Site Funding

[Thomas McKown]

Alright, I have some ideas I would like to try when we get our own domain in about a month or so when it becomes available. First we have the issue of funding site hosting. Since I can't afford to pay for the site but am willing to pitch in, I want to ask the group what it's thoughts are for how to fund the site's monthly hosting costs. Also, we are going to lose our ad-free status after the first two weeks of using this forum. We will have to pay $7.00/month to lose the ads. I am fine with running the site with ads until we grow and find a creative way to generate revenue without charging for membership.

Right now, everything is free and will continue to stay that way indefinitely if the site never takes off, but I think we can make it a more valuable site if we implement some cool ideas like photography news feeds regarding the latest gear and lighting techniques, tutorial articles for beginners, and photo contests for those who want to participate.

Any brain stormers out there? Don't make me look silly by letting this thread sit in awkward silence.

[Ricky]

I can likely pull some strings to give the forum ad-free, so that may not be a worry

[Thomas McKown]

Jul 22, 2010 21:47:50 GMT -5 Ricky said:

I can likely pull some strings to give the forum ad-free, so that may not be a worry

Now, I don't want to do anything that could violate the TOS and get the forum deleted.

[Sara Adams]

Jul 22, 2010 21:47:50 GMT -5 Ricky said:

I can likely pull some strings to give the forum ad-free, so that may not be a worry

You
are
awesome
If you can.

Ricky that is really sweet of you. (:

And Thomas, he's a Proboards Admin (as I just explained in person to you) so I don't think he's going to violate any TOS.

[Thomas McKown]

Haha, ohhhhh. I didn't realize. In that case, that would be pretty sweet! Let us know what you can do!

[Ricky]

Hah, yeah, probably should have elaborated more. Understandable how that would sound a bit sketchy otherwise I'll see about the adfree next week

One other thing, I figure I should mention, you could consider is the custom domain service. Basically you'll be able to link up a domain or sub domain to the forum and the URL will be fully integrated within the forum. So instead of seeing the link in the address bar for this thread:

ourphotogroup.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=qs&action=display&thread=31&page=1

You'd get something like:

thomasmckownphoto.com/index.cgi?board=qs&action=display&thread=31&page=1

Using whatever domain you'd have in mind of course. This would be a paid service though of $14 per year. I feel like I'm sounding like a salesman here, but figured it would be worth mentioning that its possible to do if you wanted to give the forum an address that would be easier to remember

[Thomas McKown]

I would like to have it on its own domain, but wouldn't I also have to pay for web hosting as well? That was part of the problem last time, it was costing Sprinkle well over $100 per year and he wasn't getting anything back out of it. The cheapest option would be to buy the domain and simply redirect it to the forum. If the site could somehow generate enough revenue to sustain itself, I think it would be great to implement a lot of things, web hosting included. I really want a home page too. Something with links to user galleries, photography articles, and the news feed of whats going on in the photography world. That is where announcements would be made as well, such as when the next photo contest would be.
Here is a very basic sample of something similar I'd like to have as a home page:

ourphotogroup.com/sample

I'm still working on the news feed, trying to make it easier to look at and read, but the home page will have links to all kinds of new sections of the site, the forum will just be part of it. I like what you are saying though, that is what I had in mind.

[Ricky]

If you wanted to give the forum it's own domain, you wouldn't need hosting, just a domain name. Pretty cheap if you get them from sites like godaddy or domain.com, usually under $10 a year for the domain name and doesn't require a bundled hosting account. All you'd need to do is point the domain to the proboards name servers, and the rest would be done on their end (might sound confusing, but it's a rather simple task). While you could just re-direct the domain to point to the forum, you wouldn't be able to link to specific posts or threads that way as you'd still need to rely on the ProBoards URL for that; not to mention, the domain of yours would be replaced with the ProBoards URL in the address bar when a visitor goes to the forum with that. An example of how it would work would be: sonyreaderboards.com/ <- They use the custom domain service, which as you can see the domain is fully integrated with the forum no matter where you go

The website idea sounds like it would be a nice addition as well, especially for member's photo galleries and such. A lot of cool things can be done these days with those

[everlastingimages]

Yeah, we should just get a domain, it's 10 bucks a year, and that's a tax write off to whoever pays.

[Thomas McKown]

Ok that sounds pretty cool. And like I said, we are just waiting for the domain to be released right now. We would however need hosting for the other ideas I had, like the home page with the news feed and user galleries.

We also need to remember the beginner tutorials. I want to collaborate with a few people and write these to attract people who are just getting into photography. It doesn't have to be too fancy, just learning how to use an SLR and learning all the correct terminology. I remember searching all over the internet trying to learn this stuff when I first started, so I think it would benefit new shooters a lot. This is one thing that I guess could be done in the forum, but I honestly would prefer a web page so that it wouldn't get lost in the site. So again, this would be something else that would require hosting.