Subject:
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Making money AND improving Lugnet!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.finance
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Date:
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Tue, 9 Apr 2002 18:18:46 GMT
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Viewed:
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2332 times
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I've read a lot of the ideas in this group, and welcome more. I personally
think that anything that tries to get the community at large to pay much
more than it already does won't work for two reasons: first, it will end up
driving away the very people who make this the wonderful place that it is,
and secondly, I don't think it will end up making a big enough difference in
the bottom line. If that's the case -- it doesn't really solve the problem
-- why make the site any less friendly than it currently is?
So I've been reading all the suggestions, and two of them have stuck out to
me as having not only minimal impact on the community as large, but actually
improving things for everyone - lugnet will become a better place, and
hopefully some money will be made.
The first idea is to sell discussion groups. (Ashley's idea #8.) But
instead of $10, I would make it $50 (perhaps 'per year'). This would be
ridiculously inexpensive compared to owning and maintaining your own
website, and would probably draw a fair number of new groups. The 'owner'
of the group (in the sense that he's purchased it's existance) becomes the
curator, but anyone is allowed to post there, and read what's going on --
subject to the terms of that group, of course. This idea would take a
minimal effort to set up, and would be a great way to get new groups started
-- instead of just asking the powers that be if they could start a group, if
it's important enough to you, you would pay for the priviledge, knowing that
you're helping out lugnet in two ways: by providing a needed discussion
group, and by providing financial backing.
Something else to consider along these lines might be to 'auction off' the
existing groups. Maybe not all of them would sell, but I'm sure that there
would be interest in the community to do so to some extent. By buying a
curatorship, you not only are helping out lugnet, but are paying to make the
group a better place. And the wonderful thing about this might be that next
year you could auction it off again!
The second idea, one that hasn't generated any discussion at all, was one I
mentioned very early in the creation of this group: sell lugnet
distributions. Make a packaged version of the product, easy to install,
customizable in whatever ways are easy to do, and offer it to the world at
large to buy. I think $1000 per installation is a minimal cost (I could see
something like this going for significantly more) and would encourage tons
of people to buy the software, and set up their own groups elsewhere on the
web. Lugnet has the best user interface -- by far -- of any discussion
groups I've seen. Why not share this with the world, and at the same time
make some significant money? How many web sites could use something like
lugnet, and would find a couple thousand dollars a minimal outlay to provide
it to their customers?
To flesh out the idea a bit more: perhaps offer an X_ug-lite, which has
support for five discussion groups, and an X_ug-deluxe, which is much like
lugnet is for us now. You could categorize customers into corporations, and
individuals or organizations. For-profit corporations could lease the
software for one or two thousand a year. Individuals and non-profit
organizations could effectively buy a 'perpetual lease' for a thousand
dollars flat. (Or maybe a 10 year lease. Whatever.)
Then, since you'll probably end up having to provide support, charge for
that as well. Make good documentation on how to set things up, but charge
$200 per issue, or something like that, so that you end up making money on
this too. Set the rate so that you *would* make money.
Finally, this will provide great insentive to improve lugnet for everyone,
since every eighteen months or so, you'd like to refresh the revenue by
offering a significant update. X_ug version 2.0 would sell for $200 more
than the previous version to new customers, or upgrades would be available
for $500 to current 'perpetual lease' owners, and $100/year more to yearly
lease owners.
The benefits of this second idea to lugnet are great improvements in what we
have -- we'd become the beta testers for X_lug to the rest of the world, but
we get to see the improvements first. And while I can't guess at how many
discussion groups would move over to something like this, I know that there
are a LOT of them out there, and perhaps a lot more that would like to be,
but don't have a good enough product to buy.
As I said, the great thing about both these ideas is that they would
generate money, and we wouldn't see things that make lugnet a
less-nice-place-to-be, like ads or changes that would drive people away.
Instead, we would see improvement in what is available. Win-win.
I challenge everyone to think of other ideas that not only make money, but
improve lugnet for everyone.
--
David Schilling
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