Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Keep alive contour.org

That's a great idea Davis. Need people to co-ordinate some fundraisers like this

Sounds good to me And we might get more interest in Contour.org by doing this too! Show off your 'Tours while washing cars!

Yes people have to be able to take the time to handle it all, but over at Fastcougar.com they have it pretty streamlined. Real time updating when you enter the raffle, and a computer picks the winner. In fact, they are currently attempting to organize a raffle to help out Leo Capaldi's Cougar, since he recently killed another tranny. Our base is smaller then yours, so I'm pretty sure you guys would have the ability to raise more funds.

I would also like to add that banner ads, only work if people click on them AND buy stuff after clicking through the links. Unless he sells the space beforehand, which is still pretty difficult to do. The most he could sell advertising space for is about 5 cents (realistically 3 cents...) for every 1 million impressions made. That's not exactly going to bring in a lot of money. The advertising model just doesn't make any company money. So basically, I don't think advertising is going to be the silver bullet. I think that the site can be open & free, but yes it is going to require some work from people.

The same amount of work that goes into advertising can be used for free items to be raffled off. Some companies that may be interested in raffling items off, include Weapon R, Tirerack (They usually raffle off a Gift Certificate worth a certain amount), possibly MSDS, and a few other companies that provide performance & cosmetic items for your car.

No matter what solution you choose, it will require work. Somebody has to handle subscriptions, somebody has to handle advertising, or somebody has to handle raffles. They are all pretty much equal in that regard. So I don't see how your argument is valid.

Paul

It wasnt an argument agenst the raffel idea. It was more a statement that we will need someone to take the responsibility. I'm not sure if the admin is willing to do it or not. It's real easy to say "We should do blah idea to raise money", but it takes a little more to actually set the plan in motion.

Btw, I'm not trying to flame anyone here.

Ok, I understand what you are saying then.

Yeah I agree, it will take somebody stepping up to keep the site running. Most likely, there is somebody on this forum that can fill that role should your current admin not be up to it.

I know that if FastCougar ever stepped down, which wouldn't surprise me since he doesn't own the cougar anymore... that I would step forward to help, but more likely, other people would also step forward that are more qualified then me. So in all reality the question really is, can the current admin keep on supporting the site or does it need to be passed on to somebody, or a group of people who can take care of it.

Paul

Honestly I think ad banners are the way to go. I'd be happy to click away everytime I visited the site.

With the membership fee, I believe you would lose a number of good people. Once the membership decreases and the membership income dies it'll be right back where we are today. I'm always leary of paying a membership fee for something that may or may not be around in a year.

As for raffles, how would that affect the users from outside the US of A? In some cases Its not worth the "extra" charges for someone outside the US to win a raffle. Being an "outsider" I would probably pass on the raffle

Just my $.02

Banner Ads really dont generate enough money to pay for the bandwidth this site requires.

Well, I have donated in the past and might in the future, but if this website goes subscription based count me out. Yeah, yeah, but it is only $xx dollars per year/month...what happens when other websites start doing the same thing and the costs start adding up?

I am more for taking measures to limit bandwidth usage by minimzing Forum perks...

I use a company called Cyberwings to host my domain. Their rates are VERY cheap for low traffic domains and high traffic domains. Their most expensive AYW hosting plan is $155 per year and that includes:

144gb per month bandwidth (I read contour.org is only using around 100gb per month)
72 databases
full dns rights
650mb disk space (this should cover the size of the database)
72 subdomains

This should easily be enough to host contour.org. $155 would not be hard to raise from donations. It would only be a matter of transfering the site over to the new provider.

Forgot the link.
www.cyberwings.com
Their large scale hosting plans / rates can be found here

The heart of the matter is, a website isn't run for free. Sure, there's a lot of sites out there that you can get on for free, but the bottom line that has occured to alot of Dot Com companies is that you can't get something for nothing. Money is required to keep a site going, and bandwidth costs money. Who pays for it usually doesn't concern the person who browses the site, but the fact is still there. I'm not saying that Contour.org is a Dot Com company and I'm not saying Contour.org's sole purpose is to make money...but I know by experience the costs and dynamics of webhosting; I deal with it everyday at work (I work for a national ISP in Pennsylvania).

I'll give whatever it takes to make the site keep going. If it's all for naught, at least I can say I tried instead of just letting it go to save myself a couple of dollars a month.