mo money mo problems
posted by max on August 22, 2006 at 04:50:26 PM
if you haven't seen my latest ytmnd yet, check it out.
What I'm trying to say is YTMND isn't doing so hot, traffic and press is better than ever, but ad revenue just isn't keeping up with the costs of running such a high traffic site.
what this means is i'm going to need to stop focusing on new features as much and start focusing on making YTMND more profitable again. read more for further info (including shirt info!).
You are going to start to notice more ads on YTMND. I've always tried to keep them as out of the way as possible and as few to a page as possible, but YTMND just can't afford to do that any longer.
I've added pop ups to all sub domains for non-logged in users as a temporary solution. The front page is probably going to have a few ads added on to it in various places.
I'm currently waiting on a few more shirt designs and I'm going to post them later this week and let you guys decide which ones get printed. There are still around 20 XXXL of the old shirts so if you want one of the original shirts and are a hefty dude go here.
I also have someone doing some designs for a sticker, which is probably going to be screen printed on vinyl and I'll sell them in packs of 10 or 20 or something.
If you have any good ideas for shirts or hoodies etc, feel free to mail me a design at max@ytmnd.com and we can discuss it.
I am going to be sending out a demographics survey to all registered users via private message later today. Filling it out would be extremely helpful as I know almost nothing about most of you and can't really give advertisers a good idea of who you are! Better ads = more money = less ads = better ytmnd.
Last but not least, I signed a release for the Colbert Report to show some YTMNDs on there, so hopefully they should air sometime this week (if at all).
P.S.: if you run ad/popup blockers and are capable of/willing to disable them when using ytmnd.com, it might be helpful.
Click ads when you see relevant information about products you may wish to purchase. Ad clicks are worthless without people actually buying products.
What I'm trying to say is YTMND isn't doing so hot, traffic and press is better than ever, but ad revenue just isn't keeping up with the costs of running such a high traffic site.
what this means is i'm going to need to stop focusing on new features as much and start focusing on making YTMND more profitable again. read more for further info (including shirt info!).
You are going to start to notice more ads on YTMND. I've always tried to keep them as out of the way as possible and as few to a page as possible, but YTMND just can't afford to do that any longer.
I've added pop ups to all sub domains for non-logged in users as a temporary solution. The front page is probably going to have a few ads added on to it in various places.
I'm currently waiting on a few more shirt designs and I'm going to post them later this week and let you guys decide which ones get printed. There are still around 20 XXXL of the old shirts so if you want one of the original shirts and are a hefty dude go here.
I also have someone doing some designs for a sticker, which is probably going to be screen printed on vinyl and I'll sell them in packs of 10 or 20 or something.
If you have any good ideas for shirts or hoodies etc, feel free to mail me a design at max@ytmnd.com and we can discuss it.
I am going to be sending out a demographics survey to all registered users via private message later today. Filling it out would be extremely helpful as I know almost nothing about most of you and can't really give advertisers a good idea of who you are! Better ads = more money = less ads = better ytmnd.
Last but not least, I signed a release for the Colbert Report to show some YTMNDs on there, so hopefully they should air sometime this week (if at all).
P.S.: if you run ad/popup blockers and are capable of/willing to disable them when using ytmnd.com, it might be helpful.
PLEASE DO NOT RANDOMLY CLICK ADS, THIS DOES NOT HELP
Click ads when you see relevant information about products you may wish to purchase. Ad clicks are worthless without people actually buying products.
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at what point will the survey results be available to see? stats like number of users per city. that way we can form our own fight clubs. lol. seriously though, can i get a logo with my name and just one star. heh. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. make stats available. please
Hey also ytmnd stickers would be cool. i would love to see warsman11 stickers and syncan stickers ect. But each sticker shows something the urser might have did or an image relateding to the user like michale wolfest would have a crown with the superstar logo underit and i would have people fighting a war on my sticker ect ect.
We've got plenty of talented people making shirt/idea YTMNDs as I type this, and I don't doubt they're willing to enter some sort of donation system. AKA "I get badass internets cred and keep YTMND alive so I can feel cool when Mom yells at me about the trash". Not much, but it'll work. Vote often! :)
"and the downside of becoming like the SA Forums is....?
Unless you're refering to the over-moderation there... NOTHING."
Yeah, right. People won't pay for anything too edgy or offensive, so if payment options are inacted then new standards of YTMND's "art" must be made. For example, true and hardcore heavy metal bands are not likely to sell alot of albums, but if you get them to compromise and make radio-friendly music, well suddenly they are superstars. It's about going mainstream, and very few people (I.E. maddox) can keep their style and still manage financially.
"It's about going mainstream,
and very few people (I.E. maddox) can keep their style and still manage financially." YTMND is in that same internet-geek wheelhouse, so you kind of self-defeated your entire argument with your last line. Aside from the chunk of dipsh*ts that would run off to ruin some other website, saying "ITS B$ WE HAVE 2 PAY" as the door hits them on the *ss on the way out, the site wouldn't get anything but better if there were some sort of payment requirement in place.
"YTMND is in that same internet-geek wheelhouse, so you
kind of self-defeated your entire argument with your last line."
No, that's not even relevant. Maddox can maintain without ads because it comes, mostly, out of his own pocket, YTMND cannot do the same if you have not noticed. Thus the ads and donations. Max isn't in the position of having the money to support YTMND by himself so therefore YTMND will need to have more of a business edge to succeed. And with a website highly dependent on it's business, compromises will have to be made for success.
You say this site will get better, but for who? There is an influx of new members from sponsership and advertisement, and as you would expect, the nature of YTMND has changed from a radical nature to more family-friendly. If you don't know what I am talking about I suggest you ask people from 2004 what YTMND was like. Compromise is looming, and only an idiot would deny that.
A mid '05er telling someone who WAS here in 2004 to "ask someone from 2004 what it was like" is cute. I'd be glad to tell you what it was like over PMs if you want. Saying "people won't pay for anything too edgy or offensive" is bullsh*t in the first place. You're putting this site on the level of other forms of entertainment, and you're insane if you think a ton of people wouldn't spend the cash to join this site without a single change being made. If a couple dozen members alone raise over 1000 bucks in just like 2 or 3 days, they'd pay to join the site. "The nature of YTMND has changed from a radical nature to more family-friendly." This thinly veiled cry of "sell-out!" grows more meaningless every day. YTMND is not family friendly, nor will it ever be. There's still nothing preventing anyone from uploading whatever they want, and restrictions are minimal. If this was trying to be "family friendly" Max would lock the site down until all existing sites were modded and sorted properly....
I am 04, do you think I survived that year without a deletion? Aside the assumptions...
You assume someone will pay for edgy content, which in other cases might be true, but the present audience that YTMND caters to is getting less edgy as each day passes. YTMND has turned from its roots, and that can't be denied. Enacting new forms of business would keep YTMND afloat, but draw more people. Unless max can pull off a tremendous feat, the target audience for offensive and edgy content will not respond. Watch the frontpage, then look at the forums. The option that makes the most money will succeed, and appealing to a small audience does not make the most money.
"Minimal compromise" is like a taste of honey, unless you have great restraint you will desire more.
What is YTMND?, when I first saw it in the summer of '05, it had an instantly recognizable aura of 'Underground', you know - that smarmy, witty, 'can't be touched' humour untainted by commercial interests. Everyone knows that this place has biting satire, and it's success is heavily attributed to the legitiamacy of uncompromise. Where would compromise come in? = I beleive that commercial endorsement would allow third parties (I.E. the ones suppling the $) to be looking over max's shoulder all the time, giving him sh*t.
"Maybe you could save money by getting rid of features that cost you un-needed bandwidth. Like the large 404 page." True. I say go right back to "Site not found. :(", or show it less often. Also, add code to the assets pages so that they can ONLY be downloaded from those pages and not by themselves (example, "http://content.ytmnd.com/content/0/2/c/02c9dc224ded27d701fcde31b12f96bf.wav?ip=blahblah&timeInEncryptedForm=fef26a7b", and check if the current server time's 3 minutes or less beyond that time). The determined, of course, can find deliberate ways around that to get it on their Myspace things, but that's a different problem.
"Maybe you could save money by having a listed database of commonly used songs and
sound files. people can enter in the file name in the YTMND - O - MATIC when making
their sites, so then every site made this way will call up that file. This way you
only need to store one copy instead of 2,000 copies of the same song. That will cut
down on server space." I quoted that for truth
1. I would have infinitely more respect for Colbert if he just took the sites he wanted and showed them without Max having to sign a release.
2. Max could always take content from other sites and just say he's hosting it. That seems to work well elsewhere, and it's not like anyone would ever successfully sue him.
3. Premium membership still = good idea.
I think that if you had the genius to make this site, you have the genius to make this site w/ ads in a way that won't suck. Bring it on.
Also, I will buy a ZIP UP hoodie, as these are usually expensive, and could generate mula...Also I like the idea of longsleeve shirts, those are good in cold places.