Bob, There's absolutely nothing wrong with advertising (in fact, the site is full of ads), but because REALbasic is such a niche category, the advertising does not cover expenses of running the site (hosting, bandwidth, etc.)
I originally tried selling advertising space on RBGarage.com to any RB developer who was interested in promoting their RB-made products, but even at the very low ad costs, I only had a few interested parties who actually signed up for ads. So since that did not prove to be fruitful, I replaced my custom advertising engine with Google AdSense, which does make more money for the site than my old advertising system, but niche market REALbasic keywords are cheap, so even the Google AdSense does not bring in enough revenue to cover expenses. By the way, my replies are NOT an attempt to solicit money, but to simply help shed light on the realities of running RBGarage.com. :-) --Dave on 12/7/06 11:50 PM, Bob Pegram wrote: > Dave - > > Why is advertising bad, especially if it helps cover expenses? If people > don't like it, they can ignore it. How hard is that? > > Bob Pegram > > on 12/5/06 8:51 AM, Dave Wooldridge at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> on 12/5/06 7:19 AM, Björn Eiríksson wrote: >> >>> I think a add-on tracker for REALbasic would be good. (On that REAL >>> would link to). >>> Some might say RB Garage is one, but no it does not come close to it, it >>> has no versioning, nor any cleanup of obsolete add-ons, making it >>> useless both for users and Vendors. IE Products that actually are >>> supported get buried deep down there while products that get posted once >>> and never more supported contribute to keep the actual products buried >>> in the useless pile of items. >> >> >> And who would spend their precious time constantly reviewing the 1,000's of >> listings every week to make sure they are not obsolete or unsupported? And >> how would one know if a product is still supported without spending some >> more extra time to contact the developer? Since many times the product may >> no longer be supported but the developer still has their web page up, making >> it hard to easily identify what products are still valid. >> >> RBGarage.com currently relies on the developers who post their listings to >> keep them updated and current. It is the developer's responsibility to log >> into their RBGarage.com account and remove discontinued products. This is >> how VersionTracker.com does it as well. >> >> I've always been a huge supporter of the REALbasic community, which has been >> my driving force to continue offering RBGarage.com as a free online >> resource, but I don't make any money from RBGarage.com. Since 2003, >> RBGarage.com has only received 1 donation from a kind member, even though >> thousands of people use the site on a daily basis. The advertising that the >> site currently displays only pays for some of the bandwidth and hosting >> fees, so RBGarage.com actually costs me money every month, and yet and I >> continue to offer it as a free web site to the REALbasic community. >> >> So here's my big question to the REALbasic community: >> >> The only way I could afford to dedicate time to "policing" the RBGarage.com >> database to personally weed out obsolete and old listings is if >> RBGarage.com's revenue stream increased to the point where the site was >> actually making some money instead of losing money. Then I could dedicate >> some of the revenue to increased site development. >> >> The only way I see that happening is if I charge a membership fee to search >> RBGarage.com's database. Listings would continue to be free to submit, but >> using the site to find helpful items would require a monthly or annual >> membership fee. This would also allow me to add more services and features, >> such as removing advertising and offering a handy desktop app for searching >> and tracking listings on RBGarage.com. >> >> Would REALbasic developers be willing to pay a membership fee to subscribe >> to RBGarage.com??? >> >> My guess is that everyone's answer will be "no" and that they will want to >> see RBGarage.com continue as a free site, yet people will still complain >> about the listings (even though it is a free service). >> >> BJORN: >> Please note that my reply is NOT directed at you. Your comments are merely >> one of many that get periodically voiced on the mailing lists from various >> people about RBGarage.com and so I felt the need to reply to the community >> as a whole. >> >> I gladly welcome any and all feedback on the issue. Please email me >> directly with your comments, so as not to clog up the NUG. Thanks! >> >> Regards, >> Dave Wooldridge >> RB Garage Webmaster >> >> ---------------------------------------- >> RB Garage - http://www.RBGarage.com >> The largest independent online resource >> For REALbasic software developers! >> ---------------------------------------- >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: >> <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> >> >> Search the archives of this list here: >> <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: > <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> > > Search the archives of this list here: > <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html> _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives of this list here: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
