h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everyone I've talked to says that there are three ways to make money from a web-site:
1: adverts
2: direct selling
3: shopping sites

H2G2 somehow manages to employ quite a few people, is quite a large site and requires constant attention. Yet there's no advertising on it, nothing for sale, and it certainly isn't a shopping centre.

I'm aching to know how this site can be profitable enough to continue to operate, much less expand. Clearly, it's popular (I've added quite a bit to it already) and will continue to be.

Thanks for replying,

Fruitbat

h2g2 isn't running paid ads yet, but we will - we have to pay the bills, after all. I know that some people woud prefer we didn't, but the fact is that you can't embark on a venture like the Guide without intending to make money, and advertising is currently the best way we can do that.

We're not the BBC, after all.

That sounds perfectly reasonable - I would be quite happy to have to watch ads if it meant that the site is funded. After all, you don't have to buy. Will that really make enough money to support your ever growing empire? How else will you fund it (apart from the copyright on the material of course)?

If you're running paid ads in the future, does that include references from users?

Also, I'd really rather pay a subscription fee than suffer adverts; I go out of my way to avoid commercial telly, get annoyed at adverts on Cineplex screens (not enough to be paying almost $10.00 CND to see a film worth half that), and generally avoid dealing with adverts where I can.

With the current state of technology, adverts can come in so many shapes, formats and systems that they'll have to be extremely clever and inviting for me to put up with them.

Given the amount of fussing over the BBC's budget problems, and the lengths they have to go to for collection, I'm not surprised...although maybe a little disappointed.

Fruitbat

I would have thought that the terrific success, in terms of usage, of the free ISPs in the UK would show that a fee-paying site is a bad idea. It also negates the principle of universal free access to the Guide, so alienating part of the target internet community. Definitely a retrograde step.
Just out of interest, are you from the UK Fruitbat?

No, re-reading your comment, you are Canadian, obviously. Silly question.

Not so silly...I live in Canada and cling by a thread to my UK roots: born there, have a passport, consume many products, etc. I'm also aching to finance a trip back, although that's taking far too long to materialise.

I've also been told that I have a European mind-set; I don't get on very well with the media here: they always play to the lowest-common-denominator which usually bores me cold.

Because of my interest in e-commerce as the Net grows, the amount of advertising to support sites is going to grow along with it; I'm picturing the amount of advert space that we're currently bombarded with from billboards, radio, television and all forms of print being exponentially magnified via the web.

I'm not sure I fancy that prospect.

Fruitbat

I couldn't agree with fruitbat more. I hate advertising and the flashing "Amnesty International" banner has me thinking that maybe the old communists had it right after all.

On the other hand, who is really going to pay for guide access? I have to admit that I'm not going to put my hand in my pocket.

Maybe the BBC would like to pay for it? Or is now the time for the creation of a similar, global internet organisation. - imagine the General Assembly of the United Nations passing a resolution establishing the Guide as the standard repository of all knowledge on the planet, with a duty to educate, inform and entertain. All paid for out of a levy on people like Rupert Murdoch, George Soros and Bill Gates of course.

And what about us? The poor fools who actually write the stuff. When the guide becomes a massively successful enterprise do we get a share of the revenue based on the number of approved entries, or on the number of visitors to our entries?

What is non-exclusive copyright anyway? Surely if I wrote it, and you haven't paid for it it's mine.

I think Jim can answer that one, but I suspect the answer is no. Always read the small print.

As for paying for using web sites, that is not a good idea as it immediately restricts access. I know there are a lot of lunatics on the web who many people would rather not see, but any restriction on a growing entity such as the www is not good, as it categorises what one can do there. Most great scientific discoveries, including elecricity and the transistor (without whom....) were a result of serendipity. This means 'try everything, who knows what may result' - witness the site we are talking on.
Advertising may be an aid to this, just as wars are good for leaps in technology - a necessary evil. Think very carefully before you censor, or censure.

I'm not sure what I'm saying here, other than this whole question makes me nervous; as annoying as pledge-drives are on PBS (the closest equivalent to the BBC in Vancouver) they provide the funds that allow commercial-free television that's worth watching.

The question of adverts on this site are out of the user's hands...and rightly so: we contribute, not control. This is really a business-venture, no matter how interesting and useful it is. Businesses expect to make money, and selling advert-space is one way to do it.

I suppose I'm just saddened to hear that this is coming. The current banners all sport worthy causes, and if I was rich enough, I'd be sending them money....just had a mad idea: is there some way of recording this site and editing the commercials? Or buying a commercial-release with the breaks removed? (That's rhetorical and facetious, don't bother replying.)

Fruitbat

I think that the UK has far less in the way of in-your-face advertising, compared to Canada, so I can possibly understand your concerns Fruitbat. IMHO the UK has less TV advertising, and it is mostly either thought-provoking, short or funny. This is taking my recent 7-week trip to the USA into consideration, admittedly, although this is a completely different culture to Canada in most respects, I would consider advertising to be of similar amount and style.

Did anybody ever read Carl Sagan's "Contact"? The bit where he talks about advertising.

Basically, if I remember correctly, his view was that better/cheaper products will sell themselves, which is basically a Darwinian approach. Nobody will buy over-priced rubbish.

Advertising is only necessary to persuade people to buy one product instead of another when there is no meaningful difference between them - in which case it doesn't really matter to the consumer which one they buy. In other words advertising is of no benefit to the consumer, only to those peddling a new religion, nasal hair remover, oil-burning technology or whatever.

If all the effort that goes into advertising went into making products cheaper or better would the world conceivably be a better place?

As regards editing adverts out, "Contact" conained a character called Sol Hadden who had invented a chip that muted the sound when the adverts came on. This set the scene for a long battle between him and the TV companies as they each tried to outsmart the other. Eventually the TV guys sued him on the basis that advertising was an integral part of american society and he was acting to restrict "choice".

His response was to try and advertise his product on TV and sue the networks for exactly the same reason when they refused to carry his adverts. I think he eventually got bought out by the government because his technology was getting into the "national interest" arena - context recognition and all that. But the advertising channels were basically wiped out by then!! Yippee. Stick that in Rupert Murdoch's ***** and smoke it.

Tthe guide is currently sponsoring people who are doing research into contect recognition, presumably for the guide's search engine (a pet hate subject of mine) The whole arena of advertising, the www, search results, who's in charge, etc. is infinitely complicated and the best thing to do is probably go and live on an island. I've chosen Hawaii, who wants to come?

Incidentally Eric, I was in Vancouver a week ago. We probably met. Do you know Jenny?

2 words: 'VHS' and 'Betamax'.. if I remember correctly, they were similarly priced, and Betamax was definately the better specified and supported of the two..

The rise of VHS was basically due to very heavy marketing and advertising.. proving that a non-superior product can still win the market through better advertising, even if the competitor has far better technology...

I have to take issue with Dr. Sagan's ficton: many people buy overpriced rubbish if they think it'll improve their image in the minds of their fellows. Possibly intelligent, skeptical, thinking people won't buy overpriced rubbish but the rest are still unquestioning receivers of whatever's dished out.

We may've met but it's unlikely; no , I don't know Jenny. Should I? How do I reach her and what's she up to?

Fruitbat

BTW: I, too, have seen American advertising in America and it's frighteninglly intense. Canada's adverts are much softer, though no less annoying. Following the American model, there are an average of 5 30-second commercials during each break on commercial television (although I've not counted how much time between commercials-breaks there is) and there's talk now of reducing the programme-time to allow more advert-space to maintain revenues from a dwindling audience.

Is there any indication from H2G2 about what form the adverts might take? Where they'd be placed?

I think that's the point I was trying to make.

One product may be equal to, or better than, another but advertising discourages people from making sensible decisions.

Is that good for us consumers?

I personally spent nearly two years sampling all the beers in Australia to reassure myself that Foster's was not the best

Had I just listened to the advertisers I might have saved myself an awful lot of hangovers, but then again I might have wasted two years drinking rat's urine. What we need is an impartial advisor, like the guide, that doesn't compromise itself with a big "click here for the amber nectar" banner.

But that doesn't solve the problem of who pays for it. Why not the UN? Or maybe the cult being founded as we speak by the guys over at the "is god dead" forum.

The Maharishi Yoga (however you spell it) allegedly unveiled his plans for world conquest to his entourage (The Natural Law Party) and they asked "But where's the money going to come from." His answer - "From wherever it is now"

I don't quite know what that has to do with anything but it's a nice anecdote all the same.

Eric - jenny is a gorgeous redhead with lovely pert little buns. Ooops sorry, that was a requirement for the cult, not this forum.

Follow the gourd

Having dispensed with the issue of adverts, either on the web or telly, I'm now interested in Jenny...I'm not a cult, although I could be for her benefit...

Fruitbat

What interests me about this conversation is that recently a new model for website funding has emerged. There are now sites which when you visit them will run a script (if they can) which will mine cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin, although usually an alternative such as Monero rather than Bitcoin itself). They're taking the computationally-intensive task of mining and massively distributing it. The user sees no ads, and experiences only a slower operation of the website in question than if the script were not running. Seems reasonable, IF the user is made aware and given a choice.

Progress!