| Author |
Message |
    
Gardenfiend
 Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 05:31 pm EST : |   |
Jeanne, this gets into business questions. After all the companies are meant to pay money for ads, so they have to see at least some chance of finding new customers. I don't think there are enough participants here from any place other than the USA and maybe Canada to make buying an ad seem worthwhile. And even there it probably isn't as easy as sending an e-mail. But with your southern accent (you do have one, don't you?) you could probably charm the socks off of any nursery owner on the phone...
Gardenfiend
- Germany,
Zone "7a"
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Bulliedeux
Supporting Member
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 05:35 pm EST : | |
No, not even close and I regret you feel that way.
I'll just go elsewhere and mind my own business.
should've known..
Bulliedeux
- IL,
Zone "5b"
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Loretta
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 05:41 pm EST : | |
Now we need to know exactly how money is generated by these ads. Anyone well informed here? I am not an expert but willing to learn and do some research.
The ads at the bottom of "knittinghelp.com" are "powered by Google" ads. We can look into what kind of money that approach generates.
Look at this. Google AdSense
As far as calendars, every little bit helps. Just because it won't cover the $3,500 deficit, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Even if it raises a couple of hundred, it's a couple of hundred that doesn't come out of EJ's pocket. I do get free beautiful calendars in the mail but that is impersonal.
Here is an example at Dpreview, a popular camera forum. Look at the box under "Support this site, buy the Nikon Coolpix S510 from one of our affiliate retailers". What company generates this kind of linking?
What about selling seeds donated from Garden Buddy members? We could sell them in lots, say 10 packs for $10, or similar.
Loretta
- NJ,
Zone "6"
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Loretta
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 05:54 pm EST : | |
Now don't be getting sensitive on us Blaine! Come back! You just paid your membership!
Well, that goes with my thought also. Should we make a list and approach companies individually using approved GB companies? Say we call Odyssey Bulb on the phone. Say they want a link on GB. Exactly what is our offer, what is the price? Payment is generated whenever someone clicks the link? Where do we get this technology? Maybe we need a few reps from our many countries making these contacts. After all, we are international.
Hey, maybe we should have a GB Seal of Approval!
Loretta
- NJ,
Zone "6"
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Growit
Supporting Member
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 06:17 pm EST : | |
Blaine Ingwe is from Sweden and probably doesn't quite get your humour. That is one of the things I like about this site, the mix of nationalities, but it does sometimes mean misunderstandings. I find you very funny but then I am a Brit and the humour translates well.
Mara does look quite seductive in her roses and the picture would work well as a calendar pose. I would quite happily go for a WI style calendar (did you see calendar girls?) though a few more clothes would be nice. I think something a little quirky would sell better and therefore bring in more funds.
Growit
- Hampshire,
Zone "8/9"
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Gardenfiend
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 06:22 pm EST : | |
I like the way that sounds! :-) And does Ej get sued if one of the products turns out to be a dud? 
Maybe that is too complicated. I'd been thinking of something more simple. The company buys an ad for, say, a year; and trusts that it will produce additional revenue. As it would in a magazine. I don't know how much ads like that cost, nor how the click-generated payment works (but if it does go by clicks, we can earn Ej lots of money by spending our spare time clicking away...)
Yes, I agree. Let's try to find answers.
With Amazon, I believe they supply the technology, and there I know it isn't a matter of clicks, but purchases.
Everyone (almost) shops at Amazon, so why not do it through GBs. The price is the same and it helps. And Amazon is international.
Blaine, I know you were kidding. Right? ... I hope...? We need you right here. Adding your comments.
Gardenfiend
- Germany,
Zone "7a"
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Growit
Supporting Member
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 06:39 pm EST : | |
DJ I'm listening even if I don't understand about computers. Could you explain please?
Growit
- Hampshire,
Zone "8/9"
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Gardenfiend
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 06:46 pm EST : | |
OK, here are two random price lists from two web sites for I don't know what. Just to get a feel of the price range of simple banners without click payment.
one company
another company
My feeling is that since GBs is a fairly small forum, we would need to stay on the low side. But just for fun and I'm making this up as I go along:
6 banners sold (Clematis, Hellebores, Roses, Bulbs, Cookery, Garden Gallery)
at $200 per banner per year. That's $1200 in Ej's coffers (= 48 new dues-paying members).
Gardenfiend
- Germany,
Zone "7a"
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Malgorzata
Supporting Member
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 07:15 pm EST : | |
Would some of our Gardenbuddies members that we know of having own business would be interested in little banners? Or they rather won't mix pleasure (Gardenbuddies of course!) and business?
Calendars are nice idea, lots of fun and excitement..but I am afraid not very profitable after all expenses. But a few extra bucks wouldn't hurt and there is FUN involved so I would vote for it.
I am surprised DJ's idea is not discussed yet. She might have a gold mine there.
And please, oh please rewrite the CONTRIBUTION page that a foreigner like me can understand plainly. Donations are needed to preserve this site. Is it so inappropriate to say it simply and plainly in the opening statement?
And please do not make newcomers guilty of not supporting the Forum from day one. Many are confused (and hurt?) now because they simply did not catch with the idea at signing time and are hit now with the $$$ news .
Just thinking aloud...
Malgorzata
- Fukuoka-Kyushu,
Zone "8/9"
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Carol23
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 07:16 pm EST : | |
Blaine, I'm hoping you jump back in here! You have excellent ideas.
The ads seem the best solution, Mara.
Most of us already have a ( or several) 2008 calendar. That would mean 2009 for a time frame. Printing is expensive and shipping is another matter. Once the demand is over, anything left will sit and end up as recycled paper. This might work with pre-paid orders. A friend gave me advice on this.
Loretta, the seed packet idea is problematic because many members already have shared seed with other members requesting it.
Carol23
- Southeastern PA,
Zone "6B"
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Loretta
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 07:56 pm EST : | |
Well, let's put it this way. Whichever way we do it, the first goal is $3,500 USD per year. And who knows, maybe we could recoup some of EJ's losses. What combination of the above is going to get us to there? It might mean we sell banners and have Ads by Google, etc.
1. We can have the top of page banner. Would this one sell for more?
2. We can have one or two side of page banners or we can have a break after so many posts on a page. Maybe we should consider this placement as a last resort as it will affect our format the most.
3. We can have a bottom of the page banner or maybe right above the post box.
4. We can have Ads by Google or similar beneath or instead of any banner.
5. We could sell sponsorship to any forum. In that case, only their add would appear. As Jeanne showed, Brushwood sponsors the clematis forum on Dave's Garden. Their banner appears at the top and bottom of the page. And this would be worth...?
6. Is it realistic to sell ads ourselves or is it better to use a service. How can we incorporate the fact that we are international and how will that affect our ad base? Is a company like Brushwood going to want to sponsor a forum when half the people who use it can't buy from them? Should we allow multiple sponsors if it means their territories don't cross.
7. Finally, I have to ask EJ, finances aside, is it still worth your time to continue this way? Have you had your fill?
Also, let's review after a period of time, how much money the new approach to donations generates. Let's take a first review between now and the Spring annual renewal and see if supporting membership improves.
"Past experience is not indicative of future results." It is an accolade, not a warranty. Any lawyers out there? Has Consumer's Report, CNET or other reviewers been sued from dissatisfied customers? Has anyone ever sued Garden Watchdog? They have their top 30 based on user's experience. Anyway, we do like our specialists here, don't we. Look at Tim's Broughtons, Darrell Probst's epimediums, etc.
Loretta
- NJ,
Zone "6"
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Dannypa
My Weather
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:13 pm EST : | |
It's been a long time since I've posted here. A friend told me there was action afoot that would interest me. Indeed it does. I may be able to provide some insight and possibly financial support. I'd be interested in sponsoring a forum or possibly more with either a direct payment annually or an affiliate type program. My business is a mail order company that sells garden vines and I sponsor forums as a part of my marketing budget.
I also know a good bit about web servers and software platforms that may be helpful.
Before I overstep my bounds, may I participate more in this conversation? I would like to help.
Dannypa
- PA,
Zone "6b"
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Seil
Supporting Member
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:18 pm EST : | |
Pheew, I'm exhausted just reading all this let alone understanding some of it.
I've been to all of the forums mentioned and others too. I keep coming back here. Why? Because from day one you made me feel welcome. There is only one other forum that did that and I go there as often as here but they are strictly roses and I grow a lot of other things besides my beloved roses that I enjoy talking and learning about. This place lets me do that. You're also a fun social group as well and I've enjoyed that too.
I only found this place in July and I do not remember the donation page showing up when I registered but I could be wrong, my memory fails me occasionally. I never clicked on the Membership page because I thought I already was a member so it wasn't until recently that I went there and read it all. As you can see I've sent my money now. It does need to be more prominently displayed when registering I think. Although I do like the new donate button.
I don't use the email notifications. I like to come and browse all the new posts. I sometimes like to check forums for things I don't even grow just to see the pictures and learn about something new.
I guess what I'm saying is I'd hate to lose you all so soon after finding you. I'm for whatever it takes to keep things running smoothly and giving poor Ej a break.
seil
p.s.: Since Ej is dropping spellcheck I appologize in advance for all my spelling errors. I am the worlds worst speller.
Seil
- Michigan,
Zone "6"
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Derek
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:52 pm EST : | |
It is nice to see the community coming together to find ways to lighten the burden that EJ has been shouldering for us over the years.
We must remember that EJ never started this site as a money-making proposition...it was through his personal funding and countless hours of refining software application to make this site work as well as it does.
Granted it was perhaps a bit of a hobby for him to start everything from scatch and see it through to a polished finished product but I am sure we can all sympatize with him in noticing the "yiks" factor of a very unbalanced balance sheet.
Many of us never would have had the means to keep such a site afloat under those costly circumstances...but EJ,out of his kindness of heart ,provided the time(more than we can imagine) and funding (much as we now know)to allow us to share the passion of gardening everytime we see the Gardenbuddie page appear on our computer screen.
As some have noticed, it is a touchy and sensitive situation for some when it comes to seeking financial support for a public forum.I would hope that new members don't feel obliged to immediately fork out cash support...they need to have time to feel they are part of this friendly community.But once they feel comfortable within the gardengates and realize the wealth of knowledge and friendship that reigns here,they should be in a better position to appreciate the need for donations...a donation that gives them much in return, such as conveniently available album space and vast archives of expertise.
As far as ads go, they may be a necessary evil help out. I would prefer single banner or sidebar ads over the Google ads. The banner ads would provide a fixed income(known in advance) whereas the Google ads provide only pennies(relatively speaking) to the site owner , and only when users click on the ad.
About the spammers....they should be lined up and...well, use you imagination :-)Unfortunately we are often dealing with machines rather than people when it comes to spam.
I don't know if this is any help to you EJ, but I know we were having tremendous problems with a canoe site that I visit and somehow the management seemed to have cleaned up much of the problem. When I mentioned the Gardenbuddie problem with spam, i was offered this reply from the forum administrator.
Hi Derek,
Thanks for the positive comments about the site...we have been working very hard to solve the many problems here!
The first & most obvious problem was of course mountains of spam. In different areas of the site it had to be treated differently.
I don't know if you have phpbb software or different software. We, as you can see, have phpBB & it is an older version which we want to update because some spam control features are included....we have version 2.04, highest stable release is 2.22, but v. 3.0 is due out any time in a stable release. So we are holding off upgrading until v. 3.0 comes out.
So that meant fighting the spam completely by other means. The first thing we did was change the registration to admin-activated instead of user-activated - this means that no more spammers can get on the site. The moderators were cleaning up as fast as possible the spam that showed to users. Behind the scenes, I went to the database & cleaned out over 12,000 registered users (spam users) by using various filters, so that I wouldn't delete a real user. A few mistakes were made, but not many.
At the same time I hunted all over to see what would be for us the best means of blocking the spam. There are many good articles written on the subject.....what I finally decided to do was to block all would-be registrants from time-zone= -12. There is a script available which can be installed which does something similar. I had an excellent consultant who helped me do this. This blocked approximately 95% of the spam from being able to get in.
I then set up another timezone script which stopped all users from timezone 0 - where pretty well all other spam was originating from. These users are asked upon registration to fill in the word "canoeing" under 'Interests'. That allowed the real users through.
So that is essentially how we stopped the spam in the forums!
I think the first thing you need to do is make the activation admin-activated; then you need to analyse the incoming spam to see where it is from. If it is similar to what ours was, then i believe this would also work for you.
If you have more questions, then please contact me & I'll try to help,
Good luck
Marilyn Sprissler
CCR Site Administrator
That's all gobbledigoop to me but maybe it points to some solution?
Well that's my time up on the garden stump.Let's hope the rallying behind EJ continues
Derek Quebec Canada Zone 3b |
Plantynut
Supporting Member
My Favorite Photo
My Garden Journal
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:56 pm EST : | |
Excellent point Loretta.Right now I think this is the first question to be addressed.
I have been quietly watching these posts and there seems to be a renewed vitality the past few days. EJ do you see this outpouring of support, ideas and interest as a catharsis of sorts? Or are are you sitting there holding your head thinking "What have I started now?"
If there is consistent and reliable help EJ can have some of his mental and physical burden lifted.
Look here:
http://www.pbase.com/magazine
and then here:
http://www.pbase.com/magazine/buy
The folks that put this quarterly and high quality magazine together are all volunteers from around the globe. It can be done. And they have a bit of fund raising as well.
Look here: we can do t shirts, etc
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/makemoney
I haven't examined every fine detail. I am not a business person but these are ideas to consider.
The calender idea does not appeal to me. I make my own and would prefer to leave it that way. But that's me.
Banner ads for gardening stuff and Amazon who I do a lot of business with is appealing. My children's high school had them on their website as well.
So, back to the most important question to face: A long time ago EJ, when this issue of fund raising first came up, you said you had a business and did not want another. So that must be the first consideration.
Plantynut
- New York,
Zone "7"
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Ej
Supporting Member
My Favorite Photo
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 11:26 pm EST : | |
Hello Dan and welcome to Gardenbuddies. All ideas are welcome and I look forward to your suggestions.
Derek the problem is not with the spam making it to the forums but a bigger problem at the server lever with sendmail and spammers relaying their junk mail through the site. Not impossible to correct but it is challenging to eliminate.
Gardenbuddies is going to give your ideas a try with all my support over the 2008 year. If the level of help remains this high through out the coming year, then I think we'll be ok.
Ej So.Cal. Zone 10a
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Mimi
Supporting Member
My Weather
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 12:18 am EST : | |
PHEW! Trying to get caught up. I see I was wrongly quoted 2times /Not that it matters, but I didn't say these things someone else did if ya read correctly. and I also got this when I clicked  .
Hope the $ start pouring in. This is a great site with lots of priceless information here. Would hate to see it come to pass.
Mimi
- Wisconsin,
Zone "4b"
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Loretta
Supporting Member
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 03:10 am EST : | |
Well, that was Blaine who said that, Mimi.
Derek, not that I am trying to push Google but you can format their ads anyway you want.
Seil, if you use Firefox, you get spellcheck.
I think we mostly agree that sponsorship and/or banner ads could be our major fundraiser. Shall we investigate further?
Danny, what does "affiliate type program" mean? Is that the process of buying through a link provided?
Loretta
- NJ,
Zone "6"
|
Gardenfiend
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 06:28 am EST : | |
A picture being worth a couple of words... Here's a sample of what a sponsor banner could look like. Please remember it is just part of the brainstorming process not a suggestion of what the banner has to look like. It could be different - smaller, placed elsewhere, completely different design.
All it is meant to show is that a banner as such doesn't have to uglify GardenBuddies or make us look crass or commercial.
(This is reduced in size to be able to upload it)
A friend explained the spamming problem to me - it is amazing. Spammers hitchhike on the server and send out thousands of spams using the server's capacity - slowing things down to a crawl. It's great for the spammer, they don't need to pay for a server of their own. Not so good for Ej, nor the rest of us.
Gardenfiend
- Germany,
Zone "7a"
|
Terryk
Supporting Member
My Weather
My Garden
My Time
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 08:01 am EST : | |
Ej, have you had a substanttial increase in member support since this post began with our existing members?
In addition to all the good ideas here, I still feel we have to get this link out to other areas of gardenbuddies. We all get so busy or miss some things while we are busy posting or replying to a post. I am afraid we are still not making everyone aware of the problem of lack of funds.
I posted this as a link in the cyclamen forum and hellebore forum to an ongoing discussion and I think it generated two new members.
Mara perhaps as you are active in the clematis forum and the rose forum (more than I am anyway) you could add this link. Maybe we will bump up the number of supporting members that way.
Of course the best solution, (in my humble opinion) would be to post this as a link to all the forums for a short time period. Nothing like a few "new" flags to get us poking around on gb to see what's new!
Oh, and one last thought, maybe we should move the "donate" button to the top of each page so it bangs eveyone over the head as you access gardenbuddies or access a forum page. This way, even if you are not going to be adding to a discussion, it is the first thing you see.
Terryk
- NY,
Zone "6"
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