SUBSCRIPTION PROBLEM - NO RESPONSE YET

[stevemarcus]

I assume that this site gets a large number of visits each day. Because of this, the potential exists, IMO, to make advertising more prominent than it already is. I appreciate the fact that many might be philosophically opposed to relying so heavily on advertising revenue. However, this view is not practical from a business standpoint. Perhaps it's time to lure in more advertising dollars.

 

How do the average daily site visits here compare to www.dpreview.com, a site that appears to be generating substantial advertising revenue.

[sandy.]

<P>Robert,

<P>Sorry to disappoint you, but Photo.net do not get 200 subscribers a month, that is only wishful thinking.

<P>When the Subscription Drive ends, we have approx. 2973 members signed up and paid. Today, we have about <a href="http://www.photo.net/subscriber-list"> 3107 </a> members. That is a good five months for only less than a hundred more... you do the maths.

<P>rgds, sandy

[keith_laban]

John, with respect, photo.net is a privately owned organisation, not a democracy. The future direction of photo.net is in the hands of Brian and the investors not the subscribers and I for one am thankful for this. God forbid that the subscribers should decide the path that photo.net should take. Can you imagine the arguments?

[john falkenstine]

I'm fully aware of the current configuration. It has pluses and minuses. One major problem is the funding. Regardless of its private or public stature, funding is not being addressed in a manner that will allow photo.net to adjust to changing conditions. Having one party working flat out to keep the system going is a clear sign that a failure mode is already in operation. The arguments are already there, they're part of the environment. As for the board and such, not nesseccarily a democracy. Turnover of the board is only there to prevent behavior patterns from becoming embedded. The requirements for reporting to the board to show performance/productivity is not a democratic concept, but a project management aka business concept to allow examination of workload, quality of product and to ensure that problems are nipped in the bud.

[john falkenstine]

-To carry it one step further with acknowlegement to its current structure, as I mentioned above, the Board might or might not have subcribers on it. Instead it could be an advisory council of qualified parties. This is why I mentioned the founder of the Center for Creative Photography, because this center despite its struggles, is thriving and surviving. By having such parties on board, funding could be addressed as well through other channels than invoking the advertising concept as the only solution.

[arniemilowsky]

Brian:<p>

The thank you goes for me too!

[ajpn]

I agree with Robert. Photo.net should have a free trial run, and then charge - straight up. $25 is not a lot of money. People who want to use this site should be paying, or they should go away. This is the only site I know of on the Internet that is this inexpensive, and this useful. Anyway, that's my two pennies.

[Landrum Kelly]

At about $.50/week, subscriptions to Photo.net should probably be viewed as token donations rather than real subscriptions. I know that most people are not going to see it that way, but we should probably be voluntarily donating as much as we can rather than complaining that Photo.net is not giving us our money's worth. It is--and a lot more besides. Paying to be here is almost on a par with "subscribing" to listen to NPR, since we get to use the site whether we pay anything or not. I could cut my uploaded photos in half and lose that little emblem signifying membership and still be getting a lot more out of Photo.net than I have ever put in.