Actually making money - Forum Project

[maxtower]

The only requirement is about $100 for a year of hosting (unless you already have access to hosting) and 3-4 hours per week to spend promoting your site and others'.

[DrNo888]

Cool. Sending email in a min.

[maxtower]

It's 5:00pm here, and the polling is done. The interest are that you have chosen is Making Money. I am going to expand that selectiong to include Personal Finance/Economics/Investing/etc...
I'll send out an email to everyone I have heard from about this project. If you do not receive an email from me and you are interested in working with us, then you need to let me know as you are not on my list.

[Kjell201]

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Here are my suggestions regarding starting this thing up.

1. Standardize the development.

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Definitely a good idea. And already mentioned above, there's already a irc channel, #mmf at EFnet.

[Avid_Learner]

The page I have been working on is targeted at a college-aged demographic. Specifically, what are some ways to make relatively easy money as a student living in dorms or just some broke college kid.

[dc_publius]

This 'challenge' comes at the right time because I was going to do the same thing.

I think the tech specs are only recommendations. We agree what most of us will use as default, but anyone should feel free to use whatever they want if it suits their project better.

For hosting, I did my research and plan to sign up with http://dreamhost.com/ They are decent enough and they have coupons going around on the web for $97 off of first year hosting, which should bring the first year hosting down to $20 or so. You can't beat that. Dreamhost has one-click installs for alot of these CMS packages like Wordpress/Joomla so it should be easy even for those who are not tech savvy. After 1 year, I will decide whether to stay or find another host.

In terms of niches, I don't think it's super important that none of us pick the same niche. I think it's actually OK. We are all small and will have hardly any sales, so instead of canibalizing our customer base, if we don't make the sale our prospects will be directed at sister sites of our members who can deliver a slightly different pitch for similar sale. It might be beneficial to both sites, IMO. Obviously, we don't want to have 50 sites exactly the same, but a few sites that are doing the same thing is OK, IMO...

[IRISHs2K]

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I'm definitely interested.

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[bludem]

I'm sorry to throw cold water on your idea, but I'm about 90% sure you'll fail with the current game plan. My credentials: I've been in the business of owning websites full-time for 6 years, and right now I own some very popular sites making about $10,000/day from Adsense alone. If people are interested in the independent confirmation, choose some trusted member, and I'll send him the proof. I might provide some information about why I think you'll fail and some possible fixes (though I won't be sharing too many secrets) if you choose a niche in which I have no sites and that I have no interest in entering.

[dc_publius]

bludem, perhaps you can elaborate and point us in the right direction...

[bludem]

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bludem, perhaps you can elaborate and point us in the right direction...

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Here is the main issue you will encounter if the current game plan is followed (anyone with enough SEO experience will notice it immediately, so it's not much of a secret): your sites will be algorithmically penalized (or banned) by the search engines. I may be able to expand on it or provide fixes once your niche is chosen and I have some motivation to do it.