Ian
Site Administrator
Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
User status: Offline
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How would you owe users money? If you're getting a percentage because of their activity its up to you what you do with it.
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Cosmo
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
User status: Offline
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Yeah Im a bit unsure as to why you would ever owe users money?
Also another suggestion is meal plans/recipes based on food types/nutrition values. I knwo their are websites out there doing similar things as that, plus the things I mentioned earlier, but these are all separate and not one I know of that does it all together.
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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I'm saying... to boost user interactions, then I would offer the users a percentage back from all commissions...
So, if user A recommends something on my site which they know will create a affliate link, they will get rewarded if a user uses their recommendation and buys the product.
... Thus the users are driven to make the sales, the users are driven to make the recommendations and the users potentially have a chance to make money doing this.
... I skim the top like the rake of a pot in poker. Providing enough transactions are happening, me taking 1 or 2 % off the top is plenty, and the users recommending the things can happily have the rest.
What I'm saying is, a affiliate link will pay me. For me to pay the user their cut, I will owe them money.
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Cosmo
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
User status: Offline
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Nah, totally wrong way to go about it - its practically like Ian paying me on here for all the shite I posted in Off Day thus obviously attracting members and keeping current ones here 
Infact, Ian.....
TBH Paul, their payment is the system you provide them. If you give them the tools for them to track their own progress, then the fact its a valuable attraction to other users and companies for you to make money from is yours to do with as you wish.
And if users suggests products then it should be your system that picks up on those and then links to your 'preferred partner' who has paid you to drive those people to their online store that sells said product. The user should not have any ability to gain money via the website imo.
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ed
Member
Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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Seeing as you are going to have a shed load of data about your users, you will be able to implement a highly targeted advertising system which will generate you revenue to run the site, and eventually profit.
Have you ever noticed on Facebook that you often get adverts that refer to a status update? Pretty smart hey 
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Cosmo
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by ed
Have you ever noticed on Facebook that you often get adverts that refer to a status update? Pretty smart hey
Not just status update, you can specify a hell of a lot of specifics so you can really target your market.
Its great for us as we can target people within 10-25miles of one of our stores, relationship status set to engaged, female, etc. etc. so we hit the perfect person with our ads.
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ed
Member
Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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We used it before to advertise a uni ski trip. It's very smart!
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by ed
Seeing as you are going to have a shed load of data about your users, you will be able to implement a highly targeted advertising system which will generate you revenue to run the site, and eventually profit.
Have you ever noticed on Facebook that you often get adverts that refer to a status update? Pretty smart hey
yeah but facebook still struggles to make money 
... fair enough cosmo, I just wanted an extra driving factor - as the hardest part is getting the community active from the outset, rather than ending up with a weekend racer (no offence ian) - it's the chicken and egg situation at the start that kills most sites and stops them growing.
- my only concerns with not paying back users is the fact that they may put their own affliate links up or get pissed off by the fact i am.
Hmm, I think if i did this, I'll leave the whole trying to get money back for a while.
Basically to do it properly I estimate about £500-£1000 in hardware / co location data centre costs. All the software / web side would be written by myself so would only cost my time.
I do agree, if the site became popular the making money should be fairly trivial, since it's a site aimed at people looking for solutions to their problems, and often those solutions are products. You can target specific advertising for those products at people requiring them.
I've got a couple of awesome books coming my way for christmas,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1430219858/ref=s9_sima_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=06TS7BVBR04FYTJCKE0K&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467198433&pf_rd_i=468294
^^
quote:
Bob Walsh's "The Web Startup Success Guide", wisely and following its own advice, is targeted very specifically. If you're a software developer, are thinking about setting up (or have just set up) a product-based start-up, and are prepared to work - damn hard - at something you love doing then this book is for you.
... and
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Designing-Social-Voices-That-Matter/dp/0321534921/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260885021&sr=8-2
- I've been reading a book lately called 'Once your lucky, twice you're good - The story of web 2.0' - and it just makes you want to get in on that action.
Reality is, in a couple of years I could be on 60k a year in a software developer job. However, it's the fact I'd be doing something i'm passionate about that draws me towards doing a web start up. It'd be hard work, quite probably fail, but at least I'd of given it a shot.
Working for software companies at the moment I just feel I'm making the company I work for loads of money and I'm not seeing much of the return, plus it gets a bit boring writing mundane financing / resourcing apps for customers. They never know what they want, you give them what they initially thought they wanted / what you thought they wanted, and then they turn around and say they want it different... it's frustrating.
I'm half tempted to contact that old school mate who went to silicon valley and sold a basic web start up for $5 million. He may want to co-found one of my ideas or invest... at worst he could give me helpful advice. My only concern with anything is people stealing the idea.
e.g. I have a load of other web ideas that are good, but simpler than this one, but I know people could essentially steal them haha.
On the other hand I've learnt that if you leave it too long someone else will do it anyway, e.g. Spotify. Back in about 2006/early 2007 I had the concept similar to spotify streaming media direct through a itunes style browser. Built my own prototype and had it working, but due to university I couldn't commit enough time to launch anything. Then i finalised the prototype again and was considering launching it before going travelling, but thought it'd be foolish as i wouldn't be able to control it while away... then returned from travelling to find spotify was about to launch. Doh...
Either way, I'm going to re use my prototype to take it in a new direction that is essentially web 3.0. I told my mates at work about the web 3.0 idea i had and they agreed with me, they couldn't believe it hadn't been done already! Problem is, I daren't tell anyone about it!
Where as this self improvement idea is so web 2.0 (or almost web 1.5) that I don't mind telling people as it's not exactly ground breaking.
Anyone want to invest / co found some shit?
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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p.s. for anyone who doesn't know
web 1.0 = static pages, content written by site owner
web 1.5 is a site where the content is half written by site owner (such as formal guides / information) and half generated by users
web 2.0 = community / social sites where the content is generated by the community
web 2.5 = user generated media based sites, content such as videos being shared by users
web 3.0 = Linking it all together, to become 1 web. Rather than many seperate sites / systems / formats, web 3.0 is about it all being on 1 shared platform / searchable across all etc.
You're seeing things like facebook / twitter etc starting to go web 3.0 now, where you can post twitter from facebook, or facebook from twitter etc.
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Cosmo
Member
Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: Im the real one!
User status: Offline
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I suggest you get someone to write the text for your websites to prevent users having to read essays
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Paul_J
Member
Registered: 6th Jun 02
Location: London
User status: Offline
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I'll tell you what's just done it, I've just taken 3 scoops of No Xplode... gonna go for a marathon run now, and i'm buzzing - practically shaking... So my fingers are typing at light speed
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