Here a topic that I have never seen discussed on UBBDEV, and I have no clue why.

I know just about every spotlight contest I have enter, always the first commit about my site is

Pop-Ups - Very Bad

What wrong with trying to make a little money ? I not talking about hammering your visitors with endless pop-up, but I am talking about making your website profitable.

My visitors only get 1 pop-up within a 24 period and I also run a banner at the top and the bottom. I told my member before starting with the pop-ups, and told them that they would help me cover the cost of keeping GlassRattler running each month, i think I only had 2 members that complained about it.

I not going to get rich from my UBB, but I can easily cover my host charges each month.

The reason I brought this topic up, is because I read through Paulus Magnus post about him spending $210.00 a month for hosting and not making a single penny in return

There no reason you shouldn't get paid for all your time and effort you put into your UBB, to make it into a great community.

No, my website isn't making money.

About your popup thingy - you could make the same amount of money in banners at the top/bottom/side of your forum, I think popups scare away many visitors (you asked members, that like your content, not guests, that the first impression matters the most). Member Spotlight is to check how's the first impression as well, if you want the content to count, join Content Rulez™ contest.

Also, if you GOTTA use popup because your host makes you or something, don't make it 24-hour period, make it atleast 1 month not to annoy your users.

I re-read through my post and I don't want it to sound like I am trying to bash UBBDEV, and if it does sorry that was not my point.

I just thought maybe we could share idea, to help everyone at least cover there hosting charges.

"you could make the same amount of money in banners at the top/bottom/side of your forum"

I have not found that to be the case at all, my one pop-up with a 24 hour period, makes about 3 times as much as the top/bottom banner combined.

And no my host does not make me use pop-ups

People tend to fall into one of a number of camps:

1) Those who are doing it for fun, run a hobby site and are looking to get back some of the costs outlayed from their pocket. A lot of folks have used adverts, some donations, some other little things (t-shirts, etc).

2) Others have tried the fee based model, where they charge a nominal fee for people to use their site. The problem with this is your site better be worth somebody paying, what they could otherwise get for free. This translates to better content.

3) Others have built their site around some commercial value, where the website is part of their business, or is used to help generate business.

Since you run a Hockey site, if you were wanting to make some money from your site, I would look at either merchandising opportunities...selling licensed team apparel and/or collectables (very competitive to compete with the 1,000's of other merchants), or maybe run a fantasy league, fee based, with cash prizes (with a small % drawn off to cover some of the expenses). You can also try to see if you could capitalize on the brand value of GlassRattler, and perhaps sell some GR merchandise to your members (if they are interested). I would go with a cool looking T-Shirt, and a custom CCM Tacks GlassRattler Team Hat, in this case. Or you could invent a mouse in the shape of a puck...which I'm sure, other than the auckward ergonomics would be a hit with pick fans.

in my opinion, if you want pop ups or other ads, then put'em in there. they're your forums to be run how you want them to be run.

will you lose (potential) members because of them? absolutely. its a well-known fact that people hate pop up ads (no need for indepth research on that one! ). but, if you're ok with those "risks," and you still wanna do it anyway, go ahead! no real reason why you couldn't or shouldn't.

if you dont mind my asking, how much are you making from the pop ups?

i'm lucky in that retrospect, i dont have to pay for hosting as i'm hosted by a large gaming hosting company. I only have to pay for the forums every year

*Is one of the lucky ones*

I host in one of my computers (not this one), so it's slow like hell, but the hosting is free..

I bought a domain today (hurray!), so I'll have to pay $35/year after the 3 years registration ($70) is over.

quote:

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if you were wanting to make some money from your site, I would look at either merchandising opportunities...selling licensed team apparel and/or collectables

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I tried affiliate with 4 of the top hockey merchandice site ( were they pay you a very small % of what the customer you send them buys) after 4 million impression and not a single penny in sales, that didn't work very well for me.

Tacks I love the rest of your idea, a fee based Fantasy league, with cash prizes.

One of my members owns a t-shirt print shop, and he is working on a couple of differnet t-shirts.

drkknght, Last month GlassRattler made about $140.00 in advertising, and that in the offseason for hockey site.