One of those electronic notes cycled through late last night, complaining about the fact that the free horoscopes are a week behind, leading to the conclusion that the subscription scopes are up-to-date, which then lead to the flame part that suggested I was losing another reader because it wasn’t free anymore. (But there is free stuff!)
Bothered me. I was stuck between hand-holding the midnight change, and trying to find a cat who’s disappeared. Black diabetic cats are like that. If the real owner wasn’t so fond of that cat, and a dear friend, I wouldn’t have been out in the night, chasing around some south side apartment, trying to locate the damn cat. After spending a little time around my own mistress, that other cat isn’t as friendly as he used to be.
But the note, it was another one of those “I can’t afford to pay for a subscription, so I guess I’ll stop frequenting your site” type of things.
Bothered me.
Apparently, the time and energy that goes into writing a horoscope doesn’t much matter. Apparently, it’s unappreciated. The vagaries and concerns of the financial well-being of the site don’t matter much, it’s more along the lines of a plaintive wail, “Where’s my free stuff!”
Been a while since I’ve gotten just such a note. The last note along this line came from someone wanting a mailing address to send a donation, a much nicer, “thanks for the good times” piece of text, including a “where do I send the money?”
For many years, I was driven by this perception that raw hits, raw readership, bigger numbers, more bandwidth burned, all that added up to more cash income.
It doesn’t mean more money; it just means that the site’s upkeep costs more.
Then, at the beginning of the year, I was advised that, “The more you give away, the more you receive.” Again, it works for some sites, but the product that’s given away? That free stuff? It’s very diluted. Doesn’t seem to be working here.
If I’d just looked over my own successes and failures, I’d realize that. Paid ranking with search engines? That didn’t work. Print advertising? No success there. Paid subscriptions?
Those are starting to work. Plus, there’s the added bonus of being able to sign up for e-mail delivery via the paid subscription section.
I had another exchange of e-mail with a person fishing for some free information. I’m guessing it was teenage girl, but that’s a guess, not for sure.
When I finally deciphered the language and figured out what was being asked, I thought, “Yes, I do have those files here, but that’s a question for a paid reading.” I wrestled with my conscience for a few minutes, but I couldn’t come up with a decent answer as to why I should send this data out, for free. The response I received? “I know I can find it on the web someplace….”
Which triggered a thought process that I’m not happy about, remembering that an aspiring novelist was using the free planet profiles to create fiction characters. Or so I was informed.
Nope, not doing free anymore. Server, bandwidth, all that costs money.
Or, in that one, bothersome note, your broadband service costs money.
And those bothersome notes? After I write about it for a while, I remember that someone who doesn’t pay, is basically stealing.
Nice to know where I rate with them.
In the grand scheme, I know that will be noted.
Ideas – Flash Site
I’ve got two ideas I’ve never developed, nor, does it looks like I’ll ever have a chance to do any of the work to make these sites go. But they struck me as cool ideas.
1) An online Palm Reader –
This would be so simple. Might’ve been done, for all I know, but the idea is easy. Takes two parts, one is form to input name, date of birth, and so on. Then that form either e-mails or pops up an on-screen “reading” based on the birthday. Simple enough, give the person/user a few lines about how wonderful that sign is.
The graphic part of the interface is what I had so much fun imagining. Basically, it would be a panel, then a glowing bar that would slide up and down the panel, long enough for it to “read” a palm pressed against the user’s monitor.
Think of the laughable web statistics, how many hours would people spend with their palms pressed against their computer screens, thinking that the animated glowing light was actually “reading” their palms?
Oops, already been done. But it could so much more.
2) Waterloo Records Flash
Bubba Sean started it. To be 100% truthful, I don’t think the idea originated with him, but he certainly carried it to a new level with his version.
It’s the Waterloo Records bumper sticker. The modified version.
Again, this would be a simple animation to pull together. I could do it myself. But it would take too much time.
Just set up the letters to the bumper sticker as objects, and let folks arrange them the way they wanted to – virtual bumper sticker.
Be a simple web page to program, just takes time.