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RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:48:57 GMT

They have the danger of what happened to Friendster, it's hard to be "cool and hot" for any amount of time. MTV is one of the few companies that has been able to do it for any amount of time.

And a little secret, MySpace isn't all that profitable right now. It was VERY profitable for the founders, but I'm convinced that it was not worth what news Corp. paid for it. MySpace grossed $30 million to $40 million last year. While that is nothing to sneeze at it is still over 10x the price News Corp paid for it. Want to see what could happen to it; just look at Friendster.

Unless Fox takes it over, they have the know how on making something cool and hot for that age group.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

SwiftWalker — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:19:59 GMT

BRodda (2/13/2006)

Content is king. The best way to build a buisness lately is by giving people ways to generate thier own content. That's what all the Web 2.0 hubub is about.

The real problem is figuring out how to monitize it. If you look at a standard adsense campain you can estimate making .05 cents per vistirer. Not a whole lot.

The problem with my RSS paper is that I do not own or generate the content, so there would ahve to be a signifigant time and effort building the chanell.

How to monitize it? Look at what MySpace did. Silly little site where kids and rock bands all over the world build little pages and talk about their likes and dislikes. Other people build the content, which drives more people to use the site. In just 2 years, they have more traffic than Google. I don't know what their revenues are, but News Corp bought recently bought their parent for $580 mm.

I'd say that's monetizing it!

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 07:50:21 GMT

Content is king. The best way to build a buisness lately is by giving people ways to generate thier own content. That's what all the Web 2.0 hubub is about.

The real problem is figuring out how to monitize it. If you look at a standard adsense campain you can estimate making .05 cents per vistirer. Not a whole lot.

The problem with my RSS paper is that I do not own or generate the content, so there would ahve to be a signifigant time and effort building the chanell.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

mdfxtreme — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 09:29:19 GMT

CONTENT IS KING. IF YOU HAVE EXCELLENT CONTENT CUSTOMERS WILL FIND YOU

AGAIN AND AGAIN. SO MOVE FOWARD AND ALWAYS HAVE CONTENT THAT FITS THE

MARKET PLACE AND BE UNIQUE TO YOUR READERSHIP. ALSO LET THEM KNOW YOU

ARE THERE TOO WITH THE SIZZLE! THE BUSINESS MODEL WILL CASH IN!

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

SwiftWalker — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:24:24 GMT

Great idea!

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:04:38 GMT

"Fodder Idol" it is!

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 13:09:16 GMT

Jest tell me where to post it I'd all chuck one up a week until other people start contributing ideas. (Anyone who says that there are no good business ideas is either full of it or just doesn't watch people and organizations). Just tell me where to post it.

All I can picture is a Simon from American Idol going "Your cash flow management is poor, business plan looks like it was written by a 4 year old and worst of all it doesn't scale."

Anyway just tell me where the firing line is.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:23:53 GMT

No, I'm serious. I think it's a great idea.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:43:09 GMT

Not sure if your joking or not, but if people want to have fun ripping apart some business ideas i'm fine with that

The one thing I've learned is that your best friends are the people who say "That's stupid, and this is why..."

Of course thick skin is pretty much mandatory for an entrepreneur I think.

*shameless plug*

Bill's Rhino Hide Management article is really good at illustrating that.http://www.billsnow.com/Articles_Snow_Vcapital_2001_02_16_Rhino_Hide_Management.htm

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 18:04:19 GMT

We should do a special feature around you.

"BRodda's Idea of the Month"

You would kick off the idea, and we'd let everyone have at it! ;-)

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 07:20:31 GMT

Scale isn't my problem, when I was talking about size I was refer to how much I could build before needing a cash infusion. The business model scales up nicely, once the initial set-up costs are spent most of the other costs are simply for materials.(paper, ink and replacement parts). One kiosk can scale from 100 papers per day to 10,000 per day without any additional sales people. Adding locations to put the kiosks is almost as easy. Not sure why you think it doesn't scale.

As for ideas, I have them all the time. I probably have close to 100 in my mothball notebook; maybe I'll list some off in the forums along with why I stopped working on them for fun. I never jump at the first idea, like I say I tend to let it foment for a few months and come back to it and see how it looks after some of the newness has worn off and I can take a real long hard look at it. Most of them never make it past that second look.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

SwiftWalker — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 22:58:49 GMT

Scale BRodda, scale. A tech guy like you should live and breath that. These kiosks just don't offer any scale. There's another model out there. Don't feel you have to jump at the first idea you come up with. That's a lesson more entrepreneurs should listen to!

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 07:11:37 GMT

I think this one is going on the mothball pile for a few months. Still to many revenue stream problems to work out.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 23:51:46 GMT

Yeah, I'm personally not on board, but you get points for a very original idea.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 07:22:59 GMT

The hard costs are only slightly higher than what a normal newspare has (on a per unit basis).

As for people using htier computers, I agree that is the problem. Anyone can print out a story from hoime, but I don't rally see people reading normal printouts on the train.

It's more about ease of use.

Still not sure about this one. I think I might mothball it.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

SwiftWalker — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:45:20 GMT

Interesting idea, but I fear the hard costs would kill you. Plus, people who are savvy enough to use computers, RSS, etc., will be able to all of these through computers are home and work. People who are daunted by technology will probably avoid the machines, figuring they are too difficult to use.

I think there's something there (with RSS), just not sure it's with a kiosk and all those raw materials and support costs.

Just my 2 pennies!

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 17:59:47 GMT

With the next generation of phones having Flash built in to them, I think we may see purpose-built Flash media apps on cell phones that work by pulling in xml feeds (similar to RSS).

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 07:31:38 GMT

Yes, I am planning on it being free to consumers.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 20:11:51 GMT

and make the device free for consumers to use?

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 14:57:32 GMT

No I just have to sell $1000 in advertising per month per unit. That's where things are bogging down.

I'm planning on boosting distribution by having it free and just rely on advertising.

*sigh*

If I can't nail down the ad revenue model before the end of next week it will probably go on the scrap heap. I'm trying to get more info on advertising rates for free papers like The Metro.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:58:11 GMT

so, you have to sell 8,000 sheets a month per unit at $0.25? That's nearly 300 per day.

And your revenue goes to 0 if the printer or device fails.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 08:55:23 GMT

Now you get it

And yes, I'm looking at distributing hundreds of these boxes (not all at once, I'm looking at doing it along the Metro lines going into NYC first).

As for costs, it's not bad. The computers just have to be ruggidized to hell and back and so do the printers. Maintainance is less then the cost of having a person drop off and pick up the papers along the route everyday.

Right now my magic number is a cost of 2K per unit. I'm guessing about $20 per unit maintanace per month.

So I'm trying to figure out how to get 1K in revenue a month per unit.

Still running the numbers.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:18:46 GMT

So I'm looking at high speed industrial printers, a cheap PC, a touch screen element, a power supply (Don't get me started on that) and a cellphone modem in each enclosure.

Ah, now I understand. It's a kiosk RSS reader/printer!

So, you are going to distribute hundreds or thousands of these printing boxes? Who will maintain the computers, printers, etc? Sounds like an expensive proposition. Inexpensive computer equipment is tremendously unreliable.

It is an interesting idea, I just think you have a ton of barriers to making it work.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 08:09:31 GMT

I'm avoiding high tech on purpose. This is a mass market product for people who might not use a computer outside of work, or have a collection of gadgets sitting at home.

People like newspapers, despite everything we hear about in the media, they like the feel and ease of reading a newspaper. They like the crossword puzzles and the obituaries. They like folding it up and not worrying about it getting dropped or coffee spilled on it.

Next time you are on a train, subway or bus look to see how many people are reading a paper and how many are playing on a PDA or laptop. I'm betting there are more paper readers.

A standard paper is type set and printed in the early AM of the day of release. By the time they get it in the morning it's already @4 hours old. At the end of the day, forget about it.

And I'm not killing newspapers in the process either, they have a bulk of information that isn't going to change on a daily basis. It's the headlines, breaking news and financial information I'm looking to capture. The time sensitive stuff. Only about 3-4 pages at any given time.

So I'm looking at high speed industrial printers, a cheap PC, a touch screen element, a power supply (Don't get me started on that) and a cellphone modem in each enclosure. The software is the stuff that's going to a #$%&%.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 18:20:07 GMT

So, how about using digital paper instead? Hook up a power supply, wireless chip, antennae, and special purpose RSS operating system?

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:45:55 GMT

Not quite. I'll take you through it.

Picture a newspaper vending machine. You see them everywhere, you put in 50 cents and you pull out your paper.

Now picture something that looks like that, except you pick the RSS Feeds you want and it prints out the paper on the spot. A hard copy that you can take on the train or bus or anyplace where you might not have the inclination to read from a PDA or laptop. If you read Sci-Fi they are sometimes called Scream-Sheets.

The machine periodically gets the latest news, so the paper you got on the way to work is different from the paper you read at lunch is different from the paper you'll read on the way home.

Yes, the cost of the ink and paper will be higher, but if I remove the inventory overhead of having someone putting the papers in and taking them out and replace them with on demand service calls from the boxes themselves(Box#243 low on ink).

The problem comes in compensating the content providers. I was thinking a CPC model of paying per download, but that is cludgy. The only other thing I can think of allowing them to sell the advertising space on the article and I get the space in the rest of the paper.

RE: Advertising model for RSS Feeds

Ben Rowland — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:59:24 GMT

Let me see if I understand this right.

You want to make a physical device (similar to those news feed LCDs in elevators) that pull news feeds. You sign up sponsors. You place the device in various locations at no cost to them. You generate revenue through sponsors.

Why not call companies like Hi-Rise and Captivate and pretend you want to buy an ad?

Advertising model for RSS Feeds

BRodda — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:47:03 GMT

I'm looking at one of my potetial business, an on demand RSS feed newspaper, and I'm tripping over the sales model. While I want it to be free to the consumer, the revinue will be geneerated by advertising, think site specific banner ads for a geograpgical location. (Think of the coffee place near a specific train station anvertising only in the kiosk at that stop).

My business plan falls aprart when it comes to the contect provider. While the easiest modle is a CPM (I pay them a set ammount for each time someone has an article the created printed), it seems that it would not be in htier intrests to do that if they have a kiosk right next to my machine.

The other model is that I download thier ads with thier stories, but that requires more effort on thier side. Pushing the work to the client side is a great deal killer.

So my question is, can people think of an agreable revinue model that current print advertisers will find satisfactory?