Commercial advertising - opinions

I would like some opinions on commercial advertising. I've been looking at various ways of funding RAUK for a while now.

In the past the site has been run on a shoe-string budget funded by myself and my partner. We considered donations but I'm not that keen as the original concept was to provide a free service to people like myself with an interest in native herpetofauna.

Many websites use commercial advertising to cover server costs, for RAUK this could fund a move to a SQL sever providing a faster more reliable service with picture uploads re-enabled etc. and a much more stable database (the current forum won't be lost it is possible to migrate it to SQL)

Personally I hate all the pop-ups and flashing ads on websites that are of no interest to me, so I'm considering approaching companies that provide products of interest to herpetologists such as cluson engineering, GB nets, Midwest etc.

Let me know what you think of the idea and which companies/products you think would be useful to members and also any ideas on how you would like to see advertising appear on RAUK.

Hi Al, glad you are back,

The aim of finding funding is to cure the slowness, we currently share server resources with other websites, this causes problems, if the other sites are busy we slow down, if they run duff asp code it crashs RAUK's .asp pages (the forum is totally asp based). The current database that stores all the posts made on the forum is MS Access and basicly the bigger it gets the slower it will get.

SQL will be a dedicated server so no sharing of resources, and SQL databases are much much faster than our dodgy Access one.

Right thats the good stuff, now the crunch,

RAUK currently costs about ú60 a year, peanuts I know and we have been happy to cover the costs, but if we move to SQL costs will be in the region of ú600+ per annum.

Donations are a good idea but we will need to ensure that we can cover costs in years to come, I'm not sure donations alone from members would be enough and I need the money up-front to purchase the server resources before the SQL site can be developed.

If we did go for advertising I would aim for 'subtle but visible', it would also be possible for members to choose to switch off the advertising on the forum if they wanted to though this might put some of the companies off using the site for advertising.

Add to this that RAUK is visited by ecological consultants, peeps from enviromental departments and voluntary groups advertising of useful stuff like 1 Million Candle Power torches for blinding off-road motorcyclists.. sorry for doing newt surveys and nets and bits could be a useful way of getting more people visiting the site and using its resources.

I'm not trying to ignore your donations suggestion, I still think it might be the best option, but just wanted to give a full explanation of why we are looking at commercial funding.

(PS my last bike was an FJ1200 so I'm not anti bikes, just the twits that ride them all over nature reserves)

(PS 2 got a link to the Bowie site?)

Would it be possible to offer a two stream service, a pay service that does not include adverts and a free service that includes advertising.  Users could choose which they prefer. 

I personally wouldn't mind advertising, in fact if it is targeted to ecologists I could find it fairly usefull, as long as this didn't include pop ups or flashing neon images.

Incidently- do you have data that shows how many members are regular users? If so you could calculate roughly how much each regular user could donate to meet your ú600 annual server fee. The number of posts information wouldn't nessesarily be an accurate indication of user frequency as my count is rather low, but I read all messages on the forums about twice a week.

Jo

I like the idea Jo of the two stream service and think it could be workable perhaps with some special benefits for subscribed members such as being able to choose to switch-off any advertising, private subscribed members area etc.

My aim isn't just to cure the current forum problems, I want to see RAUK develop into a more professionally orientated resource providing better news coverage, more info and advice for the general public etc, whilst keeping the atmosphere of the current forum, an SQL server would greatly facilitate this.

Al,

No bike now had to do my car test when H came along, nearest I have is a rotovator with the same engine as a Honda CG that Merv lets me use in the garden. I'm afraid I now drive a muddy blue metro :0( Still if anyone knows of a cheap VFR 750 early pro arm I just might be interested, or a Pan Euro.. then I would be able to get back to Hindhead occassionally from wind-swept Essex.

PS mystical see you on there ;0( and yes Merv has threatened to moderate this thread to remove all references to Bowie, he'll probably remove the stuff about bikes if he sees it too (only because he never had anything sexier than a BSA Gold Star, useless things gear changer is on the wrong side and dribble oil everywhere)

Excuse me but BSA did put the controls on the correct side. Its the sowing machines that changed things

Ahhhh memories the smell of Castrol Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr and a real motor bike