subscription

[darrell_m]

I am happy to pay my $25 (a fantastic bargain) per year to PN. One of the

principle reasons for so doing is to surf free of ads. If PN do away with

subscriptions completely I am wondering whether that means we will all have no

choice but to suffer ads or will a mechanism be put in place where we can opt

to pay something in order to continue avoiding them.

[philg]

We're a fair ways off from coming up with a complete plan. I guess the most likely scenario includes the following: (1) people who already paid for a subscription get whatever it is that they paid for, to the extent that is technically feasible, and (2) we have a menu of things that members can buy that relate to things that cost us money, e.g., disk space and bandwidth. Your idea falls under Item 2: If we're not serving you ads, photo.net is losing some revenue, so it would make sense to charge for that.

 

You'll be pleased to know that until we can dig ourselves out from our software mess and rebuild on a clean documented toolkit, it is unlikely that there will be any dramatic changes.

 

[One change that I do hope to make soon is a dramatic reduction in the number of ads that we serve. I want only ads that are relevant to readers' interests and that therefore will command a high price from advertisers. I would hope that we can have one quarter as many ads for the same revenue or better.]

[ndelamerced]

Phillip,

I've browsed the membership list from a-c (did not go any further) and was amazed that the

ratio of subscribing/guest members is about 1to 50, and that you only have about 3000

subscriber. You also stated that that you spent 40-50 % of these funds in maintaining the

site. Which means please correct me if I'm wrong that the bulk of revenues comes from

advertising. Is it correct to conclude that if you get 30,000 subcribers then we can have an ad

free site or at least drastic reduction of ads?

[philg]

To the (new and old) moderators of this forum: The posting above *<em>edit - has been removed</em>* is one that I would have deleted due to the link spam at the bottom (we should allow links, but only to sites that are relevant to the content of the posting).<br><br>

 

Thanks,<br>

 

Philip<br>

[no longer moderating this forum]

[EricM]

Link Spam? It's their own PN photo folder! Your response shows you're clearly not familiar with this or other internet forums. I'm gravely concerned. Perhaps, after being away for some time Philip, you play along in your own forum to get a feel for the flow of things? There's nothing unusual, especially linking to ones own PN folder that they have paid you for, written in PN's policies about linking to anywhere on the net. <br>

[philg]

Eric: My mistake. I didn't follow the link. Because of the domain name (www.mysweetlord.tk) and the "Hare Krishna" anchor text, I assumed it was a link to some other site having to do with the Hare Krishnas. In any case, it doesn't make sense for a reader to link to his or her own portfolio since the name at the top should be just one click away from that.

[EricM]

My mistake as well, Philip. There's two links there actually. I must have hit the "Hare" by luck.

 

Nevertheless, the internet doesn't have to make sense, imo. One has a choice to click or not, but the choice should be allowed to present itself in the first place, imo.

[philg]

Hmmm... after further reflection, I do not like these Hare Krishna and would delete the post or, if I had a lot of time, edit out the links. Basically this has the effect of turning photo.net into a link farm for "http://www.mysweetlord.tk/", which right now just references the photo.net portfolio page. This doesn't make sense for us, especially considering that I just removed the paid link spam from the site footer. It doesn't make sense for readers, either. There shouldn't be a link to follow that isn't relevant to the discussion, even if is a link to a URL within photo.net.

[darrell_m]

Hi Philip, thanks for the answer. I'm intriqued with Narciso's reply. Is it true that the subscribing/non-subscribing ratio is 50-1? Seems unlikely. Brian once pointed out that the income of PN was split roughly 50/50 between advertisers and subscribers. That would suggest to me that it might be a good idea to at least consider pursuing rather than abandoning the subscriptions. If a massive subscription drive tripled the number of subscribers would the result allow PN to drop advertising altogether and yet still maintain the largesse of free membership?

 

One further point. You say 'it is unlikely that there will be any dramatic changes.' but there are many of us using the forums who consider the changes this week to be more that a touch dramatic.

[think27]

"Hare Krishna" - Philip - I'm glad to hear you feel that way!

Whenever I see that link or any personal link in the POW I edit it out. I've been very strict in the Wedding Forum also to not let people "sign" their posts with a web address. I did get some argument and flack for it but I was pretty sure people were using it to get higher exposure on the search engines and didn't feel that was right.

 

I do allow people to put web addresses in when people are looking for critiques on their wedding website which is very valuable - and when people are specifically asking for resources for album companies, light diffusers, online photo proofing sources etc. If a person is asking question about bios or price sheets or testimonials on websites..I think it is also allowable to give a link to that - However - I suppose you could also just tell them to go to your portfolio page to access the site.

 

I also check the person who asked the question about resources to make sure they seem to be a real member (been around a while or has images up and/or has contributions over a period of time).

 

Until now - what I'd do is go in a week later and disable the link for Photographer's personal websites. Now - unless the critique is particularly helpful to others in the future - I expire them or delete them.

 

There was a question at one time as to whether PN allowed that. I was told it was a personal choice. I'd be happy to see it as a site-wide policy so I don't get flack when I don't let people do it in the Wedding Forum.