Monetizing/making 2+2 better

[Isura]

Diablo and others,

Naive question: Would it make sense for Matt/Mason to get into a joint partnership or relinquish control of the forum/community aspect of 2p2. They could still reap the profits of their book sales, but have someone more qualified and motived run the forums/community. It is pretty clear IMO that they really have no desire to improve this site and increase revenue.

I think that for this site to really reach its potential it needs young and motivated people with a fresh outlook and the work ethic to follow up on things. Myself and a friend were talking about this earlier, and it is something that I've very interested in getting involved in.

[Dave I]

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Would it make sense for Matt/Mason to get into a joint partnership or relinquish control of the forum/community aspect of 2p2.

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IMO, this would be the best chance to have something good happen with this site. They clearly don't want to be, or, simply don't know how to be in the web business. There are sites that would kill to have the traffic and following that this one does. The community was built from the high quality books, users want more, now it's time to translate that quality to the web.

In fact, from a business perspective, I think now would be a good time to look into selling/partnering. I can only see it going down from here if nothing is done.

[El Diablo]

Isura,

"Naive question: Would it make sense for Matt/Mason to get into a joint partnership or relinquish control of the forum/community aspect of 2p2."

Depends on what Mat/Mason's priorities are wrt this site.

[MyTurn2Raise]

I just wanted to say that instead of blogs, the chaps over at bet-the-pot have a forum for 'member journals'. Basically, each upstanding member starts their own thread to chronicle there life and poker developments with feedback. Linky

I think this is inferior to a blog set-up, but it definitely beats the deafening silence around here. So, thumbs-up to a members journal forum.

[El Diablo]

Isura, N, and others:

I know some of you guys are emailing Mat. Hopefully you guys can work something out w/ Mat/Mason. That will save them from falling victim to what many businesses do when trying to expand their web businesses, making the bonehead decision of hiring some "web strategist" or whatever from some consulting/branding/ad firm that will just charge outrageous sums to come up w/ worse ideas than what is obvious to a lot of users.

[Isura]

Diablo,

"Depends on what Mat/Mason's priorities are wrt this site."

What do you think the chances are that they will sell the 2p2 name? Is this kind of thing common (I mean, buying out a huge user base).

I really think that starting fresh would be the best approach. I am preparing a proposal with another enthusiastic friend (he is a 2p2er as well). Regarding the approach that the fashion website too, that is an interesting approach. I've been reading up a bit, and social software and online communities seem to be really growing right?

[Dynasty]

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"Naive question: Would it make sense for Matt/Mason to get into a joint partnership or relinquish control of the forum/community aspect of 2p2."

Depends on what Mat/Mason's priorities are wrt this site.

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The original purpose of the site was to provide support for books sales. Having the site allowed Mason to show book distributors substantive marketing backing (and other services) for their books. It was a key part of getting 2+2 books into the big book stores years ago.

The site still provides that service and is it's primary purpose. It has also become a revenue generator as well. But, that was not something Mason had ever expected.

Likewise, adding blogs and all these other reccomendations are revenue generators which Mason probably never conceived of back in 1997 when the site went online.

[ZeTurd]

I'd like to throw in a couple of cents here since I actually program web applications for a living.

I haven't got personal experience with UBB.Threads, but I do know that a motivated programmer with professional experience with PHP / MySQL could easily implement personal pages for users into the forum software. That could mean either a blog type interface or MySpace type interface. Either way, it shouldn't be problematic.

I also feel pretty confident that an experienced programmer could handle the upgrade of the forum software. Forum software isn't exactly rocket science.

When it comes to things such as tournament / cash game tracking, hand converter, hand database, market place, none of those should be difficult to implement. Done smartly, you'd implement them with CMS's that makes it possible for admins / mods to update and make necessary changes without having to do any actual coding. Obviously, you'd also need a separate database/server to avoid overload. It shouldn't be all that hard if the motivation to make it happen is present.

My suggestion would be to hire an experienced consultant to do a cost/benefit analysis of what could be done to monetize 2+2. It'll set you back some, but considering the user base here, it's almost guaranteed to be a worthwhile investment as long as you're willing to implement the changes suggested.

A final suggestion: Advertising on 2+2 doesn't seem to be thought through at all. I'm willing to bet that a quadrupling of ad revenues could be possible (without annoying users unnecessarily) merely by changing placements, assigning keywords for certain types of ads, and working out specialized affiliate deals/marketing schemes.

[pryor15]

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I do know that a motivated programmer with professional experience with PHP / MySQL could easily implement personal pages for users into the forum software. That could mean either a blog type interface or MySpace type interface. Either way, it shouldn't be problematic.

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this strikes me as a potentially very cool addition. i have no idea if it would actually generate any revenue, but it would certainly catch on well with the rank and file

[Sniper]

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Isura,

"Naive question: Would it make sense for Matt/Mason to get into a joint partnership or relinquish control of the forum/community aspect of 2p2."

Depends on what Mat/Mason's priorities are wrt this site.

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ElD... maybe you can help sort out whether we are petitioning the proper party, based on this post

Based on the current Ad Ratecard, I would "estimate" max site revenue (from ads/forums, as currently structured) if all ad slots were sold (at current rates) to be roughly 150K/month... however, it is unclear how much of that revenue flows back to 2+2 from Conjelco. (also, as best as I can tell, all ad slots are currently, not sold out)