissappeared off the face of the planet?

[Vaelor]

I never tire of it.
Have you spent seven years in the game with not a single penny to show for it? =)

By the way google adsense is a really good system. It is definitely worth checking out if you havent already done so, but to get accepted, you will need to get at least one content site up and running.
{nods} Will be one of the first things I do once I get at least one of my sites up, you can be sure of it!

A lot of the stuff you said towards the end is very negative, you know it can take over a year before a site can start to show some good encouraging results.
I was allowing a little of my desperation to seep into my written tone to convey some of the sheer despondent frustration I'm feeling with whole situation at the moment. I was drawn into describing my situation on WMF a few weeks before they killed it - this is how I came to meet Stephanie, and hence be invited here, actually - and the best I got from there were a number of heartfelt "Hang in there big guy!"'s.

Believe me, if I were to truly let it go and just rant on an emotional tangent about how things are, it would be considerable more negative that what you saw there! But I've learnt that people tend to ignore the more "Oh, woe is me!" posts, or just reply with their best wishes and no actual advice/assistance, than if I try to remain unemotional in my descriptions. Still, my previous post should give you some perspective on how utterly frustrating and pointless it all seems to me right now...

One of my sites computerforum.com does reasonably well, as does my domain registration site and a few others. But for the most part, I am still just building a foundation stone for something bigger and better. Even if the sites didnt generate a profit, I would still continue to work on them with the end goal in site.
I too have a long term goal in mind, a personal pet project that everything else I do before then is simply preparation for. But the days in which I feel like I'm just never going to get there at all are becoming increasingly more frequent with each passing year of having nothing to show for my efforts.

If [tab] can help me repair a couple of the problems on my webserver, as he's mentioned he might be able to take a look at, that would be one huge step in the right direction. At least that way I could start getting SOMETHING up on the web, get listed in the engines again, and so on. But still, a couple of bucks a year from Google AdWords and some affiliate links aren't going to cover my domain renewals and hosting fees, let alone get me any closer to my goal. I need a project that will actually make some money.

I've got nothing but time and motivation, but I've got an endless supply of both. I just need to get my foot in the door somewhere...

[StephanieCordray]

I'd just like to make one dollar online. Just one. And then have a sure means to reinvest that dollar and make two dollars out of it. You know the dream. Where I am now, you could drop a turnkey million dollar "eBusiness" in my lap and say, "There you go! Just transfer this domain to your ownership, put this site on your server and activate it, and the money will roll in!", and I'll be stuck not being able to afford the domain transfer fee, and my server will still be riddled with functionality holes which will prevent me from having the site working.

I'm so tired of it all..... =~(

Although generally frowned upon in the business world, you can still make a little something doing it... Why not set up a few of those businesses with free web accounts? You know, the services that give away space in exchange for advertising banners on your site?

I know your problems and the lack of cash... sometimes you have to compromise just to get the start you need before you sweat too much over the the stuff you want. Wants and needs don't always match. At least you can possibly make your dollar to invest in something that will make twice as much later, or even more.

[Vaelor]

does that mean my thousands of posts have dissappeared off the face of the planet?
I believe they scrapped the previous site in its entirety. I found out the hard way when I wanted to add another post to a previous thread of mine, so I clicked the link on the email notification that I still had in my Inbox, only to be taken to a thread I'd never seen before.

Tried another thread, and got a "Restricted Access" message. So I logged into my CP and viewed all subscriptions, and it said I didn't have any at all. Only then did I go back and look at the main forum index, only to see that the entire forum as I knew it was gone, and it was DNForum there instead, which I'd signed up to previously but never used/had interest in. Very annoying.

At first I just thought they'd just bought your domain and redirected it to their forum, until I emailed Stephanie, and she invited me here where I heard the whole story...

[Vaelor]

Although generally frowned upon in the business world, you can still make a little something doing it... Why not set up a few of those businesses with free web accounts? You know, the services that give away space in exchange for advertising banners on your site?
You mean like another GeoCities/Angelfire/etc? Okay, it's the first suggestion anybody's offered so far, let me consider it...

1) How would I get the infrastructure in place? The built-in WYSIWYG editor, the file manager, the accounts system, etc.

2) Where would I host this? I'd need some sort of feature to lock individual user account at a certain bandwidth level, I'd assume, to make sure that the amount of bandwidth a user takes up is proportional to the adspace I'm getting out of them. If one of my users happened to put a large MPEG on their site and got a million hits as it spread the web, I'd be several hundred thousand dollars in debt to my bandwidth provider, with little to show for it comparitively from the affiliate program links.

3) In today's world where banner blockers, pop-up/pop-under blockers, and other similar ad-killing technology are built right into the browser, in addition to being a booming freeware/shareware industry in its own right, what methods of advertising could I successfully use on the users pages?

I own the domain FileHoard.com, I toyed with the idea some time ago of setting up a hosting business purely for file hosting, rather than website hosting - kind of like a PhotoBucket or similar sites, but for all file formats, where users prepay an account and then can share their files as much as they like until the funds run out and they need to recredit. But again, no way to build such a site with my current skills and no money to outsource the programming work.

I know your problems and the lack of cash... sometimes you have to compromise just to get the start you need before you sweat too much over the the stuff you want. Wants and needs don't always match. At least you can possibly make your dollar to invest in something that will make twice as much later, or even more.
Well, I'll compromise on pretty much anything I can to get myself out of this rut. As I mentioned earlier, I ran a bulk emailing company for a while, legal and legit, but in a very shady industry, and I'm an avid spam hater. I wouldn't swear on my life that every person I emailed requested the information, since I bought the list from another provider, but I sent the marketing campaigns anyway because it put bread on the table.

At my present state, I own a decent PC, a cell phone, a virtual webserver, and 24 domains. I have little else to my name - I rent a boxy little apartment in a bad neighborhood, I don't own a car, I've had to quit drinking, smoking, socialising, just to make ends meet financially. I can't think of much else that aren't physical neccesities that I could compromise on to get things happening here. I'd quit eating if I could use the money to hire a web programmer, but I wouldn't last long enough to enjoy the rewards if I did that! =)

Remember, the problem is twofold - I need an idea that will help me turn my one dollar into two, but I also need to somehow implement it without having that dollar to my name to begin with. The viscious circle.

You hear all the time about helping who get into online business wanting to get rich overnight and not have to work for it. They'll pay hundreds of dollars to any MLM or pyramid scam just to reach that promised easy buck. Well, I'm the polar opposite. I sit in front of my PC for 18 hours a day praying for something productive to do, but can't for the life of me come up with anything that doesn't require a hefty up front cash investment before anything else can be done. =(

[StephanieCordray]

does that mean my thousands of posts have dissappeared off the face of the planet?

Sadly, yes. Although I was added as a member my post count was reset to 0. I think they salvaged some +/-1800 posts from the wmf when they migrated those few forums... other than that I'd say they are gone.

[StephanieCordray]

Before the wmf went bye bye, there was a lot of talk about freewebs.com I believe it was. I don't have the link but it might be in the newly replaced posts on dnforum... i haven't looked at them to see what's there. If I find it, I'll post it here.

When the changeover was made, it was done quickly, without a whole lot of warning.. maybe a day or two is all. What was said was a merger of the two. I didn't realize from the warning that dnforum was a paid membership, nor did I know that some members wouldn't be grandfathered in. JamesC lost his membership, too. Of the ones grandfathered in, they gave out two types of membership, gold and platinum. Those who were given a membership received emails about the change and the memberships within 2 hours of the changeover.

For the ones who didn't get the membership, some sections can be read, some not and they aren't allowed to post at all. vaelor had just joined the forum shortly before this change took place so he unfortunately didn't have the post count to justify giving him a membership... which sucks since he was one of the few there who tried to help people ...

I had been absent from there for quite awhile having gotten bored with the spammy posts. One of the supermods, Vivvy, messaged me not long before the merger happened because she said the post quality was improving since I had come back and more topic related posts were being made. Not sure if that's really true but at least I tried to answer honestly to the best of my ability (which to me is still very slight).

Other than that it's just been a waiting game for me... I think my post count there is something in the 20's range right now. With the addition of some of the webmaster topics I'll still be around there a bit but I need a forum to learn and stay current myself, as well as help others.

[StephanieCordray]

vaelor... sorry... they didn't transfer any of the hosting posts from the old board... i'm pretty sure it was freewebs.com or free-webs.com. If I'm remembering right at all, the posters raving about it said the banner ads were not on their webpages but other parts like the ser control panels or something like that. webhostingtalk.com might have some info on them.

[ian]

Vaelor, with the sites that you have, why do you have a server which requires you to do updates etc. Why dont you have a cheaper bulk reseller account where you dont have to worry about any of that kind of stuff, like installing php, updating the operating system etc. Would be a lot easier and cheaper I would imagine.
As to the web hosting idea, I thought Stephanie was recommending that you use free web hosting and not actually start a free web hosting service, I may be wrong on that.
I think starting any kind of free web hosting service yourself, would NOT be a very good idea at all.

[ian]

Also not sure what your situation is, but it is always better to try and work a full time day job and have the internet as a hobby. Then what it takes off, look at quitting your day job.

[zkiller]

']Totally off topic... but I'm glad you finally made it to WDF Moondancer :)
i thought that avatar looked familiar! :)

[zkiller]

vaelor, there is a number of things i would like to say in reply to all that has been mentioned here since my last post, but that will have to wait til tomorrow. this flu is really getting to me and i need to lay down. so, basically this is a pointless post, but i will be sure to get back to you, in your search for glory on the web. :)

[StephanieCordray]

As to the web hosting idea, I thought Stephanie was recommending that you use free web hosting and not actually start a free web hosting service, I may be wrong on that.



Yes,that's what I meant. vaelor mentioned one of the businesses he had thought about was web hosting but didn't or tried it and it failed as welll... I'd have to read back to remember that.

[StephanieCordray]

i thought that avatar looked familiar! :)

I think ian knew who I was without the avatar. I didn't upload it right away, :p

[ian]

yeah i remembered that stephanie was moondancer, before the avatar.

[zkiller]

yeah, i am horrible with names.

i slept like a rock last night. 13.5 hrs and i had to force myselft to get up, since i have to be at work in 1 hr. sorry for going off topic.

[zkiller]

anwyays, to get back on topic.

i can understand your disappointment and frustration, vaelor. i to have been in the web game for many years now. i actually started to learn how to write html and so forth in high school, but it really didn't interest me back then, it was more of a half to kind of thing. i honestly didn't think i would ever need the skills i aquired then ever again, but a couple of years later, i did my first web site along with a friend and have been at it ever since. that was in january of 99, so that's 6 years now. i too have little to show for now, although i did have something to show for before moving back to germany 3 years ago.

i guess there really isn't much left to add to what everyone has givin you for advice and i don't want to sound like a broken record, so i won't repeat what they have said. all i will say is that you need to figure out what area of business it is that you wish to go into. even oversaturated fields have room for improvement and therefore can still be profitable. espeically, if you are rather good at marketing a product or service.

hmmm, i guess that is rather redundant, isn't it. anwyas, i find myself at a loss of words right now.

[Vaelor]

Ian, Stephanie, Stefan... sorry, I didn't mean to let this thread die and ignore your several most recent posts... I had to double-check my thread subscription preferences there, I was about to complain that I was sure I wasn't getting my email notifications properly, but I just searched through my filed emails, and it turns out I can't use that excuse. I honestly don't know what happened here, I must have got the last notification when I was very busy, told myself I'd come back to it later, and then accidentally filed it away in the next Inbox cleanout. =(

Anyway, allow me to revive this thread a little. First of all, I can't work out how the conversation turned to web hosting, I thought it might have been something I said, but reading through the history, it seems one moment I was talking about needing an inspired new idea for a web project, and the next minute everybody was suggesting I try free web hosting, so I can only assume something I said was misinterpreted somewhere along the line.

Hosting isn't even remotely the issue here. I have a server that is extremely cheap which I couldn't be happier with - I had some trouble with software configuration and whatnot previously because I don't have any skills in setting up a Linux webserver myself, and the sysadmin I took on when I bought the blank slate server ditched me for more "important" obligations, so for a while there I was toying with the idea of seeking a temporary alternative to get my sites back online, and briefly discussed the possibility of hosting with Stephanie's company, JC Hosting. But, as it turned out, [tab] has patched the gaps in my server with remarkable talent and above and beyond the call, and in an amazing timeframe no less, so now I have a top of the line, customized to an insanely specific extent, as I require, and for less that what I'd pay elsewhere for an "another brick in the wall" style virtual reseller account with some other companies I've seen. So hosting is absolutely not a hurdle for me - I can now host unlimited/infinite web projects of any level of complexity and any manner of content (so long as it's legal, of course!), with no problem. (Oh, though I think I owe [tab] my soul or my first born son, I forget which now! =P)

Which brings me back to the beginning on my issue here in this thread - I need a new site!

I actually came up with a decent idea the other week, which will be one of the first projects I implement once [tab] has put the last couple of finishing touches on the server for me... I was lying awake for hours in bed one night, as I do, and couldn't stop thinking about the old piece of wisdom, that a highly targeted niche site that caters to a small but precise demographic of traffic will be much more successful than yet another generic site in an oversaturated market, even if you pump a million untargeted hits a day through the thing.

Well, the idea came to me the next day while I was bored and sitting here picking through my collection of ancient classic games to find something to play. But game after game that I tried to install just wouldn't work on my current system - Windows 2000 is pretty unfriendly to DOS games from the 80's/90's! And then, while Googling around to find the usual obscure forum post in which somebody on the other side of the globe once got X game working on Y operating system, it hit me - what a perfect niche, classic gaming afficionados who need to make their old games work in an increasingly fast moving computer industry.

And hence, the day after that, I purchased the domain NewDogOldTricks.com - Who says you can't teach a New Dog Old Tricks? =)

I certainly don't expect it to be a high traffic, high profit site, but the beauty is its simplicity - the site content will be 90% user contributed, slotted into an article template system which I've designed (but will need to contract somebody to code). Then I generate revenue from Google AdSense and a couple of other related affiliate links. My aim is to set it up as a small background automated income stream, and then move onto other things.

So, things are on the move now, slowly, but I certainly expect a better business year in 2005 that I had last year!

But still, I'm on the lookout as always for something... bigger. I don't want to run 400 niche sites with ad banners and affiliate searchboxes on them. I need a project that I can pump my boundless free time and enthusiasm into and see a serious return from over the next five years or so...

Unfortunately, as you suggested Ian, a "day job" isn't an option for me due to health/disability reasons, so my online business really is going to have to start making it for me unless I want to spend the rest of my life with the poor quality of life that nothing but a government pension provides one!

So, back to square one, brainstorming-wise... there are a lot of brilliant ideas and concepts out there, and surely even in today's enormously overpopulated internet world, not all of them have been done to death endlessly already... we just have to come up with something great, and throw our shoulders to it...

[zkiller]

well, i'm glad you are back on track. good luck with new site! :)

[StephanieCordray]

Well, the idea came to me the next day while I was bored and sitting here picking through my collection of ancient classic games to find something to play. But game after game that I tried to install just wouldn't work on my current system - Windows 2000 is pretty unfriendly to DOS games from the 80's/90's! And then, while Googling around to find the usual obscure forum post in which somebody on the other side of the globe once got X game working on Y operating system, it hit me - what a perfect niche, classic gaming afficionados who need to make their old games work in an increasingly fast moving computer industry.


I actually know a couple of people here who would be interested in that site. Maybe even me, lol... although the only really old game I have left is probably not one I'll ever have time to play... I don't even have time for my Sims II, lol.

I think we got off on the topic of hosting because of your cash problems but since the ever reliable [tab] has you all fixed up, you are in good shape.

Keep your mind churning ideas but don't churn so much that you sour the idea you already have. Concentrate on this one for a bit, see how it goes, figure your time spent with it, them implement another idea or the next step for this one. Preserverance!

[ian]

Preserverance!
yep perseverance really pays off sometimes......